One of
the greatest irritations for
American Indians today is
how American society refuses
to acknowledge that the flow
of influence between our
societies over the centuries
has not been entirely
one-directional. That we had
a major impact on
Indians-mostly destructive
cannot be denied. But
virtually no credit is given
the Indian contribution to
Westerners.
Occasionally,
begrudging recognition is
given the fact that the
Indians taught the early
arrivals to these shores what
to eat, how to farm, and how
to survive in the harsh, cold
woods. And nowadays, because
of the recent work of groups
attempting to protect the
rainforests of the world, we
are hearing about forest
Indians' knowledge of
medicinal plants. We are
beginning to grasp that modern
pharmacology is rooted in the
ancient knowledge of forest
plants, and that we have
barely begun to tap the
Indians' full knowledge in
these matters. And yet that
knowledge is on the verge of
being totally lost as the
forests are destroyed and the
Indians are killed or removed
from their lands.
In his
book Indian Giver,
anthropologist Jack
Weatherford lists numerous
areas where Indian
contributions have not been
acknowledged, particularly in
agriculture, food,
architecture, and urban
planning. But to me, the most
important area where the
Indian role has been ignored,
or hidden, is their influence
on democratic government. It
is surely one of the most
closely guarded secrets of
American history that the
Iroquois Confederacy had a
major role in helping such
people as Benjamin Franklin,
James Madison, and Thomas
Jefferson as they attempted to
confederate a new government
under democratic principles
Recent
scholarship has shown that in
the mid-1700s Indians were not
only invited to participate in
the deliberations of our
"founding fathers," but that
the Great Binding Law of the
Iroquois Confederacy arguably
became the single most
important model for the 1754
Albany Plan of union, and
later the Articles of
Confederation and the
Constitution. That this would
be absent from our school
texts, and from history, and
from media is not surprising
given the devotion Americans
feel to our founding myth:
Great men gathered to express
a new vision that has
withstood the test of time. If
it were revealed that Indians
had a role in it, imagine the
blow to the American psyche.

Please
try to imagine what it was
like in the mid 1700s, when
the colonists were desperate
to free themselves from
oppressive English control.
The major urban settlements of
the time Albany, Philadelphia,
Boston, New York-were nothing
like they are today. Albany,
the capital of New York, and
site of the most important
meetings about confederation,
had only some 200 houses in
1754. Its population was under
3,000. Philadelphia, which was
to become the U.S. capital,
was the largest city in the
colonies, with a population of
I3,000. These places were
really tiny towns, with mud
roads, separated from one
another by hundreds of miles
of forest and several days'
travel. Within those forests
were Indians! In fact, the
Indians were still, at that
time, the stronger society,
having yielded only a small
part of their coastal
territories. The Iroquois
Confederacy (of New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee,
and Ontario) had yielded
practically nothing.
The
colonists were still quite
vulnerable. It was exceedingly
important to them to get along
with the Indians, who were all
around. They often met to
discuss mutually important
issues: safe passage,
commercial trade, land
agreements (treaties), and
military alliances. The
Iroquois were especially
important to the English
colonies militarily, since
alliance with the Iroquois
against the French was
critical to survival.
If the Iroquois had not
finally fought on the side of
the English colonies, we would
all now be speaking French,
and would probably be part of
Quebec. Dealings with Indians
took place on an everyday
basis, and, according to many
scholars, most negotiations
were "in the Indian manner,"
that is, they were held as
part of Indian councils, and
followed Indian rules of
discussion, procedure, and
contact.
So the
colonists who negotiated with
the Indians had significant
knowledge of Indian
decision-making and governance
and went to considerable pain
to accommodate the Indian
processes. Even the selection
of Albany as the site of many
meetings was at the behest of
the Indians. It is fair to say
that good relations with the
Indians of that period were as
important to the colonists as,
say, present-day U.S.
relations with Canada or the
Soviet Union.
In the
1700s, "foreign policy" was
largely about relating to the
Indians.
In addition to having
day-to-day contact with the
Indians of the mid 1700s, and
carrying on negotiations in
the Indian mode, the men who
were striving to achieve
independence, confederation,
and democracy were struggling
under another great burden:
Nowhere in their own
experience was there a working
model of a democratic
confederation of states. All
of Europe at that time was
under the rule of monarchs who
claimed their authority by
Divine Right.
There
were stirrings of democratic
ferment in Europe, in the
writings of Montesquieu,
Locke, and Hume, who were
being studied and discussed.
And the Greeks provided a
model, although it was 2,000
years old, only a partial
democracy, not a
confederation, and existed in
an utterly different
geopolitical context.
Meanwhile,
living side by side with these
aspiring federalists, in
constant negotiation with
them, was an Indian nation
that, beyond theory or
historical abstraction, was an
actual living example of a
successful democratic
confederation, united under a
single law that had already
survived for many centuries:
the Great Binding Law of the
Iroquois Confederacy.

