The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Great Lakes region and the St. Lawrence River valley which pitted the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) – with the active support and arming by the Dutch and later the English – against neighbouring Indigenous nations such as the Wendat (Huron) who were supported by the French.