Claude-Charles Le Roy de la Potherie, also known as Bacqueville de la Potherie, was a French chronicler who lived in the colony of New France between 1698 and 1701, where he assisted in the arrangement of the funeral of the governor of the colony, Louis de Buade de Frontenac (1622-98). While in New France, de la Potherie became interested in the history of French settlement along the St Lawrence River and French relations with the Indigenous People they encountered.

Through correspondence with voyageurs (French and Métis traders), interpreters, missionaries and many others, he was able to write a history which extensively covered not only French exploration along the St Lawrence River from the earliest discoveries of Jacques Cartier through to the end of the seventeenth century but also the social customs and histories of Indigenous People, principally the Huron (Wendat), Iroquois Confederacy and Abenaki.

This work, the Histoire de l'Amerique Septentrionale, or History of Northern America, was published in 1722 in four volumes. The third volume, of which this is a copy from the personal library of George III at Windsor, concerns French relations with the Iroquois Confederation from the earliest encounters to the peace of 1701.

French settlers had been at war with the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) for almost a century following their intervention in a conflict between Iroquois and Huron tribes. As a result, the powerful Iroquois Confederation, an alliance of six tribes based around the southern shore of Lake Erie, prevented further French expansion towards the Great Lakes.

The outbreak of war between England and France in 1700 risked the loss of French colonial possessions in North America, and a peace treaty was sought between the Iroquois and France and her allies. This treaty, known as the 'Great Peace of Montreal', was signed in 1701. Significantly, the French and the Iroquois signed the treaty on an equal footing, a unique occurrence in North American colonial history. The peace soon worked to the benefit of both parties: French settlement continued in North America, and a good trading relationship soon emerged between France and the Iroquois, which flourished until the acquisition of New France by Britain in 1763.