Descartes observed that there are only six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy, and sadness. All six could be found in abundance in 17th-century New York. Dutch and Canadian fur traders competed to control access to the natives; their English and French masters used diplomacy, subterfuge and force to suppress the natives; and, the natives employed any and all means at their disposal to protect their lifestyle and even their very lives. 

            Sean O’Cathail finds himself in this environment after he jumps ship in Manhattan harbor and makes his way to Albany to become a fur trader.  A Dutch fur trader, Aernout Viele, agrees to teach Sean the trade.  Three years later, the young man is Viele’s partner and carrying on a passionate love affair with Kai, a Mohawk woman. 

Sean’s idyllic life is shaken, first, when he meets Laurentje van Reuyter, an indentured servant, and falls in love with her.  Then, Sieur De la Barre, the governor of New France, threatens to invade Iroquois territory to punish the natives for stealing French trade goods.  New York Governor Dongan appoints Sean as his colonial emissary to the Iroquois.  He faces adversity, danger and intrigue while securing an English-Iroquois alliance and thwarting the efforts of the French to divide and conquer the Five Iroquois Nations.  Even the women who love him – his Mohawk lover, Kai, and the Dutch bond servant, Laurentje van Reuyter – are eventually swept up in the primitive passions of the savage frontier.