Kondiaronk known by the French as "Le Rat", was one of the most successful Canadian Indian war chiefs of the late 17th century.

Noted as a brilliant orator and a formidable strategist, he led the pro-French Petun

Petun

The Petún , or Tionontati in their language, were an Iroquoian-speaking First Nations people closely related to the Wendat Confederacy. Their homeland was located along the southwest edge of Georgian Bay, in the area immediately to the west of the Huron territory in Southern Ontario of...

 and Huron refugees of Michilimackinac

Michilimackinac

Michilimackinac is a name for the region around the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Early settlers of North America applied the term to the entire region along Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Today it is mostly within the boundaries of Michigan, in the United States...

 against their traditional Iroquois

Iroquois

The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...

 enemies. He was one of the architects of the 1701 Great Peace of Montreal

Great Peace of Montreal

The Great Peace of Montreal was a peace treaty between New France and 40 First Nations of North America. It was signed on August 4, 1701, by Louis-Hector de Callière, governor of New France, and 1300 representatives of 40 aboriginal nations of the North East of North America...

 between France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, the Iroquois, and the other Indian tribes of the Upper Great Lakes

Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

, which ended the "Beaver Wars

Beaver Wars

The Beaver Wars, also sometimes called the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, commonly refers to a series of conflicts fought in the mid-17th century in eastern North America...

" and helped open up the interior of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 to deeper French exploration and commerce.

Kondiaronk's strategic aim was to prevent the French and Iroquois from making a bilateral peace, which he feared would free the Iroquois to finish their destruction of his tribe, the descendants of Petun and Huron driven from their traditional homelands in southwest Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 in 1649. In 1688 he was accused of treachery for sabotaging an attempt by Denonville

Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville

Jacques-Rene de Brisay de Denonville, Marquis de Denonville was Governor General of New France from 1685 to 1689 and was a key figure in the Beaver Wars....

, the Governor General of New France

New France

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...

, to make just such a separate peace, by ambushing and capturing the Onondaga peace envoys en route, near present-day Oswego

Oswego, New York

Oswego is a city in Oswego County, New York, United States. The population was 18,142 at the 2010 census. Oswego is located on Lake Ontario in north-central New York and promotes itself as "The Port City of Central New York"...

. But he also used his skill as a war leader to unite the tribes of the Upper Lakes and prevent them making their own separate treaties with the Iroquois. In 1697, he led a war party that killed 55 Seneca in a two-hour canoe battle on Lake Erie

Lake Erie

Lake Erie is the fourth largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. It is bounded on the north by the...

, blocking that tribe's attempt to ally with disaffected Huron against the Miami, which would have fractured the pro-French tribes.

Kondiaronk contracted a fever and died in Montreal during the negotiations for the Great Peace. A Christian convert, his body was buried at Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

's Notre Dame Church

Notre-Dame Church (Montreal)

-History:In 1657, the Roman Catholic Sulpician Order arrived in Ville-Marie, now known as Montreal. The parish they founded was dedicated to Mary, and the parish church of Notre-Dame was built between 1672 and 1682...

 after a majestic funeral. No trace of the grave remains. The Kondiaronk Belvedere in Montreal's Mount Royal Park is named in his honor. In 2001 he was named a Person of National Historic Significance

Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)

Persons of National Historic Significance, , are people designated by the Canadian government as being nationally significant in the history of the country. Designations are made by the Minister of the Environment on the recommendation of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada....

by the Canadian government.