Topic: The League of Iroquois Constitution and Government

The United States Constitution and the Iroquois League Author(s): Elisabeth Tooker Source: Ethnohistory, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 305-336 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/482139 Accessed: 04-12-2018 14:51 UTC

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The United States Constitution

and the Iroquois League

Elisabeth Tooker, Temple University

Abstract. A number of writers have suggested that the League of the Iroquois provided the model for the United States Constitution and the ideas embodied in it. A review of the evidence in the historical and ethnographic documents, however, offers virtually no support for this contention. Instead, these data only affirm that the Iroquois Confederacy rested on distinctive Indian principles, as remarkable in conception as those in the U.S. Constitution.

Four hundred years ago perhaps, the five Iroquois nations united in a confederacy, their tradition states, to establish peace among themselves. The effort proved successful, and in the years that followed the League of the Iroquois rose to a place of preeminent power in the Northeast, a position it lost when some two hundred years ago another confederacy, that of the thirteen colonies, was formed and achieved ascendancy in the area.

That two such remarkable confederacies arose in the same geo- graphic region has suggested to some that there might be a connection between them, that the founding fathers of the new nation, the United States, fashioned its political institutions after those of the older Iroquois League. That such may have been the case has been noted by a number of writers. The distinguished anthropologist Clark Wissler was one, writing in 1940: "There is some historical evidence that knowledge of the league influenced the colonies in their first efforts to form a confederacy and later to write a constitution" (Wissler I940: I2z). The historian Paul A. W. Wallace is another, stating that the Iroquois League "provided a model for, and an incentive to, the transformation of the thirteen colonies into the United States of America" (Wallace 1946: 3).

More recently this subject has been given more extensive consider- ation in two books: The Iroquois and the Founding of the American

Ethnohistory 35:4 (Fall 1988). Copyright ? by the American Society for Ethno- history. ccc ooI4-I80o/88/$I.5o.

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Elisabeth Tooker

Nation by Donald A. Grinde and Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johan- sen. Both attempt to chronicle, in Grinde's (1977: xii) words, "the role of the Iroquois in forming a part of the political basis for the new Ameri- can nation." Both conclude it was of significance: Grinde (1977: 133) finds that "the formation of the United States was influenced by Iroquois political and philosophical traditions" and Johansen (1982: xii) that the Iroquois "played a key role in the ideological birth of the United States."

The bicentennial of the Constitution has witnessed a still wider dis-

semination of this conclusion, long prevalent among the Iroquois, as fact (see, for example, Wilson 1960: 47; Johansen 1982: xi-xii). It has been mentioned at various conferences held during the year and in articles appearing in various newspapers, including the New York Times. Calls have been made to include the subject in school curricula, and the United States Senate has been asked to recognize Iroquois contributions to the Constitution.1

The idea, however, figures not at all in the standard histories of the Constitution nor in the documents on which they rest. Research over the past several decades has revealed that the sources of thought embodied in the Constitution are more varied and its history more complex than had previously been suspected, and there has been something of a revolution in this regard. But of all the influences that have been uncovered and assessed in recent years, none points to an Indian one.

The question thus becomes: Is the influence of the American Indians, particularly the Iroquois, on the United States Constitution a "story that has lain largely forgotten, scattered around dusty archives, for more than two centuries" as Johansen (1982: xvi) asserts? Have historians, deceived by their own narrow cultural perspectives, failed to acknowledge that Indians, so often regarded as "primitive savages," could contribute to "civilization"? And should John Locke be demoted as honorary founding father of the United States and Deganawida and Hiawatha, legendary founders of the Iroquois League, be promoted in his place? Or are the statements that the United States Constitution is patterned on Iroquois political ideas a myth, which through repetition has taken on the aura of truth? And if the latter, when did the myth begin and how did it develop?

At least, it is the intent of the following to explore these issues through an examination of such evidence, both that contained in the his- torical documents and in the ethnographic accounts, as is presently avail- able, as well as to treat the related issue of how the League functioned in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The Documentary Evidence

Embedded in the various statements respecting the influence of the Iro- quois form of government on the later American one are two quite distinct

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The Constitution and the Iroquois League

ideas.2 One derives from the popular notion that the Indians generally had a democratic form of government. It claims that those great American political ideas-freedom and democracy, among others-that so deeply inform the American experience were unknown to Westerners and that the colonists espoused them only after their arrival in the New World- and then only after they had learned them from the Indians.

If not a conclusion mentioned in the great treatises on government, it is one that has been given expression in the literature, albeit not in that usually read by historians. An example is an explanation of the origin, history, and purposes of the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization that traces its origin back to the Sons of Liberty of Revolu- tionary days:

The early patriots who founded the old Sons of Liberty in Colo- nial times, never knew what real American liberty was, they having lived under kings all of their lives, and having no vote or voice in some of the most important matters pertaining to their own govern- ment. Their first vision of real freedom was caught from the wild savages, who roamed the forest at will rejoicing in the unrestained [sic] occupation of this great new world; who selected their own Sachems and forms of religious worship; and who made their own laws and tribal regulations, which were few and simple, and only such as were suited to primitive tribal life, while the white men, who came here, were continually followed up and hampered by unreason- able laws and regulations, imposed by a distant king and his local appointees, were denied the right of a trial by jury, and were bur- dened by unjust taxes. They began to chafe under their thralldom, which finally resulted in the "Boston Tea Party," the Declaration of Independence, and the War of the Revolution.

The children of the forest, having furnished the first inspiration of true liberty, and whose paint and feathers were used to escape detection by British sympathizers, it was but natural that the name of the old Sons of Liberty should be changed so as to suggest the true cause of its origin, thereby giving honor to whom honor was due, hence-"The Improved Order of Red Men." Its principle is the teaching of Patriotism, Love of Country and allegiance to the Flag and Constitution and Obedience to the Law. (Sheehan I937: 4)

Another example is an article in the American Scholar written by the eminent student of Federal Indian law, Felix S. Cohen. Cohen observed that "what is distinctive about America is Indian, through and through" (Cohen I95z: 178) and, among other things, that

it is out of a rich Indian democratic tradition that the distinctive po- litical ideas of American life emerged. Universal suffrage for women

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Elisabeth Tooker

as well as for men, the pattern of states within a state that we call federalism, the habit of treating chiefs as servants of the people in- stead of as their masters, the insistence that the community must respect the diversity of men and the diversity of their dreams-all these things were part of the American way of life before Columbus landed. (Cohen I952: 179-80)

The second type of statement points not to the influence of Indian political ideals in general but rather quite specifically to that of the Iro- quois League. It is this confederacy, such writers contend, that provided the model for the American federal union.

Three passages in the eighteenth-century documents would seem to give some confirmation for this conclusion, and since they are the only ones that have been offered in support of it, they merit close consider- ation. One is a passage in a letter by Benjamin Franklin. The letter was published anonymously as a kind of appendix to a pamphlet written also anonymously by Archibald Kennedy published by James Parker in r751 and republished in London the following year. In "The Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians to the British In- terest, Considered" Kennedy proposed various measures to preserve the goodwill of the Indians, a matter of great importance at the time. Among other things, Kennedy viewed a union of the colonies (not a new idea) as necessary. As he expressed it:

Whenever the Colonies think fit to join [such a union], Indian Affairs will wear quite another aspect. The very Name of such a Confederacy will greatly encourage our Indians, and strike terror into the French; and be a Means to prevent their unsupportable Incroachments, which they daily make with Impunity and Insult And this is what they have long dreaded. (Kennedy 1751: i8)

Franklin concurred, observing that

a voluntary Union entered into by the Colonies themselves, I think, would be preferable to one impos'd by Parliament; for it would be perhaps not much more difficult to procure, and more easy to alter and improve, as Circumstances should require, and Experience direct.

