encroachment of European-British settlement in New England and New York that had already driven many of them from their ancestral homes. Politics When the Seven Nations saw that the French were going to be defeated by the British in the Seven Years' War, they made a treaty of peace with the British, known as the Treaty of Kahnawake (1760). By this, the Seven Nations negotiated free access between Canada and New York, to maintain their important fur trade between Montreal and Albany. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris following the American Revolutionary War, the British Crown ceded all its territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States (US). As the treaty made no mention of England's Native American allies, the US had to negotiate separate peace agreements with each of the nations. The important issues to be settled included not only peace, but also the ownership of vast tracts of land which the United States considered to be under its control by the British cession. By 1789, US officials realized that, in the words of Secretary of War Henry Knox, "the Indians are especially tenacious of their lands, and generally do not relinquish their right, excepting on the principle of a specific consideration, expressly given for the purchase of the same." After the United States and the Seven Nations signed a treaty in 1797, its legitimacy was challenged by other Native Americans on the grounds that the signatories were unauthorized to cede land. The challenge has continued to this day. In relation to another treaty signed in 1836, federal courts in the United States have ruled that they will not go behind a treaty "to inquire whether or not an Indian tribe was properly represented by its head men, nor determine whether a treaty has been procured by duress or fraud, and declare it inoperative for that reason." The land claim and treaty issues remain controversial. See also Seven Nations (disambiguation) References Notes Bibliography Darren Bonaparte, "The Seven Nations of Canada: The Other Iroquois Confederacy", The Wampum Chronicles D. Peter MacLeod, Notes on "The Treaty of Kahnawake, 1760", read to Ottawa Legal History Group, Ottawa, 3 December 1992 D. Peter McLeod, (1996) The Canadian Iroquois and the Seven Years' War, Ottawa & Toronto: The Canadian War Museum & Dundurn Press. Canadian War Museum Historical Publication No. 29. D. Peter McLeod, Northern Armageddon: the Battle of the Plains of