单项选择题

Directions: The passage below is followed by questions based on its content. Once you have read the passage, select the answer choice that best answers each question. Answer all questions on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.
For each of Questions 17-20, select one answer choice unless otherwise instructed.
Questions 17-18 are based on the following passage.
The stability that had marked the Iroquois
Confederacy’s generally pro-British position
was shattered with the overthrow of James II
Line in 1688, the colonial uprisings that followed
(5) in Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland,
and the commencement of King William’s
War against Louis XIV of France. The
increasing French threat to English hege-
mony in the interior of North America was
(10) signalized by French-led or French-inspired
attacks on the Iroquois and on outlying
colonial settlements in New York and New
England. The high point of the Iroquois
response was the spectacular raid of August
(15) 5, 1689, in which the Iroquois virtually
wiped out the French village of Lachine, just
outside Montreal. A counter-raid by the
French on the English village of Schenectady
in March 1690 instilled an appropriate
(20) measure of fear among the English and their
Iroquois allies.
The Iroquois position at the end of the
war, which was formalized by treaties made
during the summer of 1701 with the British
(25) and the French, and which was maintained
throughout most of the eighteenth century,
was one of "aggressive neutrality" between
the two competing European powers. Under
the new system the Iroquois initiated a peace
(30) policy toward the "far Indians," tightened
their control over the nearby tribes, and
induced both English and French to support
their neutrality toward the European powers
by appropriate gifts and concessions. The author’s primary purpose in this passage is to

A. denounce the imperialistic policies of the French
B. disprove the charges of barbarism made against the Indian nations
C. expose the French government’s exploitation of the Iroqu6is balance of power
D. describe and assess the effect of European military power on the policy of an Indian nation
E. show the inability of the Iroquois to engage in European-style diplomacy