For over eight centuries North America was a battleground for territory, resources, and survival. First Nations fought each other and European newcomers. Norse longships brought the first meeting of European and American civilizations. 500 years later as Indigenous nations competed for territory, the Iroquois Confederacy created a new power. When French fur traders arrived and partnered with the Algonquin, the Iroquois Confederacy allied with the Dutch.

Battles continued: the Iroquois attacked New France and the Wendat, England controlled land south of the Mohawk, and the Mi’kmaq negotiated with the British. The Seven Years’ War, the War of Independence, the War of 1812, American westward expansion, the decline of the buffalo, the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Hudson’s Bay Company, the birth of the Métis, gold rushes, the creation of Canada, bartered treaties, the Riel insurrection, the CPR, and the 1885 Northwest Rebellion all helped decide the fate of the continent. Then in the 20th Century, First Nations again took up arms, this time against superpowers in other parts of the globe.