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
Geneseo (village), New York Geneseo (village), New York Geneseo is a village in and the county seat of Livingston County in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States, outside of Rochester. The population was 7,579 at the 2000 census. The English name "Geneseo" is an anglicization of the Iroquois name for the earlier Iroquois town there, "Gen-nis-he-yo" (which means "beautiful valley"). The village of Geneseo is entirely contained within the western part of the town of Geneseo at the junction of State Routes 39 and 63 with U.S. Route 20A. A portion of the village — the Geneseo Historic District — was