sive swarms, or in a single swarm, which became divided and
scattered by segmentation, as was common with all Indian tribes. They
seem early to have proved their superiority over the Algonquins in
bravery and intelligence. Their line of invasion seems to have run
eastward to Niagara, and thereabouts to have bifurcated, one line
following the valley of the St. Lawrence, and the other that of the
Susquehanna. The Hurons established themselves in the peninsula between
the lake that bears their name and Lake Ontario. South of them and along
the northern shore of Lake Erie were settled their kindred, afterward
called the "Neutral Nation."[44] On the southern shore the Eries planted
themselves, while the Susquehannocks pushed on in a direction
sufficiently described by their name. Farthest of all penetrated the
Tuscaroras, even into the pine forests of North Carolina, where they
maintained themselves in isolation from their kindred until 1715. These
invasions resulted in some displacement of Algonquin tribes, and began
to sap the strength of the confederacy or alliance in which the
Delawares had held a foremost place.

[Footnote 44: Because they refused to take part in the strife
between the Hurons and the Five Nations. Their Indian name was
Attiwandarons. They were unsurpassed for ferocity. See Parkman,
_Jesuits in North America_, p. xliv.]

[Sidenote: The Five Nations.]

But by far the most famous and important of the Huron-Iroquois were
those that followed the northern shore of Lake Ontario into the valley
of the St. Lawrence. In that direction their progress was checked by the
Algonquin tribe of Adirondacks, but they succeeded in retaining a
foothold in the country for a long time; for in 1535 Jacques Cartier
found on the site which he named Montreal an Iroquois village which had
vanished before Champlain's arrival seventy years later. Those Iroquois
who were thrust back in the struggle for the St. Lawrence valley, early
in the fifteenth century, made their way across Lake Ontario and
established themselves at the mouth of the Oswego river. They were then
in three small tribes,--the Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senecas,--but as
they grew in numbers and spread eastward to the Hudson and westward to
the Genesee, the intermediate tribes of Oneidas and Cayugas were formed
by segmentation.[45] About 1450 the five tribes--afterwards known as the
Five Nations--were joined in a confederacy in purs