During the 1630s and 1640s, the Jesuits pursued their mission in Huronia, in the Great Lakes region. The Huron were the favoured trading partners of the French, and their principal fur suppliers. The two groups also had a military alliance against the Iroquois, the hereditary enemies of the Huron. In an effort to take over this flourishing trade association, the Iroquois wiped out Huron villages and Jesuit missions during the 1640s. A number of Jesuit missionaries were tortured and killed during these bloody conflicts, and later declared martyrs and canonized by the Church in the 20th century.