relation to their Great Law of Peace is more important than the attack that destroyed the village, for the people have carried forward their means of negotiating for solutions. The United States Senate acknowledged the contribution of the Iroquois Confederacy of Nations to the development of the United States Constitution in H.CON. RES 331 on October 5, 1988. Contact with Europeans In 1656, Jesuit Father Pierre-Joseph-Marie Chaumonot traveled from the Cayuga nation to the Seneca nation. Then, "Having assembled all the Elders of Gandagan, the principal village of Sonnontouan [the Seneca], and having bestowed the presents that are usually given as tokens of alliance, he commenced in a fervent and loud tone to explain the principal truths of the Gospel, which he sealed with the three finest presents of all, which he had reserved for this purpose." By the close of 1668, the Jesuits had established a mission in each of the five Iroquois nations; the Seneca, and the Mission of St. Jacques, had been assigned to Father James Fremin. The Seneca finally forced the missionaries to leave in 1684, after rising tension with the French. In August 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Father René de Bréhant de Galinée, traveled to Ganondagan via Irondequoit. Galinée wrote: In 1677, Wentworth Greenhalgh, an English colonial government official, traveled to the Iroquois nations and secured them as allies for the British. One of his stops was at Ganondagan, which he referred to as Canagora and as Canagorah: Greenhalgh wrote that none of the Seneca towns were "stockadoed" (stockaded), and related the following incident: In 1678, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Father Louis Hennepin traveled to Ganondagan, which Hennepin called Tagorondies. Hennepin remarked on the presence of Jesuits Julien Garnier and Pierre Raffeix, and a "little Chapel made of Barks of Trees". About the inhabitants, he wrote: Destruction of Ganondagan On June 13, 1687, Marquis de Denonville led an army from Canada, which consisted of 832 colonial regulars, more than 900 Canadian militia, and some 400 Indian allies, to eliminate the Seneca as competitors in the international fur trade. The Seneca had been dealing with the English, and the French wanted to keep control of the lucrative fur trade. The conflict was part of what became known as the Beaver Wars, as the Iroquois also struggled to control their trade. Native American tribes fought each other, too, in trying