In a now often-quoted passage, Franklin added that

it would be a very strange Thing, if six Nations of ignorant Savages should be capable of forming a Scheme for such a Union, and be able to execute it in such a Manner, as that it has subsisted [for] Ages, and appears indissoluble; and yet a like Union should be impracticable for ten or a Dozen Colonies, to whom it is more necessary, and must be

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The Constitution and the Iroquois League

more advantageous; and who cannot be supposed to want an equal Understanding of their Interest. (Labaree I96I: II8-I9)

A second often-cited passage is contained in a speech by Canasatego, an Onondaga chief and spokesman for the Iroquois, at a treaty conference held in Lancaster in 1744 attended by representatives from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. After years of uneasy peace, war had again broken out between England and France; the colonists used the treaty conference, called for another purpose, to seek the aid of the Iroquois in what in America came to be called King George's War.

The proceedings of this conference were published that same year by Benjamin Franklin.3 They included Canasatego's speech on the final day of the conference, and Canasatego's observation in that speech:

We have one Thing further to say, and that is, We heartily rec- ommend Union and a good Agreement between you our Brethren. Never disagree, but preserve a strict Friendship for one another, and thereby you, as well as we, will become the stronger.

Our wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five Nations; this has made us formidable; this has given us great Weight and Authority with our neighbouring Nations.

We are a powerful Confederacy; and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power; therefore whatever befalls you, never fall out one with another. (Van Doren and Boyd 1938: 78)

Just how much the representatives of the colonies took Canasatego's advice to heart is uncertain. In his reply to this portion of Canasatego's speech, Lieutenant Governor George Thomas only observed:

We are obliged to you for recommending Peace and good Agreement amongst ourselves. We are all Subjects, as well as you, of the Great King beyond the Water; and, in Duty to his Majesty, and from the good Affection we bear to each other, as well as from a Regard to our own Interest, we shall always be inclined to live in Friendship. (Ibid.)

Nonetheless, Canasatego's statement, having made its way into print, was noticed by patriots. At least the commissioners of Indian Affairs mentioned it in a meeting with the Six Nations at Albany in August 1775:

Brethren,

Our business with you, besides rekindling the ancient council- fire, and renewing the covenant, and brightening up every link of the chain, is, in the first place, to inform you of the advice that was given about thirty years ago, by your wise forefathers, in a great council

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which they held at Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, when Cannassateego spoke to us, the white people, in these very words.

"Brethren, we, the Six Nations, heartily recommend union and a good agreement between you, our brethren. Never disagree, but pre- serve a strict friendship for one another; and thereby you as well as we will become the stronger. Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the Five Nations. This has made us formida- ble; this has given us great weight and authority with our neighbor- ing nations. We are a powerful confederacy; and if you observe the same methods our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh strength and power. Therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another."

These were the words of Cannassateego. Brothers,

Our forefathers rejoiced to hear Cannassateego speak these words. They sunk deep into their hearts. The advice was good; it was kind. They said to one another, "The Six Nations are a wise people. Let us hearken to them, and take their counsel, and teach our children to follow it. Our old men have done so. They have frequently taken a single arrow, and said, Children, see how easy it is broken. Then they have taken and tied twelve arrows together with a strong string or cord, and our strongest men could not break them. See, said they, this is what the Six Nations mean. Divided, a single man may destroy you; united, you are a match for the whole world." We thank the Great God that we are all united; that we have a strong confederacy, composed of twelve provinces, New Hampshire, etc. These provinces have lighted a great council-fire at Philadelphia, and have sent sixty-five counsellors to speak and act in the name of the whole, and consult for the common good of the people, and of you, our brethren of the Six Nations, and your allies. (Commissioners of the Twelve United Colonies 1836: 83-84)

The Ethnographic Evidence

Considered together these statements confirm what is already well known: at least some whites and some Indians in the eighteenth century realized the advantages of confederation. None, however, go beyond the obser- vation that the Iroquois tribes had successfully confederated before the colonies did.

Left unanswered is the question: How much did the founding fathers actually know about Iroquois political ideas and the Iroquois form of government? Were they actually influenced by Iroquois ideas respecting proper forms of governance or merely their image of what these ideas

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The Constitution and the Iroquois League

were? There can be little question that William Brandon is correct in observing, "the effect of the Indian world on the changing American soul, [is] most easily seen in the influence of the image of the American Indian on European notions of liberty" (Brandon 1965: 24; emphasis added). But does this mean, as Johansen misquotes Brandon, that "the effect of the Indian world on the changing American soul, [is] most easily seen in the influence of the American Indian on European notions of liberty" (Johansen I982: i6; emphasis added)?

To answer these questions, to properly understand what Iroquois political ideas were, we ought to have discussion of them by the Indians themselves in their own language. These we do not have.4 We do have records of the treaty councils held between whites and Indians. But these meetings were of a diplomatic character, hardly concerned with philo- sophical questions regarding the proper nature of political relationships between men.

What we do have now are ethnographic data on the Iroquois form of governance. Thus, although we cannot answer the question What abstract political ideas did the Indians possess and consequently what influence might they have had on colonial Americans? we can treat another: Did the founding fathers get any ideas about form of governance from the Iroquois?

Just how much the eighteenth-century colonists also knew about the Iroquois system of governance-other than the fact that the Iroquois had a confederacy-is uncertain. Some, such as Sir William Johnson, who had extensive political dealings with the Iroquois, may have known some- thing, as perhaps did also some interpreters. Little of this information, however, made its way into print; most of what was written about the Iroquois in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries concerned the ef- fect of the Iroquois League on political affairs in the region that they so dominated-wars, treaty councils, and the like-not how they governed themselves.

Not until Lewis H. Morgan made it a special subject of study and published his findings did an account of the Iroquois form of government become available. In the early I84os, Morgan joined a secret society called the Gordian Knot whose members shortly after decided "to cut the knot," as they said, and reorganize it as "an Indian society" modeled after the Iroquois League. Finding no information on the "structure of the League" -as Morgan later termed it-in the available literature, they turned to the Iroquois themselves, interviewing them on the form of governance they had adopted at the time of confederation. The results of this research

were published by Morgan (who had done much of the fieldwork) in 1847 in a series of articles in the American Review and again in 185I in The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.

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Subsequent ethnographic work has substantiated Morgan's findings.5 Briefly summarized, they are as follows: The government of the Iroquois League was vested in a council of fifty chiefs,6 often termed "sachems" in the literature to distinguish them from other kinds of chiefs. Each sachem chief held his right to sit on the League council by virtue of having been given the name of his predecessor, in effect, by receiving a name-title. This title was in some sense hereditary. Each of the fifty name-titles belonged to a particular clan in a particular tribe. Thus, for example, when the sachem chief who held the name-title Skanyotaiyo' ("Handsome Lake") died, his successor-"raised up," as the Iroquois say, at a Condolence ceremony-had to be of the Turtle clan of the Seneca tribe since the name Skanyotaiyo' belonged to the Seneca Turtle clan.