Bison Skulls
Although
some Western scholars assert
that the Great Law was created
in the early 1400s, the
Iroquois themselves argue that
the Great Law existed for
hundreds of years before
Columbus's arrival. There is
little doubt, however, that
the Great Law arose from
circumstances very similar to
those faced by the separate
colonies. The law was designed
to form a peaceful federation
among five previously
separate, disputatious Indian
nations- Onondaga, Oneida,
Mohawk, Seneca, and Cayuga
(joined later by
Tuscarora)-who resided for
millennia in adjoining areas
that extended from what is now
Tennessee to most of Ontario.
The Great Law articulated the
manner in which the
confederated nations would
thenceforth relate to one
another as a single body. It
also articulated the rights
that would be reserved for the
individual nations (states'
rights).
The Law
described a system for
democratically electing
representatives to a Grand
Council, divided into separate
deliberative bodies
(multi-cameral legislature).
And it included, in great
detail, descriptions of the
legislatures of individual
nations, as well as rights of
universal suffrage, popular
selection and removal of
chiefs, and the manner in
which all the members of the
population should participate.
That the
model was successful was
apparent by the mere fact that
it was already many centuries
old, during which time the
separate nations had
cooperated peacefully on
federal matters, yet remained
separate. In fact the Iroquois
Confederacy is still
functional today among the six
member nations, and the Great
Law remains as the system of
governance.

Given
all of the above, it is
preposterous to assume that
the colonists were not
influenced by the Iroquois And
yet it has been an uphill
struggle for historians who
have argued this point against
the founding myths of American
society. Foremost among the
maverick historians is
professor Donald Grinde, Jr.,
Of the University of
California at Riverside.
In his book The Iroquois and
the Founding of the American
Nation, Grinde argues that the
Iroquois were a significant
influence on colonial leaders,
who had nowhere else to turn.
He quotes George CIinton, then
governor of New York, as
observing in 1747 that most
American democratic leaders
were "people of republican
principles who have no
knowledge of democratic
governments."
Grinde
continues, "The tribesmen of
America seemed to many
Europeans to be free of such
abuses as were generated by
the European monarchs ... The
colonists saw freedom widely
exercised by American Indians.
Even the cultural arrogance
and racism of English
colonists could not fully
disguise their astonishment at
finding Native Americans in
such a free and peaceful
state."
Grinde
points out that James Madison
made frequent forays to study
and speak with Iroquois
leaders. William Livingston
was fluent in Mohawk, and
visited and stayed with
Indians over extended periods.
John Adams and his family
socialized with Cayuga chiefs
on numerous occasions. Thomas
Jefferson's personal papers
show specific references to
the forms of Iroquois
governance, and, says Grinde,
"Benjamin Franklin's work is
resplendent with stories about
Indians and Indian ideas of
personal freedom and
structures of government."
University of Nebraska
professor Bruce Johansen has
added that Franklin, who was
in the printing business, was
especially intimate with
Indian thinking since he "had
been printing Indian treaties
since 1736 and not only was he
acquainted with them, he set
the type." Franklin was also
present at an important
meeting among Iroquois chiefs
and several colonial governors
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in
1744, at which the chiefs
recommended that the colonists
stop fighting among themselves
and form a union.
By 1754,
when most of these men and
others gathered to create the
Albany Plan of Union, the
first try at confederation,
they invited forty-two members
of the Iroquois Grand Council
to serve as advisors on rate
structures. Benjamin Franklin
freely acknowledged his
interest in the Iroquois
achievement in a famous speech
at the Albany Congress: "It
would be a strange thing . ..
if six nations of ignorant
savages {sic} should he
capable of forming such a
union and be able to execute
it in such a manner that it
has subsisted for ages and
appears indissoluble, and yet
that a like union should be
impractical for ten or a dozen
English colonies."
According
to Grinde, Franklin convened
meetings of Iroquois chiefs
and congressional delegates in
order to "hammer out a plan
that he acknowledged to be
similar to the Iroquois
Confederacy”.
In a
1989 interview with Catherine
Sifter of National Public
Radio, Grinde referred to the
considerable resistance in the
academic community to the idea
of the Iroquois role in the
formative stages of American
history. According to Grinde,
as recently as fifteen years
ago people considered the idea
a"fantasy”, but there has
since been considerable
progress:
People have now accepted the
fact the Iroquois were at the
Continental Congress on the
eve of the Declaration of
Independence and they're
having to deal with the fact
that John Adams was advocating
the study of Indian
governments, and that Adams
observed that others among the
founding fathers were
advancing Indian ideas on the
eve of the Constitutional
Convention. But people have
been led kicking and screaming
into these realizations. ...

