Covenant Chain

The Covenant Chain ( " Federal Chain " ) was an alliance between the English colonies in North America and the Iroquois League. The governor of the British colony of New York, Edmund Andros, had set itself the goal of maintaining the English hegemony over European colonists and Indians. In 1677 he therefore invited the chiefs of the Iroquois League to Albany to them as allies to win against the French in New France and to intensify trade relations with the natives. In return he gave the promise to protect the Iroquois against fraudulent merchants of the country from the colonies. Land sales should take place in the future only at regular meetings of the governor and the Iroken League. The alliance was known as Covenant Chain. There he began to combine the tribes of the League and the English colonies of friendship with each other and existed until the mid-18th century.