Topic: The League of Iroquois Constitution and Government

The Great Binding Law

The Great Law of Peace is the quintessential pillar for The League of Iroquois as it established the law of the land for their society. In the beginning, the law was designed to keep peace and harmony among the native nations at war. However, it later became focused on the establishment of the government’s power, and saintliness.

All through its stanzas, it The Great Law clarifies the capacity of the Grand Council and frameworks an arrangement for the nations to uphold peace and harmony. Throughout the text, it explains the procedures in which the basic liberates of the Iroquois people are outlined in addition to clarifying the peacemaking process. Moreover, the law attributable to how administration inside the council was organized. The central concept was that all leaders were at the bottom of society, therefore, making those in power accountable for their people. It was notions like this in the work that obligated all Chiefs to carry out their responsibilities based on the preference of the people.

Additionally, the text also explains Iroquoian symbols including the Great Tree of Peace. This was to perpetuate an image of harmony amongst all tribes. The idea was that every one of the Chiefs were to stand around a tree in to help it and keep it from falling over. On the tree sits a hawk to see far and wide and caution of threat. The Haudenosaunee history about The Great Law is in numerous languages and versions. It has been shared from generation to generation through oral means through the use of wampum belts, held by the alliance, to share the story. All the variant distributions are similar as they all work together towards upholding the main principles of the law.

As depicted in the Great Law, otherwise called Gayanashagowa or The Great Binding Law, there are vast numbers of the lessons given by the Peacemaker. Inside the content are three fundamental standards which emerge to administer the rest: peace, power, and righteousness. Every rule relies upon the other to help the structure of the constitution. The peace component signifies an individual state of mind and the ability to make better decisions through negotiating and upholding peace instead of getting into a war. Therefore, in order to achieve peace, one must be at an equilibrium state in their lives, one needs to possess balance in their body mind and body. Acquiring peace opens a door for the next principle of power.

On the other hand, Power does not mean having control over other people. Among the Iroquoians, Power originates from solidarity for there is power in numbers. The best example of unity at its best is a family set up, the power arises from the sympathy of every nation into one family. Like the image of the five arrows bound together, independently we are effectively broken yet together we are unbreakable. Being of a decent mind, one can utilize reason in their choices and respect this type of power.

Purpose of the league of Iroquois council

The primary purposes of the Iroquois League were to achieve general peace and to keep unity and order among the five nations, which frequently had fought one another before the Iroquois League formation. "nations" sitting together under a tree of peace symbolized unity among these nations at war. Every five years the people were to assemble and ask each other if they were still of the same mind, that is if they were still united in the League: "If any of the Five Nations shall not pledge continuance and steadfastness to the pledge of unity, then the Great Binding Law shall dissolve.

The original members of the Iroquois League were concerned not only with peace among the five nations but also with threats from other Native nations. "We bind ourselves together by taking hold of each other's hands so firmly and forming a circle so strong that if a tree should fall upon it, it could not shake or break it so that our people and our grandchildren shall remain in a circle in security, peace, and happiness.”

Decision making within The League of Iroquois

Both the individual and member nations of the Iroquois League and the League itself operated as democracies. The Iroquois had a council, the Great Council, for decision making among fellow nations. Each of the original five nations sent a number of sachems to the Great Council, for a total of fifty sachems. The sachems were to be above gossip and partisanship in order to keep the best interests of the nations in mind. The sachems were "generally poorer than the common People" because they gave their wealth away and "every unworthy Action is unavoidably attended with the Forfeiture of their Commission. Sachems "enjoyed great prestige but little power." There also seems to have been a clear separation of military and political authority: Iroquois League sachems were not allowed to take part in warfare as leaders as there were separate military chiefs.

In practice, the Iroquois nations conducted war and peace negotiations, as well as made alliances, both as the collective League and as individual nations. The Iroquois League's Great Council met annually in the autumn (or at other times when necessary) at Onondaga, where they discussed alliance formation and peacemaking and decided on significant wars. Although the nations formally were equal and autonomous, the Great Law outlined different roles for each in decision making within the Great Council.

Relations between Iroquois League members and other Native nations

The Iroquois League was not conceived as a union that would eliminate all differences among the original five nations, and the Great Law clearly states that the five nations were to remain autonomous. Moreover, the rights of each nation, that is, they're culture as well as political autonomy, were not to be changed by their membership in the League.

Early eighteenth-century observer Cadwallader Colden noted that "each of these Nations is an absolute Republic by itself, and every Castle in each Nation makes an independent Republic and is governed in all public Affairs by its own Sachems or old Men." Historians agree that "each of these Five Nations retained full sovereignty over its own affairs." Importantly, each member of the Iroquois League was free to make war or peace separately.

Regarding relationships between League and non-League nations, the Great Law provides that all were welcome under the Tree of Peace if they were willing to abide by the laws of the League. A proposition to establish the "Great Peace" between the Iroquois League and another nation would be made in councils between Iroquois and the other nation. According to the Great Law, the other nation should be persuaded by reason to join the League, and if the other nation does not immediately agree to join, the request should be made several times.

The similarities between the United States Constitution, and The Great Law of the Iroquois

A portion of similar thoughts that were in the Iroquois' constitution is shared in the United States administration today. The U.S. Constitution and the Iroquois Constitution have similarity in ideology. For instance, Vito Power, when a Leader Gets Sick, three Branches of Government, a Bicameral Legislature, and reprimand are depicted in both of these constitutions.

The ability to veto something is characterized as to decline to concede. In the Iroquois constitution, they talk about how the methodology must be pursued to these correct advances. When the Mohawk and Seneca Lords have collectively settled upon an inquiry, they will report their choice to the Cayuga and Oneida Lords who will consider upon the inquiry and report a consistent opportunity to the Mohawk Lords. The Mohawk Lords will at that point report the remaining of the case to the Firekeepers, who will render a choice as they see fit if there should arise an occurrence of a difference by the two bodies or affirm the decisions of the two bodies in the event that they are indistinguishable. The Firekeepers will at that point report their choice to the Mohawk Lords who will declare it to the open gathering. This is fundamentally the same as the U.S. government process for making and vetoing laws and directions as it discusses experiencing the diverse rulers that resemble the House of Representatives, Senate, and after that the president, with the Firekeepers being the President. The Firekeepers had the ability to veto any choice that the lower levels had made similarly as the president does in our legislature.

References

Bailey, T. A., Kennedy, D. M., & Cohen, L. (1998). The American Pageant. Lexington, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Fenton, W. N. (1998). The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy (Vol. 223). University of Oklahoma Press.

Crawford, N. (1994). A Security Regime among Democracies: Cooperation among Iroquois Nations. International Organization, 48(3), 345-385. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2706963

Johansen, B. E., & Mann, B. A. (Eds.). (2000). Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy). Greenwood Publishing Group.

Jordan, K. A. (2008). The Seneca restoration, 1715-1754: An Iroquois local political economy. University Press of Florida.

Richter, D. (1983). War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience. The William and Mary Quarterly, 40(4), 528-559. doi:10.2307/1921807