So-called conservatives hold your noses: the original idea for the USA came from the "Injuns."

[DFW]

A project I'm working on requires that I delve somewhat intensively into the life of a man who is already my guiding light for enlightened political philosophy (Thomas Jefferson). Jefferson as a youth was already close to many Native American tribes, as was Benjamin Franklin. Few know that the longest standing federal entity on American soil is apparently not the United States of America, but the Iroquios Confederacy, which lasted about 400 years.

From Sojourn Magazine, Winter, 1998:

In the pre-Revolutionary period, when he* and his friends were advocating a federal union of the colonies, no European model was found to be suitable. Franklin 's contact with the Iroquois influenced many key ideas for a new form of government: federalism, equality, natural rights, freedom of religion, property rights, etc. At the 1744 treaty council, by Franklin's account, Canassatego, speaker for the great council at Onondaga, recommended that the colonies form a union in common defense under a federal government: "We are a powerful Confederacy, and by your observing the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire much strength and power; therefore, whatever befalls you, do not fall out with one another."

*Benjamin Franklin
---------------------------------------

Except for some disastrous secessionist sentiment in the 1860s, 1960s, and the period starting January 20, 2009, this sound advice has largely been followed, and our European ancestors got it straight from the people from whom we were to take their land and whose culture we were to eradicate.

If our little "confederacy" known as the USA is not to survive, it will be because the wise advice of a group of Native Americans, whose political union lasted twice as long as our so far, was only heeded for a little while by those who claim to want to do better.

I wonder if our so-called "conservatives" would prefer destruction of the union to heeding the advice of our predecessors on this continent--advice considered so wise by Franklin and Jefferson as to be a better base for a society than any offered on the continent of our European ancestors?

Considering the elimination of Jefferson by the Texas School Board as one of the guiding lights that created the USA, a complete revision of known history, I'm less than optimistic.

[librechik]

1. and we want our country back!

silly washichus...

[Naturalist111]

2. Your pessimistic view is well founded

[bain_sidhe]

3. A couple of book suggestions

Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World and Native Roots: How the Indians Enriched America, both by Jack Weatherford, if you can find them. Both are older, but together, offer a very thorough study of the influence of Native Americans on the rest of the world (in the first book), and American culture in particular (in the second).

[DFW]

4. Thanks, I'll make a note

If my project bears any fruit, you'll know why I was particularly interested in Jefferson's participation, but the whole concept is very much worthy of intense scrutiny, so thanks for the tips!

[G_j]

5. New World Roots of American Democracy

http://www.kahonwes.com/iroquois/document1.html

The Great Law of Peace
New World Roots of American Democracy
by David Yarrow


<snip>

Iroquois and the U.S. Constitution

By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Iroquois had practiced their own egalitarian government for hundreds of years. The Iroquois reputation for diplomacy and eloquence reveals they had securely evolved a sophisticated political system founded on reason, not on mere power. Accounts of the "noble savage" living in "natural freedom" had inspired European theorists John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to expound ideas that had ignited the American Revolution and helped shape the new direction of government.

But the Founding Fathers found their best working model for their new government, not in the writings of Europeans, but through their direct contact with the Iroquois League; for the Great Law of Peace provided both model and incentive to transform thirteen separate colonies into the United States.

George Washington, after a visit to the Iroquois, expressed "great excitement" over the Iroquois" two houses and Grand Council. Ben Franklin wrote, "It would be strange if ignorant savages could execute a union that persisted ages and appears indissoluble; yet like union is impractical for twelve colonies to whom it is more necessary and advantageous."

At Cornell's conference, Dr. Donald Grinde, Jr. of Gettysburg College presented evidence that Thomas Jefferson adopted the specific symbols of the Peacemaker legend. The Tree of Peace became the Tree of Liberty; the Eagle, clutching a bundle of thirteen arrows, became the symbol of the new American government.

Grinde also brought the revelation that "one of the framers, John Rutledge of South Carolina, chair of the drafting committee, read portions of Iroquois Law to members of the committee. He asked them to consider a philosophy coming directly from this American soil."

The Great Law of Peace laid out a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" with three branches. The Onondaga, the Firekeepers, are the heart of the Confederacy. Similarly, the U.S. presidency forms an executive branch.

