Iroquois the decentralized political and diplomatic entity that emerged in response to European colonization. According to that theory, "The League" still exists. The Confederacy dissolved after the defeat of the British and allied Iroquois nations in the American Revolutionary War. Today's Iroquois/Six Nations people do not make any distinction between "The League" and "the Confederacy" and use the terms interchangeably, preferring the name Haudenosaunee Confederacy. After the defeat of the British, they ceded most of the Iroquois territory to the United States, without bringing their allies to the negotiating table. Many of the Iroquois migrated to Canada, forced out of New
Iroquois people had been a traditional and historic foe of the Confederacy. The Iroquois colonized the northern shore of Lake Ontario and sent raiding parties westward all the way to Illinois Country. The tribes of Illinois were eventually defeated, not by the Iroquois, but by the Potawatomi. In 1679, the Susquehannock, with Iroquois help, attacked Maryland's Piscataway and Mattawoman allies. Peace was not reached until 1685. During the same period, French Jesuit missionaries were active in Iroquoia, which led to a voluntary mass relocation of many Haudenosaunee to the St. Lawrence valley at Kahnawake and Kanesatake near Montreal. It was the