Indigenous groups that were enemies lived fairly far apart, but in Detroit, they lived side by side competing for a concrete and practical relationship with the French. As French colonizers sought to enlarge their influence in the West, they sought to ally themselves with the Indians as commercial and military partners. At the time, French imperial policy had already privileged certain aboriginal tribes, in particular the Ojibwa-Ottawa-Potawatimi confederacy and the Illini confederacy in the south, and the Sioux were the next profitable alliance. The Wisconsin tribes (Fox, Sauk, Mascouten, Kickapoo and Winnebago), with the intention of dominating the post, prevented the French from having direct trade access to the Sioux. Concurrently, they would disrupt the lives of the Ottawas and Miamis near Detroit, as well as the French settlement.