Iroquois Finger Lakes region, and upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River area downstream to today's Montreal. French, Dutch and British colonists in both New France (Canada) and the what became the Thirteen Colonies recognized a need to gain favor with the Iroquois people, who occupied a significant portion of lands west of colonial settlements. Their first relations with them were for fur trading, which was favorable and became lucrative to both sides. The colonists also sought to establish positive relations to secure their settlement borders. For nearly 200 years the Iroquois were a powerful factor in North American colonial
Iroquois translate as "murderers". The Five Nations historically referred to themselves by a different autonym, Haudenosaunee, meaning "People of the Longhouse". It is also occasionally preferred by scholars of Native American history, who consider the name "Iroquois" to be derogatory in origin. This name derives from two phonetically similar but etymologically distinct words in the Seneca language: "Hodínöhšö:ni:h", meaning "those of the extended house," and "Hodínöhsö:ni:h", meaning "house builders". The name "Haudenosaunee" first appears in English in Lewis Henry Morgan (1851), where it is written as "Ho-dé-no-sau-nee". The spelling "Hotinnonsionni" is also attested from later in the nineteenth century. An alternate