Almost completely forgotten today, the Susquehannock were on of the most formidable tribes of the mid-Atlantic region at the time of European contact, and dominated the large region between the Potomac River in Northern Virginia to southern New York.  Little is known about them since they lived some distance inland from the coast, and Europeans did not often visit their villages before they had been destroyed by epidemic and wars with the Iroquois in 1675.  The Susquehannock have been called noble and heroic.  They have also been described as aggressive, warlike, imperialistic, and bitter enemies of the Iroquois.  When he first met the Susquehannock in 1608, Captain John Smith was especially impressed with their size, deep voices, and the variety of their weapons.  Their height must have been exceptional, because the Swedes also commented on it thirty years later.  Using canoes for transport, Susquehannock war parties routinely attacked the Delaware tribes along the Delaware River and traveled down the Susquehanna where they terrorized the Nanticoke, Conoy, and Powhatan living on Chesapeake Bay.

Trading with all four European powers during the 1640's required that the Susquehannock produce large amounts of fur.  They were skilled hunters and trappers, but the huge demand kept them so busy hunting, they had little time left to continue their war of conquest against the Delaware and Chesapeake Algonquin tribes.  The Susquehannock exhausted the beaver in central and western Pennsylvania and were forced to look beyond their territory for more.  It came at the expense of invading the unknown tribes of the Ohio Valley.  These wars with the Ohio tribes were known as the Beaver Wars (1630-1700).  They were a time of intense tribal warfare.  During this time of warfare, the Iroquois also launched massive attacks into their homelands.  Also the Mohawks had begun attacks on the Susquehannock villages.  The Susquehannock's were in grave danger.  Suddenly, they were alone.  Their French and Indian allies were gone.  They tried strengthening their ties with the Dutch, but the Dutch remained neutral.  It took the Iroquois until 1675 to defeat the Susquehannock.  By 1705, the Iroquois had relented somewhat and allowed 300 Susquehannock to return to the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania.  No longer a powerful people, they became known as the Conestoga (from the name of their village).  The Iroquois kept a close eye on them and used their homeland as a kind of supervised reservation for them.

Quaker missionaries arrived and made many conversions among the Susquehannock.  As Conestoga became a Christian village, the more traditional Susquehannock left.  By 1763, there were only 20 members (all Christian) of this last identifiable group of the Susquehannock.  They were totally peaceful, but atrocities committed by others during the Pontiac uprising of that year outraged the white settlers in the vicinity who just wanted to kill Indians (any Indians) in revenge.  As feelings rose, fourteen Conestoga were arrested and placed in the jail at Lancaster for their own protection.  A mob formed (known as the Paxton boys).  They proceeded to the village at Conestoga, killed the six Susquehanna they found there, and burned the houses. Then they went to the jail, broke in, took the last fourteen Susquehannock the world would ever see, and beat them to death.