Indian Roots of American Democracy. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1993 by Howard L. Rheingold

The founding of a nation in North America, based on a social contract that guaranteed the rights of citizens against the power of the government, was a milestone in the history of democracy. And no more than a few dozen living Americans know the true names of the people who did it because the geniuses who come up with this covenant weren't tended gentry of British descent but Indians. That social contract -- the Iroquois Great Low of Peace -- almost certainly informed the creators of the US Constitution. The only reason this history comes as a surprise is that winners of wars write history books. So the history books tell of the Articles of Confederacy, but neglect the Houdenosaunee Confederacy that long preceded it.

In 1988, the American Indian Program at Cornell University convened Indian and non-Indian scholars and social scientists to discuss the evidence for Iroquois influence on Franklin, Jefferson, and others. This book grew out of that conference. --HLR

In August of 1775, they had been invited to view the workings of the "Grand Council Fire" in Philadelphia.

A couple of generations later another Pennsylvanian, Benjamin Franklin, would formulate another plan of colonial union that would more closely reflect Iroquois influences. Franklin, familiar with the ways of the Iroquois, published a series of Indian treaties. He attended a Condolence ceremony in 1753, less than a year before his authorship of the Albany Plan of Union.

Just nine months before the Albany Congress of 1754, Franklin attended a treaty council at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in October 1753. During this treaty with the Iroquois and the Ohio Indians, Franklin saw the rich imagery and ideas of the Iroquois at close hand.

At the Albany Congress the next year, the Mohawk sachem Hendrick challenged the Americans to use Iroquois style unity and to bring ". . . as many into this covenant chain as you possibly can." With this admonition and his previous knowledge of the imagery and concepts of the Iroquois Great Law, Franklin met with both colonial and Iroquois delegates to create a plan of unity that was, in part, derived from some of the tenets of the Great Law of the Iroquois.

The next day, Franklin formally proposed his plan of union before the Congress. It had a "Grand Council," a "Speaker" and called for a "general government ... under which ... each colony may retain its present constitution." In 1943, after editing Franklin's Indian treaties, Julian P. Boyd stated that Benjamin Franklin in 1754 "proposed a plan for union of the colonies and he found his materials in the great confederacy of the Iroquois." Boyd also believed that the ability of the Iroquois to unite peoples over a large geographic expanse made their form of government ". . . worthy of copying."[16] As Americans grew more restive under the autocracy of British rule, they turned to Native American ideas for alternatives.

In August of 1775, members of the Continental Congress met with the Iroquois and recalled Iroquois admonitions of unity and said we have taught "our children to follow it." The Americans also invited the Iroquois to visit and observe our "Great Council Fire at Philadelphia." In January of 1776, George Washington introduced John Adams as a member of "the Grand Council Fire at Philadelphia." In May and June of 1776, chiefs from "4 tribes of the Six Nations" were at Independence Hall. In fact, the meeting with the Iroquois sachems was so important that the Continental Congress ordered George Washington to leave his post in New York City and come to Philadelphia to review Pennsylvania troops in late May 1776.[24]

Indian Roots of American Democracy Jose Barreiro, Editor, 1992; 209 pp. ISBN 1-881178-00-5 $12 ($14 postpaid) from Akwe:kon Press, 300 Caldwell Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853