The system was not a truly representative or elected one. Although each tribe had chiefs on the council, their numbers were unequal. The Mo- hawks and Oneidas had nine each, the Onondagas fourteen, the Cayugas ten, and the Senecas eight-an inequality that did not reflect population size; the Senecas were by far the largest tribe, said sometimes to equal the population of the other four tribes combined. Nor did every clan have a sachem name-title. Some Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca clans had none. Not even within the clan was the position purely elective. The successor to a League chief was chosen by the "clan mother," the senior woman of the clan-or perhaps more accurately, the senior woman of the lineage in which the name was held-in consultation with other women of her

clan.7 And as the clans were matrilineal (each Iroquois gets his or her clan affiliation from his or her mother, who in turn received her clan affiliation

from her mother), a League chief was not succeeded by his son, but rather often by his brother or nephew.

Decisions of the League council required unanimous consent for adoption. In theory, each sachem chief held veto power. In practice, the sachems attempted to find a solution to each question through extended discussion. In these deliberations, the Mohawks and Senecas sat on one side of the council fire; the Oneidas and Cayugas on the other side and facing them; and the Onondagas, the "firekeepers" of the League, on a third side. As they were the firekeepers, the Onondagas were charged with the responsibility of presenting the matter to be discussed and, after the sachems of each tribe had agreed among themselves and with the sachems of other tribes, of announcing the decision, thus confirming and proclaiming it.

Even cursorily considered, there is little in this system of governance the founding fathers might have been expected to copy.8 It is doubtful, for example, that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting during the legendary long, hot Philadelphia summer of 1787 would have proposed a system under which only their relatives could become mem-

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bers of Congress, and a system under which each legislator was chosen by a close female relative of the previous holder of the office. Nor does it seem likely-even if John Adams had heeded his wife's admonition to "re- member the ladies"-that if such a hereditary system had been adopted, the Constitutional Convention would have opted for matrilineal inheri- tance of office, which by its very nature excludes a son from succeeding to his father's position.

It also seems unlikely that the delegates at that convention would have approved a system requiring unanimous agreement on any bill to be passed. Even small states fearful that larger states might gain too much power if representation was solely proportional to population might well have been more fearful about giving veto power to other small states- even if the largest state had the fewest delegates, as was the case in the Iroquois League. Nor does it seem likely that the Constitutional Conven- tion would have decided that only Pennsylvania-most centrally located of the thirteen colonies (as Onondaga was the most centrally located of the Iroquois tribes)-could bring matters before the legislative body.

The Structure and Spirit of the League

If ethnographic fieldwork undertaken since Morgan's own into what he termed "the structure and spirit" of the Iroquois League (Morgan 1851: 56) has only confirmed his findings, historical research has uncovered no comparable account in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century docu- ments. This has led some historians to question the ethnographic ac- counts and to suggest that the Iroquois system of government as reported by the nineteenth- and twentieth-century anthropologists functioned in a quite different manner in the colonial period. Most likely, these historians argue, the organization of the League radically changed over these years and what Morgan and others after him were told was a nineteenth-century idealization of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century practice. Morgan was blind to these changes, they aver, because of the assumptions he made and the circumstances under which he worked.

This view has most recently found expression in Daniel K. Richter's "Ordeals of the Longhouse: The Five Nations in Early American History." Richter (1987: 13) declares that Morgan "was ill-equipped to understand the intricacies of the non-state, noncoercive politics characteristic of most eastern North American Indians in the European colonial period." Since Morgan and others of the secret society they called variously "The New Confederacy" or "The Grand Order of the Iroquois" wished to model it after that of the Iroquois League and had undertaken field research to as- certain that form of government, Richter concludes, it was "government" that they found.

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No such government as Morgan describes-at least as Richter pre- sumes Morgan describes-is recorded in the documents; on the contrary, these "seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources," Richter (1987: 15) asserts, "tell a different tale." As Richter reads the evidence, "the supreme powers of the League" were not vested in the League council of the fifty sachem chiefs (ibid.: z2). These chiefs were merely "the bearers of sacred sachem titles that descended in chiefly lineages." "The Grand Council was not designed to make policy decisions or to provide a central government for the villages of the Five Nations; it existed to preserve the Great Peace through ceremonial Words of Condolence and exchanges of ritual gifts" (ibid.: i8).9

It may be, as Richter observes, that Morgan was "ill-equipped to understand the intricacies of the non-state, noncoercive politics of most eastern North American Indians"-as well as, it might be added, the nonstate, noncoercive politics of most North American Indians. But of all those who have written on the structure of the League, it was Morgan who was most interested in the subject of comparative government, who was at the greatest pains to understand the workings of the Iroquois political system, and who most assiduously sought information from the Indians themselves. Uppermost in Morgan's mind was the question, little addressed by historians: How did the Iroquois manage to remain united as a confederacy, given the "passion of the red man for the hunter life"

not "to be controlled by the efforts of legislation" and the propensity for "a band, under some favorite chief, put forth, like a swarm from the parent hive, in quest of a new habitation; and in the course of time be- come independent" (Morgan I85I: 57)? For, as Morgan also observed, it is characteristic of "Indian organizations" that a "rude shock from with- out or within but too easily disturbs their inter-relations; and when once cast back upon the predominating sentiment of Indian life ... a powerful nation rapidly dissolves into a multitude of fragments, and is lost and forgotten in the undistinguished mass of lesser tribes" (ibid.: 58).

Morgan found the answer in the council of fifty League chiefs- the council Richter believes preserved the "Great Peace" between the five Iroquois tribes, all the while remaining aloof from practical politics and diplomacy. But if the sachem chiefs remained so aloof, why did the League not break into the parts of which it was composed? It is evident from the historical documents that the members of the League-both the nations that composed it and the individuals making up each nation-often did not agree, and this fact has been taken by some (including Richter) to mean that the League council had little if any political authority. But if it had no authority, why did it persist as the historical documents also indicate that it did? Why did not the divisions so often noted in the

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documents quickly split apart the Confederacy, leaving no trace of its former existence?

The answer, I believe, is that the League chiefs were involved in every- day politics and diplomacy as they affected the League as a league, and it is only a misapprehension of the principles on which it rested-princi- ples fundamental to Iroquois political organization if rather unfamiliar in Western society-and so a misapprehension of the purpose of the Con- federacy to the Iroquois themselves. In its turn, this misapprehension of the purpose of the League council has led to some misunderstanding of how the League worked as a political institution.

Basic to the Iroquois system of governance, as also that of other North American Indians, was the principle of unanimity. Unanimity was not merely an ideal; it was a necessity. Communities were small and lacked any duly instituted police force to deal with potentially divisive actions. Lacking that "coercive force" to prevent dissenters from simply moving out of the community and hence greatly weakening its ability to defend itself, considerable effort was devoted to finding consensus. Among North American Indians generally this consensus was sought in coun- cil, each man of the village being free in council to express his opinion, and through these various expressions of concern the council as a whole sought the thread of agreement-for all well knew the dire consequences of division. Of necessity, orators were valued not merely for their ability to persuade listeners by rhetoric, but also for their ability to state the issues clearly and by this means move the council toward the unanimity required. Necessarily, councils were long and frequent. As Morgan (1851: io8) noted, "It may be said that the life of the Iroquois was either spent in the chase, on the war-path, or at the council-fire. They formed the three leading objects of his existence; and it would be difficult to determine for which he possessed the strongest predilection."