The
promise and the vision that
Indian societies provided to
Europeans was that democracy
did not die 2,000 years before
in ancient Greece, to be
followed by Divine Right
monarchy as the evolution of
government. In North America
and in other places in the
world there were people that
were living without kings or
landed nobility and who had
systems of government that
were clearly less coercive
than those in Europe. ... Some
people still deny this. I
believe for some people this
is a problem. . . . It's
difficult to entertain the
idea that the founding fathers
were relating to, talking
about, and evaluating the
ideas of non-white peoples . .
. it goes against the
conventional wisdom of our
society.
If
Indian influence upon American
constitutional democracy is a
tough pill for Americans to
swallow, there is yet another
minor aspect to the story that
can only create still greater
anxiety. There's a case to be
made that the Iroquois model
was also influential in
Europe, particularly upon
Frederick Engels and Karl
Marx.
At the time when Marx and
Engels were struggling to
create models for an
egalitarian, classless
society, which later evolved
into communism, Engels was
strongly influenced by the
eighteenth-century work of
anthropologist Lewis Morgan,
particularly his reports on
the Iroquois. Engels was so
impressed that in his work
Origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State, the
Iroquois were used as the
prime example of a successful
classless, egalitarian,
noncoercive society.
And so
we have the bizarre situation
that while Westerners continue
to assume that the flow of
influence was simply from the
more "advanced" Western
societies to the Indians of
the Americas, it is arguably
the case that the two dominant
political systems of the past
century were both at least
partly rooted in the wisdom of
the Great Binding Law of the
Iroquois Confederacy. If so,
both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.
would do well to acknowledge
the connection, study the
original document, see where
each went wrong, and try to
get it right the next time.
~ the
ghosts of long forgotten
promises ~
|
According to Iroquois history,
the creation of the Great Law
is attributed primarily to the
work of two men: Hiawatha
(Mohawk) and Deganawida
(Onondaga), who spent several
decades wandering together
across what is now the eastern
U.S. and Canada hundreds of
years before Columbus landed,
with a plan to unite the
Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga,
Onondaga, and Seneca. (The
Tuscarora 'joined much later,
in 1715)
The
Great Law was transmitted
orally from generation to
generation, with its tenets
recorded only on wampum belts
and strings. Many of these
wampums have since been lost,
and those that remain were the
subject of bitter lawsuits
(luring the 1980s between the
Iroquois and the State
University of New York, which
housed them. The university
finally returned them to the
Indians in 1989.
One of
the early translations of the
Iroquois constitution was by
the turn-of-the-century
anthropologist Arthur H.
Parker, and is contained in
Parker on the Iroquois, edited
by William Fenton. In addition
to Parker's commentaries on
Iroquois life, the book
contains Parker's English
translation of the entire
constitution: 115 pages of
text.
Parker comments that "The
Great Law as a governmental
system was an almost ideal one
for the stage of culture [sic]
with which it was designed to
cope. . . . By adhering to it
the Five Nations became the
dominant native power east of
the Mississippi and during
colonial times exercised an
immense influence in
determining the fate of
English civilization on the
continent." Iroquois members
today credit the Great Law as
the main reason for their
continued coherence as a
viable nation, more successful
than other American Indians in
resisting domination by white
society.
Certain features of the Great
Law, as reported in Parker's
book, are instantly
recognizable for their
similarity with the U.S.
Constitution: the
establishment of a federation
with separate powers for
federal and state governments;
provisions for the common
defense; representative
democracy at the federal and
local levels; separate
legislative branches that
debate issues and reconcile
disagreements; checks and
balances against excessive
powers; rights of popular
nomination and recall; and
universal suffrage (although
this last provision took
Americans another 150 years to
achieve).
But the features the colonists
declined to introduce are just
as interesting as the features
that resemble our
Constitution. For example, the
Iroquois had no executive
branch, no rulers or
presidents; the colonists
couldn't bear to get too far
away from their monarch. Many
of the powers to appoint and
remove chiefs for the Iroquois
were held by the women,
another dimension of checks
and balances that the United
States did not include, along
with the principle of
consensual decision making at
each level of government and
in each legislative branch.
According
to Parker, the Great Council
of the Iroquois Confederacy,
the federation's legislature,
consisted of fifty rodiyaner
(civil chiefs, as opposed to
war chiefs) divided into three
distinct "houses" according to
tribal membership. Each of the
"houses" debated issues
separately, eventually
reporting their decisions to
the Onondaga, who were not
part of the other
legislatures, but served as
firekeepers." The Onondaga
determined if a consensus had
been reached among the houses.
If not, they would return the
question to the houses and
demand that they reach the
unanimity required for the
passage of any policy.
The only
executive person was a
temporary “speaker," appointed
by acclamation, who served for
one day only.
The right to nominate chiefs
was hereditary, held only by
clan mothers of certain clans
from each tribe. After
nomination, the candidate was
then ratified in stages by the
whole clan, the national
council, the Grand Council of
the Confederacy, and then
finally by all the people. The
women also had the power to
remove the chiefs from office
if they proved not to have "in
mind the welfare of the
people," as the Law says. They
Could also remove a chief "who
should seek to establish any
authority independent of the
jurisdiction of the Great
Law." If the women removed a
chief', they also nominated
the replacement.
The procedure for removing
chiefs was spelled out in
exquisite detail, as were all
rules of the Great Law,
including the exact words the
women used to deliver a
warning to the offending
chief, then follow-up warnings
and removal.
In
addition to the chiefs
nominated by the women, the
Law permitted the recognition
of '"Pine Tree Chiefs" who
spontaneously sprang from the
community. According to the
Great Law these are people
"with special ability [who]
show great interest in the
affairs of the nation, and
[who] prove themselves wise,
honest and worthy of
confidence." Such chiefs
participated in all council
deliberations.
The
duties of the chiefs were
spelled out in great detail:
[They] shall be mentors of the
people for all time. The
thickness of their skin shall
be seven spans, which is to
say that they shall be proof
against anger, offensive
actions and criticism. Their
hearts shall be full of peace
and good will and their minds
filled with a yearning for the
welfare of the people of the
confederacy. With endless
patience they shall carry out
their duty and their firmness
shall be tempered with a
tenderness for their people.
Neither anger nor fury shall
find lodgment in their minds
and all their words and
actions shall be marked by
calm deliberation. . . . They
must be honest in all things .
. . self-interest must be cast
into oblivion ... They shall
look and listen for the
welfare of the whole people
and have always in view not
only the present but also the
coming generations, even those
whose faces are yet beneath
the surface of the ground, the
unborn of the future Nation.

