The main direction of Susquehannock activity was up and down the Susquehanna River. At the river's headwaters were the Iroquois Five Nations who were flanked to the north and west by the Hurons, to the north by the French of Canada, and to the east by the Dutch of Rensselaerswyck and Fort Orange (Albany) on the Hudson. Surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, into which the Susquehanna falls, were the English of Maryland and more distant Virginia. The more important Indian peoples of the upper end of the bay included the Piscatawas of the Potomac valley, the Susquehannock's themselves on their river, and the Nanticokes of the bay's eastern shore. In the Delaware valley, east of the Susquehanna and parallel with it, were the Lenape, the "grandfathers" of all the eastern Algonquian peoples. Here, again, the Dutch were nearby: after conquering the Swedish settlers on the Delaware in 1655, the Dutch planted their colony of New Amstel (New Castle) only twenty miles away from the head of Chesapeake Bay. Today an intercoastal waterways canal carries shipping across the narrow neck of land that separates the two bays. Indians and colonists traversed the isthmus by canoe, with a choice of several creeks and portages. They might paddle from the Chesapeake up the Elk River and its tributaries, portaging short distances to the headwaters of Appoquinimink or St. George's creeks, down which they could float in ease to the Delaware.⁹

Unlike many other Indians whose trade was monopolized by one or another colony, the Susquehannock's were able to travel in different directions to different markets. There were the Swedes and Dutch on Delaware Bay, and the English of Virginia or Maryland on the Chesapeake. With such alternatives the Susquehannock's could pick and choose, and bargain for good prices. They had only to make sure of maintaining their supply of peltry.

This was not so easy a matter. European demands for skins were great, and the Indians strove vigorously to meet the demand. In 1626, Isaack de Rasière reported that Susquehannock's had come to Manhattan to open trade relations. He also wrote that the Lenape were being harassed by war with the Susquehannock's, adding significantly that "heretofore we could never get in touch" with the Susquehannocks.¹⁰
His report may be interpreted as meaning that the war antedated trade competition between Susquehannock's and Lenape, or it may be read to say that the war began because the Lenape had been blocking Susquehannock access to the Dutch. What seems likely is that the two Indian peoples had engaged in occasional smallscale feuds until trade competition intensified and expanded their conflict. However that may be, the war was still hotly in progress in 1634 when the Englishman, Thomas Yong, sailed up the Delaware.¹¹   By 1638, however, when the former Dutch commander, Peter Minuit, sailed to the site of modern Wilmington to found New Sweden, the Susquehannock's and the Lenape had come to some kind of understanding. Chiefs of both peoples came jointly to greet Minuit.¹²