21 supplies and assistance.6 However, this conclusion only creates an unreliable depiction of amiability and intended cooperation from the French towards the Natives. To establish the boundaries of their alliance, the allied Indians fiercely asserted their rights when the French befriended the Fox to get access to the Fox River. They demanded that the French honor their relationship by rejecting their former adversaries. The French did not oppress Indians with the same fury as the colonizing English and conquering Spanish only because of the nature of their early mission in the New World: the fur trade. The French were obliged by the fur trade to actively work toward establishing peace with and receiving help from the Indians they encountered.7 When the Native Americans put up their demands in the eighteenth century, however, France engaged in the two Fox wars, which ultimately led to the near-extermination of several Indian tribes and the complete annihilation of at least one. To summarize the French’s approach of deception, French policy in the early eighteenth century in the New World was to try to make peace with any Indian tribes who were not already affiliated with a European rival. King Louis XIV outlined this strategy in a letter to Sieur de Muy, the fourth governor of Louisiana, explaining that peace with Indians was required "in order to get control of their commerce and to prevent the English from coming to trade among them,” blatantly revealing the French’s sole interest in commerce.8 Unsurprisingly, despite being in contact for almost 30 years, the French and the Fox never truly achieved peace. The Fox’s concerns regarding enemy tribes were not misguided, and the French’s betrayal of them, providing and receiving to and from other Native tribes, only furthered their demise. The 6 Lachance, Paul, and Patricia Dillon Woods. 1981. “French-Indian Relations on the Southern Frontier, 1699-1762.” The Journal of American History 68 (1): 106. https://doi.org/10.2307/1890918. 7 Rushforth, Brett. 2006a. “Slavery, the Fox Wars, and the Limits of Alliance.” William and Mary Quarterly 63 (1): 53. https://doi.org/10.2307/3491725. 8 Fritz, Henry E. 1995. “The Fox Wars: The Mesquakie Challenge to New France.” The Historian 57 (4): 790–92. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA17404109&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=0018 2370&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E4bb78cd8.
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