When the League was established, this fundamental principle so in- grained in Indian thought governed the deliberations of its council. As Morgan (ibid.: III) observed, "All the sachems of the League... were re- quired to be of 'one mind,' to give efficacy to their legislation. Unanimity was a fundamental law. The idea of majorities and minorities were en- tirely unknown to our Indian predecessors." If majorities and minorities were entirely unknown to the sachems, these chiefs were familiar with devices needed to achieve unanimity. They had grown up in the system and knew that "If any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influence [could be] brought to bear upon him which he could not well resist; and it was seldom that inconvenience resulted from their inflexible adherence to the rule" (ibid.: II3).

There were, of course, times when "all efforts to produce unanimity

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failed of success" and when such occurred "the whole matter was laid

aside" (ibid.). But since unity gave strength, rather more effort went into achieving that unity than is customary in Western society, and if there were differences, individuals were rather more prone to modify their actions so as to least disturb those of others.

The League council was particularly concerned with matters of alli- ance, with the continuing firm alliance of the five member nations and alliances with other nations. It did not concern itself with the internal relations of the constituent nations. The internal affairs of each tribe were

left to the councils of that tribe (ibid.: 69-70). Nor was the League coun- cil concerned primarily with the waging of war. "All military operations," Morgan explained, "were left entirely to private enterprise" (ibid.: 72). As the League "was at war with all nations not in their actual alliance, it was lawful for any warrior to organize a party, and seek adventure wherever he pleased to direct his steps" (ibid.: 73).

To obviate the dangerous consequences of disagreement, when the several nations were prosecuting a common war, and their forces were united into one body, an expedient was resorted to for securing unanimity in their plans, in the establishment of two supreme military chieftaincies. The two chieftains who held these offices were designed rather to take the general supervision of the affairs of war, than the actual command in the field, although they were not debarred from assuming it, if they were disposed to do so. These war-chiefships [both held by the Seneca] were made hereditary, like the sachemships, and vacancies were filled in the same manner. (Ibid.: 73-74)

No sachem could go out to war in his official capacity as a civil ruler. If disposed to take the war-path, he laid aside his civil office, for the time being, and became a common warrior. (Ibid.: 71-72)

It was in this context and with these restrictions that the League council "declared war and made peace, sent and received embassies, entered into treaties of alliance, regulated the affairs of subjugated nations, received new members into the League, extended its protection over feeble tribes, in a word, took all needful measures to promote their prosperity, and enlarge their dominion" (ibid.: 66-67).

The Iroquois system, then, effectively separated alliance from war, a notion quite foreign to those of Western society. What seems to us so necessary-strong and innovative leadership of a supreme commander backed by a supreme council to survive threats of war-was not perceived as such by the Iroquois. They left matters of war to the war chiefs, who singly or in concert provided strong and innovative leadership as needed. The function of the League council was not to hinder this leadership, only

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to try to constrain it when it threatened to destroy the alliance between the five tribes and to encourage it when it promised to further the ends of the Confederacy as a whole. To the extent that it worked it was because the war leaders were well aware of the advantages of unanimity as ex- pressed in League councils and, it may be added, the advantage on certain occasions of not pursuing the same policy.

When, therefore, Morgan (1851: 6z) noted that "the supreme powers of the confederacy" were vested in the council of sachem chiefs, he meant just that: the highest powers of the League's organization resided in its council. He did not write, as Richter and others have supposed he did, that the League council was "all-powerful." He did write that in the Iroquois system of government many powers were left to the tribe and village. The League, after all, was a confederation, not a state or nation, and had no police or militia to "actually exercise supreme power" even if it had wished to.

It is not necessary, then, to contend, as Richter (1987: 15) does: "If in the colonial period, the League Council actually exercised supreme power, one must conclude either that European writers were remarkably dense or that the Iroquois they met were remarkably secretive." Morgan never maintained that "the League Council actually exercised supreme power" in the way Richter supposes he did. The Iroquois did not need an "all-powerful council" because their system of government rested on the fundamental law of unanimity and did not require such power in order to accomplish its aims as the Iroquois themselves, not Westerners, saw them.

Evolution of the League

Although each of the Iroquois accounts of the formation of their confeder-

acy published to date differs in some respects from the others, presumably reflecting differences in individuals' knowledge of these traditions and the vagaries of translation, the accounts agree in other respects. All these tra- ditions relate the efforts of Deganawida or Hiawatha or both to establish the confederacy and recount how these founders, and on occasion their embassies, went among the various tribes, finally gaining from them ac- ceptance of the idea of the Great Peace. Then, at a great council of the chiefs of the five Iroquois nations, the laws of the confederacy were stated and agreed to. "Their traditions," Morgan (I85I: 6I) noted, "further in- form us, that the confederacy, as framed by this council, with its laws, rules, inter-relationships of the people and mode of administration, has come down through many generations to the present age, with scarcely a change."

That the Iroquois should have achieved a permanent confederation

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so swiftly has seemed unlikely to some (e.g., Schoolcraft 1847: 0zo-zz; Beauchamp I886), and they suggest that the League evolved slowly. How- ever, this partly overlooks the nature of Iroquois society and the changes Morgan was told by the Iroquois did occur, namely, the increased influ- ence of the chiefs who were not sachem chiefs on the decisions of the League council. Bearing in mind the principles on which Iroquois society rests, a more accurate picture of both the evolution of the League and its "structure and spirit" can be drawn.

The Iroquois assertion that the League was established at a single grand council of the chiefs of the separate tribes does not mean that earlier efforts were not made to bring the separate Iroquois tribes into alliance or that such efforts did not succeed for a time. Rather, Iroquois tradition only states that the present Iroquois confederation was so established.

Quite simply, Iroquois tradition says that all the chiefs (in a few accounts, most of the chiefs) named in the Roll Call of the Chiefs met in

council, agreed to a peace betweeen their respective nations, and agreed to meet further as the occasion demanded. Having made this agreement, they continued in succeeding years to follow it.10

One obvious issue that faced this council if it was to continue to meet and deliberate matters of interest was what to do when one of the chiefs

died. There being no system to elect such a successor, we may suppose that they fell back on Iroquois custom: Personal names are owned by the clan, each child being given one of the names so owned by his clan then "not in use"-as the Iroquois say. That "baby name" is normally changed to an "adult name"-also owned by the clan and one not then in use- at maturity and may later be changed for another adult name of someone deceased. The death of a sachem chief meant, in effect, that his name was no longer in use, and so could be given to someone else who would then assume his position on the League council. Since this name belonged to the clan of the deceased, it was the clan (especially the "clan mother" in consultation with other women of the clan) who chose the successor of the

deceased chief. The position of sachem chief was, then, partly hereditary, partly elective, and partly appointive.