The
Great Law contains one rule
that I found particularly
extraordinary for its
democratic import and the
degree of trust it reveals for
the people of the member
nations. The Law says that
when an "especially important
matter or a great emergency is
presented before the council,
and the nature of the matter
affects the entire body of the
Five Nations," then the
council is not permitted to
act without first going back
to all of the people in the
confederacy. The chiefs "of
the confederacy must submit
the matter to the decision of
their people and the decision
of the people shall affect the
decision of the confederate
council. This decision shall
be a confirmation of the voice
of the people."
What is
remarkable is that this rule
describes a way of doing
things that is exactly the
opposite of our own. In the
United States the most
apocalyptic decisions,
especially military ones, are
always made by government,
quickly-often secretly-without
consulting the people. This
speed and secrecy is justified
precisely because of the
importance of the matter and
by the need for rapid action.
Often this reflects how
technology has accelerated the
pace of events, creating
situations such as "launch on
warning."
In the United States, the
president makes all war
decisions.
The
constitutional principle that
only Congress can declare war
is a farce, as was most
recently obvious in the
U.S.-Iraq situation. For
although Congress finally gave
its (divided) approval for
war, it came only after
President Bush had maneuvered
450,000 troops to the front
lines without approval, and
issued a level of verbal
invective against Iraq that
made war impossible to avoid.
And in preceding years, we saw
U.S. presidents bomb countries
(Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos),
invade countries (Grenada,
Lebanon, Panama), and
undertake indirect military
actions (Nicaragua), all
without congressional
approval, let alone the
approval of the people.
I don't
know of any native society in
which any war chief could
undertake military action
without long meetings of the
entire tribe, which could take
days or even weeks. Even when
a military response was
approved, warrior recruitment
was voluntary. If an
insufficient number of
warriors showed up, there was
simply no war, or else the war
chief would have to go out
there alone, as occasionally
happened. The Iroquois
Confederacy institutionalized
this rule, making the war
decision slower and much more
difficult.
States' Rights
Several
rules in the Great Law were
created to ensure the
continued sovereignty of each
member nation of the
confederacy. For example, one
section stated, ". .. The five
Council Fires shall continue
to burn as before and they are
not quenched. The [chiefs] of
each nation in the future
shall settle their nation's
affairs at this council fire
[though] governed always by
the laws and rules of the
council of the Confederacy and
by the Great Peace."
Sound familiar, It is very
close to the model adopted by
Franklin and Jefferson for the
United States Constitution.

