Samuel Champlain
and the First Nations.

Samuel Champlain made friends with the Wendat people who lived near the Great Lakes.  He convinced them to trade furs with the Europeans at Quebec.  He also helped them in their fights with their enemies the Haudenosaunee.

Champlain also explored the Iroquois River (now called the Richelieu), which led            him on the fourteenth of July, 1609, to the lake which would later bear his name.
Like the traders who had preceded him, he sided with the Hurons, Algonquins and
Montaignais against the Iroquois. This intervention in local politics was ultimately
responsible for the warlike relations that were to pit the Iroquois against the
French for generations. http://www.vmnf.civilization.ca/Explor/champ_e2.html#b