We may suppose also that the first such successors chosen were also leading chiefs in the tribe, but that over time chiefs so selected were not

as distinguished. The governance of the villages and the tribes, however, remained in the hands of their most influential members, those men recog- nized as chiefs, most of whom now were not sachems. Since the decisions

of the League council continued to be of importance to these chiefs and since the sachems sitting on that council could scarcely afford not to listen to them, they came to exert influence in these councils. This, I believe, accounts for Morgan's observation, undoubtedly based on what the Iro- quois told him, that although the confederacy as framed by the original

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council of the League was little changed "except the addition of an in- ferior class of rulers, called chiefs, in contradistinction to the sachems" (Morgan 185I: 6I) and that

At first their powers were extremely limited, and confined to a par- ticipation in the local affairs of their own nation, in the management of which they acted as the counsellors and assistants of the sachems, rather than in the capacity of rulers. But they continued to increase in influence, with their multiplication in numbers, and to encroach upon the powers of the sachems, until at the present time, when the League is mostly dismembered, and their internal organization has undergone some essential changes, they have raised themselves to an equality, in many respects, with the sachems themselves. (Ibid.: 71)

As a consequence of these changes, the powers of the sachem chiefs were checked by the opinions of the ordinary chiefs. Conversely, the potentially disruptive power of the chiefs themselves was checked by deliberately not selecting them as sachem chiefs. As Morgan noted of the famous orator Red Jacket:

With all the influence which he exercised over the people by the power of his eloquence, and with all the art and intrigue which his capacity could suggest, he was never able to elevate himself higher than to the title of Chief .... The Senecas themselves aver, that it would have been unwise to raise up a man of his intellectual power and extended influence to the office of sachem; as it would have concentrated in his hands too much authority. (Ibid.: I03)

The size of the League council assured that the diversity of opinion between the tribes and within each tribe was represented and the require- ment of unanimity assured that these differences of opinion were seriously considered. But the very size of the council also impeded deliberations. This problem was partly overcome by dividing

the sachems of each nation into classes, usually of two or three each. ... No sachem was permitted to express an opinion in council, until he had agreed with the other sachem or sachems of his class, upon the opinion to be expressed, and had received an appointment to act as speaker for the class. Thus the eight Seneca sachems, being in four classes, could have but four opinions; the ten Cayuga sachems but four. In this manner each class was brought to unanimity within itself. A cross-consultation was then held between the four sachems

who represented the four classes; and when they had agreed, they appointed one of their number to express their resulting opinion, which was the answer of the nation. The several nations having,

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by this ingenious method, become of "one mind" separately, it only remained to compare their several opinions, to arrive at the final sentiment of all the sachems of the League. This was effected by a conference between the individual representatives of the several nations; and when they had arrived at unanimity, the answer of the League was determined. (Ibid.: IIz)

It was not only the obligation of the sachems to seek agreement on matters brought before them, but also the obligation of their coun- cil to send and receive embassies. Morgan's phrasing here would seem intentional; he records no necessity for the sachems themselves to go on such embassies, only that the League council "sent" such embassies. That may be the reason why sachem name-titles appear so infrequently in the historical documents. The Iroquois may well have sent their ablest men, whatever their position, to negotiate with foreign powers, just as the French and English in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries sent their ablest to negotiate at Onondaga or wherever else the League council was then meeting.

Colonial officials undoubtedly knew that the best way to influence the decisions of the League council was to influence those chiefs who had influence and might be expected then to best argue their case. For an embassy to attempt to win over a majority of the sachem chiefs directly would accomplish little, as the decision of the council had to be unani- mous. The task was better left to those men who best knew the system and who spoke the language. Understandably, then, the Iroquois who figure prominently in the historical record were not usually sachem chiefs-to the white negotiators a large and rather faceless body of men, as such deliberative bodies are apt to be to outsiders-but men who could exert influence.

It is useful, often, to distinguish between political leadership and political office. Political leadership accrues to some men by virtue of their office; without selection to office they would have little influence. Politi- cal office accrues to others by virtue of their leadership abilities. In the Iroquois instance, some political leadership accrued to the sachems by virtue of their office as sachems, and political office-the position of chief -accrued to other men by virtue of their talent as leaders.

Viewed this way, Morgan's account rather more closely agrees with the historical record than some historians would have us believe. Morgan, after all, sought not to overturn that record, but to illuminate it by adding a dimension not usually found there: the Iroquois perception of how their own system of government worked. It is for this reason that his description warrants a more careful reading than it has sometimes been accorded.

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The Development of a Myth

The evidence presently available, then, offers little support for the no- tion that the framers of the Constitution borrowed from the Iroquois ideas respecting the proper form of government, ideas that were, in fact, radically different from those familiar in Western civilization that were

subsequently incorporated into the Constitution. The question is, then, If there is virtually no evidence that the framers borrowed from the Iro-

quois, how did the contrary come to be supposed in the popular mind? In some sense, it is an attempt to reconcile two contradictory ideas:

that the Indians of the New World had no form of government and that they did. Colonial officials may not have been aware of the details of the internal political organization of the various Indian nations with whom they dealt, but they knew they were dealing with peoples who had gov- ernments. Some Indians somewhere in the New World may not have, but those they knew had. They also well knew that if they were to successfully treat with them, they would have to follow Indian, not white, protocol at these international conferences with them.

Others, however, held a contrary view. Some political philosophers, for example, believed that the Indians lived in a "state of nature" (a condi- tion characterized by lack of government), not in a "state of society" (one that does have a government). Undoubtedly the most influential, but by no means only, of those holding this view was John Locke. He thus ob- served that "in the beginning all the world was America" (Locke I690: chap. 5); "if Josephus Acosta's word may be taken ... in many parts of America there was no government at all" (ibid.: chap. 8).

It mattered little to Locke's argument, however, whether the Indians actually had government or not. If Indians were not found to be living in a "state of nature"-what Locke also argued was a state of perfect freedom and liberty-but in a "state of society," his conclusions would not be invalidated. For Locke was performing a kind of "thought experiment," and if the Indians were not living in a "state of nature," others were. As he observed, "since all princes and rulers of independent governments all through the world, are in a state of nature, it is plain the world never was,

nor ever will be, without numbers of men in that state" (ibid.: chap. z). Although Indians may have mattered little to Locke, they were im-

portant to the colonists. Living on the borders of white settlement, they posed a constant threat, a matter complicated by the economic depen- dence of a number of whites on trade with the Indians. The French were

also a threat; the contest in North America became a struggle between France and its Indian allies and England and its Indian allies for control of this trade and of the continent.

It did not escape notice that if the colonies could unite on a policy,

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they might more successfully prosecute any war with France and its Indian allies (or for that matter any Indians) that might break out. A number of suggestions were made for such a union, although, as Andrews (1938: 413) has remarked, they "were little more than armchair proposals, which never reached the state of definite and precise formulation." It is undoubt- edly no accident, then, that Kennedy advocated such a union in 175I as an aid in meeting the Indian and French encroachments and no accident that Franklin concurred. Nor may it be an accident that the Albany Plan of Union was proposed on the eve of the French and Indian (Seven Years') War and at a conference called to treat with the Indians.

Canasatego may well have had a similar idea in mind. At the time, war between France and England had just broken out, and he could not help but be concerned about the outcome. What Canasatego may have been saying was, "If you want us to aid you in this latest conflict with France, you had best get your act together. If we are going to help you, we don't want to have to deal with a bunch of squabbling colonies, as we have had to do in the past. Do as we have done and establish peace and goodwill among yourselves first. Then you'll be better able to prosecute this war."

When the conflict between France and England finally ended in En- glish victory and the surrender of New France to the British Crown, the colonies no longer needed the Indian support they earlier had. They could entertain-in a way they could not have earlier-independence from En- gland. But once independence had been achieved, they faced something of a crisis of identity.

No longer part of England, Americans could not look to British his- tory for a sense of national identity. Of necessity, they had to forge one of their own, constructed of events on this continent, not those of the Old World. Indians were a part of that history, and so not unexpectedly the new nation turned to the Indian for symbols.