According
to Arthur Parker, in addition
to ensuring sovereignty for
each member nation, there were
also rules ensuring sexual
equality, as well as the
rights of local communities to
determine their own affairs:
The men
of every clan of the Five
Nations shall have a Council
Fire ever burning in readiness
for a council of the clan.
When it seems necessary for a
council to be held to discuss
the welfare of the clans, then
the men may gather about the
fire. This council shall have
the same rights as the council
of the women.
The women of every clan of the
Five Nations shall have a
Council Fire ever burning in
readiness for a council of the
clan. When in their opinion it
seems necessary for the
interest of the people they
shall hold a council and
decisions and recommendations
shall be introduced before the
Council . . .
All of
the Clan Council Fires of a
nation or of the Five Nations
may unite into one general
Council Fire, or delegates
from all the Council Fires may
be appointed to unite in a
general council for discussing
the interests o4 the people.
The people shall have the
right to
make appointments and to
delegate their power to others
of their number. When their
council shall have come to a
conclusion on any matter,
their decision shall be
reported to the Council of the
Nation or to the Confederate
Council, as the case may
require.
The Great Law also contained
specific articles concerning
the rights and duties of war
chiefs, the rules of
consanguinity, the official
symbolism of the tribes, laws
of adoption, and laws of
emigration and immigration
(including political asylum).
The rights of foreign
nationals were spelled out, as
well as many passages
containing the exact words and
procedures to be used for
"raising chiefs," funeral
addresses, installation songs,
and all ceremonies.
For
example, at the opening
ceremonies before each council
meeting, the Onondaga were
required to "offer thanks to
the Earth where men dwell, to
the streams of water, the
pools, the springs and the
lakes, to the maize and the
fruits, to the medicinal herbs
and trees, to the forest trees
for their usefulness, to the
animals that serve as food and
give their pelts for clothing,
the great winds and the lesser
winds, to the Thunderers, to
the Sun, the mighty warrior,
to the moon, to the messengers
of the Creator, and to the
Great Creator who dwells in
the heavens above, who gives
all the things useful to men,
and who is the source and the
ruler of health and life."
from IN
THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED by
Jerry Mander Sierra Club Books
1991
|
"Is
there not something
worthy of perpetuation
in our Indian spirit of
democracy, where Earth,
our mother, was free to
all, and no one sought
to impoverish or enslave
his neighbor?" -
Ohiyesa (Charles
Alexander Eastman)

