The Fox Wars: A Conflict Too Often Ignored

Currently, this online essay is under construction.

In the meantime, however, you can listen to much of its content by following the links below:

• Introduction
• An Overview of Conflict in the Illinois Country
• European Struggles and Native Alliances
• The Fox Wars Begin
• The Conflict and the Arrowsmith Battlesite
• The Siege

The consequences of this war were considerable...and not only for the Mesquakie people themselves. After listening to the above lectures, consider these questions:

• What do you think that members of other Indian Nations thought about this conflict?
• How might it have affected their diplomacy and internal politics?
• How might it have affected their relationships with Europeans--and, later, with Americans?
• Why do you think that this conflict has received relatively little mention in commonly assigned History textbooks?

To learn more about this understudied conflict, read The Fox Wars: The Mesquakie Challenge to New France by R. David Edmunds and Joseph L. Peyser.