It was a process that had begun even before independence was won. To cite one example: Members of the secret revolutionary society the Sons of Liberty, organized in Maryland in the I76os and then in other colonies, regarded themselves as being under the patronage of the Indian chief Tamina (Tammany). May iz was chosen as St. Tamina's day, often celebrated with a military salute-the firing of guns-and Indian war dances. It became popular with both citizens and soldiers and was ob- served by the army from the time of the Revolution to just before the War of I8Iz (Stevens 1907: 239-4z, 323-24). And as every schoolchild "knows" (or at least once knew), it was Sons of Liberty dressed as Mo- hawk Indians who threw the tea into the harbor at the Boston Tea Party.

For the previous century and a half, life in the New World had been regarded as being freer than life in the Old. After independence it was

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just a short step to suppose that this liberty was of the same sort that the Indians had earlier enjoyed in Locke's "state of nature," and only another short step to suppose that white Americans had learned of "real freedom" from their red predecessors.

In one variation of this idea, Americans-it was believed-were des- tined to raise up on the continent a new government, one superior to that of the Indian but based on the same principles. And it is this kind of no- tion that underlay the formation of the "Grand Order of the Iroquois." Morgan and the others who founded this society believed they were estab- lishing a society based on "Indian principles," a "New Confederacy of the Iroquois" that would replace the old one of the Indians, which was dying. They were in error. Within a half dozen years the "New" Confederacy itself had died. It was the "Old" that lived on.

Although there is no evidence that Morgan believed that white Americans had obtained their political ideals from the Iroquois, he may have inadvertently contributed to the belief's development. The Iroquois had long before earned the epithet "The Romans of the West" (Clinton i8iz: 9), partly for "their martial spirit and rage for conquest" (ibid.: i6; cf. Colden 1747: 4), partly perhaps also for their oratorical skill. The Iroquois, Morgan (1851: 3) declared, "achieved for themselves a more remarkable civil organization, and acquired a higher degree of in- fluence, than any other race of Indian lineage, except those of Mexico and Peru." Morgan's account of the League's organization may not have been studied, but many recalled that Morgan believed the Iroquois had a remarkable political organization.

By the end of the nineteenth century the idea that "the formation of the United States was influenced by Iroquois political and philosophical traditions" and that the Iroquois "played a key role in the ideological birth of the United States" was in place. At least that seems indicated in William E. Griffis's observation:

How far the various attempts of the red man to combine in fed- eral union for common strength or defence, and especially those in the stable political edifice in New York, were potent in aiding the formation of the American Commonwealth, is an interesting ques- tion worthy of careful study. That it was not without direct influence upon the minds of those constructive statesmen like Franklin, Hamil- ton, Madison, Monroe, who came so numerously from States nearest the Long House, and most familiar with Iroquois politics, cannot be denied. The men of the English-speaking colonies which had been peopled from continental and insular Europe, were inheritors of clas- sic culture. They naturally read the precedents furnished by Greece and Rome; but they were also powerfully affected by the living reali-

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ties of the federal republics of Holland and Switzerland, as well as in the aristocratic republic of Venice, while in the one nearest England many of them were educated. It is not too much to affirm, however, that the power of this great example at home, on the soil and under the eyes, was as great in moulding opinion and consolidating thought in favour of a federal union of States, as were the distant exemplars of the ancient world, or in modern Europe. Though we give him no credit, and spurn the idea of political indebtedness to the red man, with almost the same intolerant fierceness that some of the latter-day New England Puritans deny obligations to the Dutch Republic that sheltered and educated their fathers, yet our government is in a mea- sure copied from that of the forest republicans, whose political edifice and conquests shaped the history and civilization of this continent. (Griffis I89I: 53-54)

The idea is also indicated in Herbert M. Lloyd's (19oI: I47) state- ment that the League's "influence has been most strongly felt in our political constitution and in our history as colonies and nation" and in the passage that Lloyd prefaces with a quotation from Morgan's (i88I) Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines:

"It is worthy of remembrance that the Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of colonies similar to their own as early as I755. They saw in the common interests and common speech of the several colonies the elements for a confederation, which was as far as their vision was able to penetrate." (Houses, p. 32.)

On the other hand Franklin's plan of union, which was the beginning of our own federal republic, was directly inspired by the wisdom, durability, and inherent strength which he had observed in the Iroquois constitution. Under the Articles of Confederation we managed our affairs for a dozen years very much on the Iroquois plan, and it must be confessed were not quite as apt in execution and in administrative wisdom as our barbarian predecessors.

When the colonies became the United States, the Iroquois recog- nized the similarity of the League to their own, and gave to the new nation the name of The Thirteen Fires. (Lloyd I90I: 204)

The closing decades of the nineteenth century also witnessed the identification of the letter in the Kennedy pamphlet "The Importance of Gaining and Preserving the Friendship of the Indians to the British In- terest, Considered" as being from the pen of Franklin. In publishing this letter in his Complete Works of Benjamin Franklin, John Bigelow (1887: zI7n) noted:

The editor is happy to acknowledge his obligations to Profes- sor Edward Eggleston to calling his attention to this letter, which

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that gentlemen found in the Harvard College Library. "I think," says Professor Eggleston, in a letter to the editor, "the pamphlet is anony- mous, but I have a minute that the author is Archibald Kennedy. The first edition, N.Y., 1751, and the letter I believe to be Franklin's was dated at Philadelphia and addressed to the printer of the first edition -Parker."

Eggleston's surmise has been given subsequent confirmation by discovery of contemporary evidence of Franklin's authorship (Labaree I96I: II7).

In this century if not before, some Indians noted that certain ideas later adopted by whites had been incorporated into Iroquois political life. For example, Arthur C. Parker, a grandnephew of Morgan's inter- preter and collaborator Ely S. Parker, found "the right of popular nomi- nation, the right of recall and of woman suffrage, all flourishing in the old America of the Red Man and centuries before it became the clamor of the

new America of the white invader" (Parker I916: II). A dozen years later, William B. Newell, a Caughnawaga Mohawk, averred that the Iroquois Confederacy "was the first democracy of the modern age. From its princi- ples of equality, liberty, and fraternity [have] developed our great repub- lics" (Newell I928: I9).

Circumstantial evidence, however, suggests it is the ideas of another Iroquois, J. N. B. Hewitt, that are recalled in many recent statements asserting that the Iroquois League provided a model for the United States Constitution. They are contained in a Smithsonian press release dated March z6, 1936 (see the Appendix).11 It reports that Hewitt has found "a direct chain of evidence linking the basic document of the American Government [the Constitution]" to Canasatego and his speech at the 1744 Lancaster treaty conference and that "the evidence seems strongly in favor of an Iroquois origin for the American system of government."

Hewitt, a Tuscarora Indian, had been in the employ of the Bureau of American Ethnology since the i88os. Undoubtedly it was Hewitt's conclusion that Matthew W. Stirling, director of the Bureau, was referring to when he wrote, "There is reason to believe that the framers of our Constitution were inspired in some degree by the League of the Five Nations" (Stirling 1937: 55z). It is also likely that Wissler was referring to Hewitt's observations when he wrote, "There is some historical evidence that knowledge of the league [of the Iroquois] influenced the colonies in their first efforts to form a confederacy and later to write a constitution" (Wissler 1940: IIz).

