When the Wassinacat people formed their alliance, they had offered to provide the settler colonists with corn and eighty beaver pelts every year. Compared with the profits from establishing a trading post, this was negligible, but it was part of proper "etiquette."
At the time, the Wassinacat people's greatest enemies were the Pequot people, who traded only with the Dutch. Before the 1630s, the Dutch trading center was not in the Connecticut River Valley, but at Fort Orange in New Netherland, where they traded with the Mohawk people. However, in the winter of 1634, the Mohawk people suddenly stopped coming. Since the fur trade was the colony's sole source of income, this was undoubtedly an economic disaster.
The Dutch thought people from France were behind it. To win back their old customers, they sent twenty-two-year-old Van den Bogaert, accompanied by two companions and five Mohawk guides, to visit the Mohawk homeland.
Only when they had nearly reached the shores of Lake Monada did the party find an important Mohawk village. But young Van den Bogaert told one of the tribe's chiefs that he had merely come to "visit," so he had brought no gifts. The enraged chief drove this "young talent" away.
People from France not only intermarried with Native Americans; they also placed "representatives" within Native American tribes. These representatives were usually young men under twenty. They lived alongside the Native Americans and learned their language and culture, thereby building firmer ties between people from France and Native Americans. This was a rule established by Samuel de Champlain, the "Father of New France."
The Native Americans in the east were very different from those in the west. The eastern region was covered by a dense web of streams, rivers, and lakes, like a spider's web. Native Americans traveled, hunted,