"We
do not chart and measure
the vast field of nature
or express her wonders
in the terms of science;
on the contrary, we see
miracles on every hand –
the miracle of life in
the seed and egg, the
miracle of death in a
lighting flash and in
the swelling deep!" - Kent
Nerburn

"A
treaty, in the minds of
our people, is an
eternal word. Events
often make it seem
expedient to depart from
the pledged word, but we
are conscious that the
first departure creates
logic for the second
departure, until there
is nothing left of the
word."- Declaration
of Indian Purpose,
American Indian
Chicago Conference

"The
attitude of the American
Indian toward the
Eternal, the Great
Mystery that surrounds
and embraces us, is as
simple as it is exalted.
To us it is the supreme
conception, bringing
with it the fullest
measure of joy and
satisfaction possible in
this life...The worship
of the Great Mystery is
silent, solitary, free
from all self-seeking...
It is silent, because
all speech is of
necessity feeble and
imperfect; therefore the
souls of our ancestors
ascended to God in
wordless adoration…" Kent
Nerburn

"Silence
was meaningful with the
Lakota, and his granting
a space of silence
before talking was done
in the practice of true
politeness and regardful
of the rule that
"thought comes before
speech." And in the
midst of sorrow,
sickness, death, or
misfortune of any kind,
and in the presence of
the notable and great,
silence was the mark of
respect. More powerful
than words was silence
with the Lakota.
Chief
Luther Standing Bear,
Teton Sioux

"we
may have sundances and
other ceremonies, but
the Indian no more
worships the sun than
the Christian worships
the cross. In our view,
the Sun and Earth are
the parents of all
organic life. And, it
must be admitted, in
this our thinking is
scientific truth as well
as poetic metaphor…" Kent
Nerburn

"The
old Indian stills sits
upon the earth instead
of propping himself up
and away from its life
giving forces. For him,
to sit or lie upon the
ground is to be able to
think more deeply and to
feel more keenly; he can
see more clearly into
the mysteries of life
and come closer in
kinship to other lives
about him." - Chief
Luther Standing Bear,
Teton Sioux

"Our
attitude toward death…
is entirely consistent
with our character and
philosophy… We never
doubt the immortal
nature of the human soul
or spirit, but neither
do we care to speculate
upon its probable state
or condition in a future
life… we were content to
believe that the spirit
which the Great Mystery
breathed into us returns
to the Creator who gave
it and, and that after
it is freed from the
body it is everywhere
and pervades all nature.
Thus, death holds no
terrors for us… The idea
of a "happy hunting
ground" is… invented by
the white man…" Kent
Nerburn

"No
person among us desires
any other reward for
performing a brave and
worthy action, but the
consciousness of having
served his nation." - Joseph
Brant (Thayendanegea),
Mowhawk

"We
do not want churches
because they will teach
us to quarrel about God,
as the Catholics and
Protestants do. We do
not want to learn that.
We may quarrel with men
sometimes about things
on this earth. But we
never quarrel about God.
We do not want to learn
that." - Chief
Joseph, Nez Perce

"Some
of our chiefs make the
claim that the land
belongs to us. It is not
what the Great Spirit
told me. He told me that
the land belong to Him,
that no people owns the
land; that I was not to
forget to tell this to
the white people when I
met them in council." -
Kanekuk,
Kickapoo prophet

"We
know that the white man
does not understand our
ways. One portion of the
land is the same to him
as the next, for he is a
stranger who comes in
the night and takes from
the land whatever he
needs. The earth is not
his brother, but his
enemy — and when he has
conquered it, he moves
on. He leaves his
father’s graves, and his
children’s birthright is
forgotten."- Chief
Seattle, Suqwamish and
Duwamish

"The
more I consider the
condition of the white
men, the more fixed
becomes my opinion that,
instead of gaining, they
have lost much by
subjecting themselves to
what they call the laws
and regulations of
civilized societies."- Tomochichi,
Creek Chief
|
|