The League's legislative branch is in two parts: Mohawk and Seneca are Elder Brothers who form the upper house, while Oneida and Cayuga are Younger Brothers, similar to the Senate and House of the United States Congress. The Iroquois" equivalent of a Supreme Court is the Women's Councils, which settle disputes and judge legal violations.

America Joins the Great Peace

In 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Morgan the first Indian agent to promote peace with Indian nations. Congressional President John Hancock told Morgan to follow the custom of the Iroquois "forest diplomats" by taking a "great peace belt with 13 diamonds and 2,500 wampum beads" to invite Indians to the first U.S.-Indian Peace Treaty. This historic Washington Covenant belt was given to the chiefs and clan mothers at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784 as a promise that they would never be forced to fight in U.S. wars, and that Indian land rights would be respected. As in the Peacemaker legend, the war hatchet was buried beneath the Tree of Peace and prayers of peace were offered through the sacred pipe.

Another speaker at the Cornell conference, Gregory Schaaf, Ph.D, recently discovered a cache of Morgan's papers in an attic of Susannah Morgan, 94-year-old family heir. In his book The Birth of Frontier Democracy from an Eagle's Eye View, he writes: "Before the Revolution, members of the Continental Congress met with Iroquois ambassadors to learn how they governed themselves. A Chief advised, 'Our wise forefathers established Union and AmityI this made us formidable. We are a powerful Confederacy, and if you observe the same methods, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power.'

After meeting with the Iroquois in 1754, Ben Franklin first proposed creating a colonial Grand Council in the 'Albany Plan of Union': 'One Government may be formed administered by a President, and a Grand Council chosen by representatives of the people.' Franklin's plan for a Grand Council of United Colonies resembles the Iroquois Grand Council."


..more..

[bain_sidhe]

6. One thing I particularly like about the Iroquois Confederacy

(if I'm understanding it right) is that while men were the chiefs of the tribes, the women's council could remove (and put to death) any leader they determined had not acted in the best interest of the tribe.

[G_j]

10. I think that is the basic idea

I don't recall the 'put to death' part, but women essentially oversaw the chiefs and could remove them.

sounds pretty smart to me!

[rumpel]

7. Yes - "The Constitution of the Iroquois Nations"

http://www.indigenouspeople.net/iroqcon.htm

[KittyWampus]

8. Correlation is not Causation. There is no actual evidence supporting the supposition Iroquois

Government formed the basis for the Constitutional Convention's work.

I studied Cultural Anthropology and have great respect for Native people's and their contributions the world over. I studied for a semester Iroquois culture and enjoyed it very much.

While it's interesting to note the correlation between the two forms of government, there is no actual evidence that one was formed on the structure of the later.

Did contact between aboriginal inhabitants and the colonizers end up shaping important facets of colonial life? Absolutely. There is solid evidence of that in the historical and material record.

There is abundant evidence tracing the evolution of our Constitution from what went before both in Europe and here in the colonies even before the colonists learned a word of Iroquois.

So, while it is important to point out the Iroquois had a Confederate form of government at the time of first contact with colonists, it's not the same as their government forming the basis for our own.

Also, one might very well make the case that the Iroquois nation have the oldest, longest-lived democratic government on earth. And that is an important achievement in itself, worthy of respect and study.

[truedelphi]

9. One important thing that we are never taught in most American history classses

(And I realize this predates the part of the discussion you are working on, but it is important )

By 1620, 20 to 25% of all people from England and Europe arriving on American soil went and lived with the Indians.

Why not? The Native Americans had the food, they had the saunas, they had young maidens that their father chieftains wished to offer to the new comers to cement tribal friendship between the Red Man's people And the White Man's people. Their life style was such that no one had to work more than 25 to 25% of the time. And the people were comfortable, pleasant and happy, and would have remained so except for a growing problem.

For in backlash to this, the many Protestant ministers who together with their congregations sought a new home in a new land - they had to start peppering their sermons with the evil and deviltry of these "unwashed" natives. The ministers simply could not afford, ego and other wise, to have thirty percent of their congregation leaving - think of the loss of revenue. (Though at that point in time, the revenue of tithing was probably related to collecting hides and farming rather than mere cash.) Soon the only word that was used for the Native Americans in many places in New England was "Heathen." (Who were in all aspects much cleaner than those white people whose religion refused them to even get naked and bath frequently!)