During pre-colonial times, the French and the British went over to America. Their domains overlapped on the Canadian border where the Iroquois nation (actual emphasis on “nation”) lived, and a three way war began between the three nations, since the British wanted to spread itself (because did you expect anything else from them) and the French were trying to establish outposts while the Iroquois didn’t like intrusion on what it considered to be a neat system it built, even though they didn’t have as much issue with the actual missions.

The Iroquois, believe it or not, were champion warriors and pretty much wiping the floor against both of them until thirteen of the twenty colonies (yes, there were twenty colonies, not thirteen) started to rise up, and the British sided with the natives they realized were the powerhouse they were. The only issue is those natives were still susceptible to internal strife which allowed the to-be United States to win and take Upstate New York (which was the Iroquois homeland, and yes, the border between the conquered parts of New York and the parts that were in the state precolonially would objectively be the most correct line to mark where Downstate officially ends) and Vermont (which was claimed by the Iroquois but never formal territory). The British, having lost, left the area and gave the natives the cold shoulder because the natives were still viewed as barbarians, even up to the establishment of the league of nations hundreds of years later where those natives were denied membership (since the Iroquois rump state in exile still exists).

Of note, I really shouldn’t be calling them the Iroquois (their name was the Haudenosaunee), Iroqu was the Algonquin word for “serpent” (the Algonquins were like the Russia to the Haudenosaunee’s Ukraine) and was a slur the French unknowingly picked up and popularized/coined, but very few people would connect the dots if I just referred to them as the Haudenosaunee.