The idea received further support in I946 when Paul A. W. Wallace published The White Roots of Peace, a retelling of the Iroquois tradition of the founding of their League with allusions to its similarity to the United Nations, the latter echoing Hewitt's (I920: 527) earlier comparison to the League of Nations. Wallace introduces his subject thus:

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This is the story of the founding at Onondaga (Syracuse, N.Y.), some time about the middle of the fifteenth century, of the United Nations of the Iroquois, the famous Indian confederacy that provided a model for, and an incentive to, the transformation of the thirteen colonies into the United States of America. (Wallace I946: 3)

He then repeats Franklin's observation in his letter of 1751, and, having noted that the Iroquois "were the greatest Indian power on the American continent," states:

It was not by force alone that the Iroquois held this vast region under their Peace. It was by statesmanship, by a profound under- standing of the principles of peace itself. They knew that any real peace must be based on justice and a healthy reasonableness. They knew also that peace will endure only if men recognize the sover- eignty of a common law and are prepared to back that law with force -not chiefly for the purpose of punishing those who have disturbed the peace, but rather for the purpose of preventing such disturbance by letting all men know, in advance of any contingency, that the law will certainly prevail. (Ibid.)

In the following years, a number of statements similar to Wissler's and Wallace's appeared. In chronological order these include Underhill's (1953: 83, 94) statements that "some have even thought it [what Underhill terms "a Woodland League of Nations"] gave suggestions to the Ameri- can Constitution (Lee, Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington were quite familiar with the League)" and that the Iroquois system "has been sug- gested as a model for the United States Constitution"; Hallowell's (1957: 232) that "It has even been said that information about the organization and operation of the League of the Iroquois, which Franklin picked up at various Indian councils, suggested to him the pattern for a United States of America"; Reaman's (1967: xiv, cf. 24) that the Iroquois furnished "the prototype for the Constitution of the United States-it is said that Jeffer- son used the Iroquois Confederacy as a basis-and [their] Confederacy has many of the aspects of our present-day United Nations"; Marriott and Rachlin's (1968: 33) that "Its organization became one of the models for the United States Constitution"; Farb's (1968: 98) that "some historians believe that it was one of the models on which the Constitution of the new

United States of America was based"; and Eckert's (1969: 624 n. zi) that "Knowledge of the League's success, it is believed, strongly influenced the Colonies in their own initial efforts to form a union and later to write a constitution."

None of these writers refers specifically to Hewitt or to the evi- dence he thought supported his conclusions. Hewitt published no schol-

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arly paper on the subject that could be cited (he died in I937, a year after Thomas Henry wrote the press release), but men such as Stirling and Wissler could be expected to know of Hewitt's idea through conversation if not the press release itself.

This paucity of information may be the reason behind accretions to the myth. Hewitt had rejected the idea that the Iroquois League had influ- enced the Albany Plan of Union, but Lloyd had earlier asserted it had. The Albany Plan of Union was added to the legend. There followed a change of date respecting when Franklin had made the statement popularized by Wallace: some (e.g., Cohen I952: 184; Eckert I969: 258; New York Times I987) assumed Franklin made it at the Albany conference, not three years earlier in a publication that surely would have gone unnoticed by most if it had not been identified as Franklin's a hundred years ago, well over a hundred years after Franklin wrote it.

Yet perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from this tale of scholarly misapprehension. In white interpretations of Indians there has been a per- sistent theme, as Berkhofer (I978: 25-26) has reminded us, of "conceiving of Indians in terms of their deficiencies according to White ideals rather than in terms of their own various cultures, . . . to describe Indian life in terms of its lack of White ways rather than . . . positively from within the framework of the specific culture under consideration." Some recent interpretations of Indian cultures and history have turned this "negative prototype" on its head, asserting that, indeed, Indians did hold white ideals and, in the case discussed here, even that whites got them from the Indian. But as laudable as this might at first glance seem, such a posi- tive stereotype exhibits not only as little fundamental understanding and appreciation of Indian cultures as a negative one, but also little under- standing of Western culture. We owe our fellow residents on the continent better.

Appendix

Smithsonian Press Release, March z6, I936

For release afternoon papers, Thursday, March z6, 1936. From the Smithsonian Institution.

A forgotten Iroquois orator and statesman named Canassatego may have been the inspirer of the American constitution. J. N. B. Hewitt, ethnologist of the Smithsonian Institution and one of the world's foremost students of the history and customs of the Iroquois, finds a direct chain of evidence linking the basic document of the American Government to this eloquent man.

The chain starts at a conference held at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, between the representatives of the Five Nations of the Iroquois and delegates from the colonies of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, to settle some land matters and to agree

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upon defensive measures against French invasions from Canada. Canassatego was a delegate representing the Onondaga nation of the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Five Nations, implacable enemies of the French, some time before had placed themselves and their lands under the protection of Great Britain. Their lands then covered an area over 400 miles wide and over 800 miles long. They were disgusted with the bickerings of the colonies among themselves while the French were making serious inroads upon these territories. In the course of this conference the aged Canassatego proceeded to give some forceful fatherly advice to the white men.

His oration as it was reported in the records of the conference is greatly abbreviated. It must have been much longer and more eloquent than it appears, to have made such a profound impression as the evidence indicates it actually did make. But that speech contained the germ of the American form of government.

Briefly, the old orator urged on the delegates that they unite, on their own initiative, according to the model of the League of the Five Nations, which had then flourished for at least zoo years. He quoted extensively from the words of the historical Deganawida, founder of the League, with its eloquent phrase: "We, the Mohawk, the Seneca, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Cayuga people, set up this tree of government."

The significance of this, Dr. Hewitt points out, was that it was a new idea in the world. The idea that the authority of government could be derived from the people themselves instead of impressed upon them from above-which was the basic departure of the new American Republic 30 years later from all existing forms of government except that of the Iroquois-was altogether too radical for the colonial delegates-loyal subjects of George the Second-to accept at the time.

But, the evidence indicates, they went home and talked about it. Perhaps they laughed at the ridiculous ideas of the childlike mind of the red men. The old orator had proposed an unthinkable act-the establishment of a government by the governed themselves. It might be all right for illiterate savages, but civilized man had advanced beyond such a stage.

Nevertheless, it appears, there must have been some who, in secret, took the idea seriously, and it appears to have been discussed when groups of radicals got together.

It had made no impression ii years later when Benjamin Franklin and other leading men of the colonies drew up at Albany the prospectus of a "plan of union." This was never actually acted upon. This proposal was "to humbly petition the Parliament of Great Britain" for permission for the colonists to form "one general government" for mutual defense against the French and their Indian allies.

The next link in Mr. Hewitt's chain of evidence is the conference in 1775 between representatives of the Five Nations and delegates from the Continental Congress for the purpose of signing a treaty which would make the Iroquois Confederacy neutral in the war with Great Britain. This treaty of neutrality was signed and afterward broken by the Indians, who fought through most of the war as allies of England.

At this meeting Col. Turbot Francis, one of the colonial delegates, in a formal address told the representatives of the League of the Iroquois that the colonists had remembered the advice of Canassatego given 30 years before, had often discussed

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it among themselves and with their children, and finally had acted upon it. They now were bound together so closely that, like the Iroquois tribes, they had become "one head, one mind, one body and one life."

Admittedly, says Mr. Hewitt, the chain is tenuous, partly because of the very fragmentary records. But, he insists, one is forced back to two alternatives: either the concept of a government established by the sole authority of the governed- one of the most original in the history of human thought-arose fully formed in the minds of the colonial leaders themselves, or it was derived from the only government of that kind existing on earth at the time-the League of the Iroquois.

It was a concept foreign, at that time, to European thought, and the framers of the constitution could have arrived at it independently only by hurdling the high walls of early training and education.

On the other hand, there was a model close at hand. He has found definite evidence that the Iroquois system of government had been explained to the white men on that formal occasion and had made so great an impression that it was remembered for 30 years.

All and all, Mr. Hewitt says, the evidence seems strongly in favor of an Iroquois origin for the American system of government. Of course, he points out, some of the ideas incorporated in the League of the Five Nations were far too radical even for the most advanced of the framers of the American constitution.

Nearly a century and a half was to elapse before the white men could reconcile themselves to woman suffrage, which was fundamental in the Indian government. They have not yet arrived at the point of abolishing capital punishment, which the Iroquois had accomplished by a very simple legal device. Child welfare legislation, prominent in the Iroquois scheme of things, had to wait for a century or more before the white men were ready to adopt it.

But all these, Mr. Hewitt points out, were secondary to the idea of a federa- tion of independent states delegating some of their authority to a central govern- ment set up with no other authority than that of the states themselves.

Notes

James Axtell kindly read an earlier version of this paper and offered many valu- able suggestions, some of which have been incorporated. I am also indebted to William N. Fenton, William C. Sturtevant, and James A. Clifton for comments, and to William Cox of the Smithsonian Institution Archives for locating a copy of the 1936 press release and providing me with information on Thomas R. Henry's association with the Smithsonian.

i The relevant sections of Senate Concurrent Resolution 76 are:

Whereas, the original framers of the Constitution, including most notably, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, are known to have greatly admired the concepts, principles and governmental practices of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy; and,

Whereas the Confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one Republic was explicitly modeled upon the Iroquois Confederacy as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the Constitution itself....

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Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That:

(i) The Congress, on the occasion of the zooth Anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution, acknowledges the historical debt which this Republic of the United States of America owes to the Iroquois Confederacy and other Indian Nations for their demonstration of enlightened, democratic principles of government and their example of a free association of independent Indian nations. (United States Congress 1987)

The proceedings of the conference on "The Iroquois Great Law of Peace and the United States Constitution" held at Cornell University in September 1987 have been published under the title Indian Roots of American Democracy (Barreiro I988).

z For references to statements specifically referring to the influence of the Iro- quois League on United States political institutions I have relied heavily on Johansen's (I98z: 8-zo) survey. I attempt here no consideration of all the questionable interpretations of the data such authors as Johansen and Grinde make, or of the larger issues such handling of the material pose respecting the doing of historical studies.

3 These proceedings of the Lancaster treaty conference are also published in Colden (1747: sec. z, 87-15z) and in Provincial Council of Pennsylvania I851: 698-740. The journal of the secretary of the Maryland commissioners has also been published (Marshe I80i).

In the light of later events it might be suspected that Franklin invented the part of Canasatego's speech here quoted and inserted it into the proceedings of the Lancaster conference he published. I think not. Franklin was a well- known hoaxer, and in fact Canasatego appears in two of his fabrications (Aldridge 1950; Adams I976). But in printing this (and other treaties) Franklin was not just publishing something that might entertain the populace but the official record of the conference. It does strain the imagination to suppose that Franklin's usual sure political sense should have abandoned him in this instance and have caused him to risk the ire of those present at the conference-not only the commissioners from Virginia and Maryland but also the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and Richard Peters, the provincial secretary (who attested to the copy Franklin printed)-by tampering with it in a manner that would only come to have significance many years later. Internal evidence- Governor Thomas's reply and the content of this reply-also indicate that it is not Franklin's invention.

The overriding matter of concern in I744, of course, was not indepen- dence but a better policy in respect to Indian affairs-as is evident in the opinions of Kennedy and Franklin quoted above. Since the issue was Indian policy, not independence, if Franklin had written it, it would have been in- terpreted in that context. Nor should it be forgotten that it was the war with France and its Indian allies that was on the minds of the colonists in 1744- scarcely a time to entertain thoughts of separation from England.

It also should not be forgotten that at the time the colonists viewed themselves as British subjects. As is evident in the Albany Plan of Union, union of the colonies was viewed as a kind of confederation under the Crown: the Albany plan proposed that the Crown appoint a "President-General" and that the colonies elect members of a "Grand Council." Some may have been thinking of independence at that time, but merely a union of colonies under

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the Crown would not achieve that purpose. Only after the success of the Revolution could the various earlier plans of union be seen as forerunners of the federal union. Jameson's (9gzo: 15-16) observation on a comparable claim -that of Dutch influence on the Constitution-is perhaps relevant here:

There have been a few who have even gone so far as to declare with great emphasis that our federal system and our habit of the written constitution, since the English did not have them, must have come to us from the Dutch. It is true that the seven Dutch provinces in I6zo were a confederation, and that that confederation had a written constitution. But surely there is a natural history of federal governments, wherein we see the operation of similar causes producing similar results, without the need of resorting to the hypothesis of imitation.

4 It might seem that Parker's (1916) The Constitution of the Five Nations is such a document. But neither the Newhouse version or the chiefs' version (earlier published by Duncan Campbell Scott, I9Iz) printed in this volume discusses political ideas in the abstract. Further, the Newhouse version, the one most frequently cited, is seriously flawed and was rejected on several occasions by the chiefs' council (see especially Fenton 1968 and Weaver 1984). Both versions are essentially codifications of the tradition of the founding of the Iroquois League and of the political organization of the League.

5 For references that confirm Morgan's account as well as a more detailed summary of the structure of the League see Tooker 1978.

The key to the structure of the League is the Roll Call of the Chiefs, and it was Morgan's discovery of that Roll Call while on his first field trip to the Tonawanda Seneca Reservation in the fall of 1845 that opened to him an understanding of how that structure worked. Subsequent to Morgan's study and independent of it, others have published this list of chiefs. These vary slightly from one another, but in no significant respect, and it is for this reason, in part, that ethnographers are inclined to trust Morgan's account and not to view other, later ones as a mere copy of it.

The fifty name-titles on the Roll Call of the Chiefs are the fifty positions, that is, seats, on the League council. And since these same seats are listed on the Roll Calls of both Iroquois now living in New York State and those now living in Canada, they almost certainly existed before these two Iroquois groups separated in 1784.

6 Sometimes said to be forty-eight or forty-nine, because one sachemship is not filled and two others are regarded by some to be a single sachemship. The past tense is used here for convenience only; something of the League still continues to function. The term clan is used here in its technical anthropological sense.

7 The clan mother could also "dehorn" a chief (take away his symbolic horns of office) by taking away his name and giving it to another man. This power of some Iroquois women has contributed to the notion that Iroquois society was a "matriarchy." But it should be noted that women did not have the right to speak in council, and therefore could not participate directly in the decision-making process.

8 There is a similar lack of resemblance between the forms of government contained in the Albany Plan of Union (see note 3) and in the Articles of Confederation to that of the Iroquois League.

9 It is somewhat curious that Richter, who otherwise tends to dismiss the nineteenth- and twentieth-century ethnographic accounts, should choose to

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Elisabeth Tooker

give so much weight to the Condolence ceremony. It is clear, I believe, that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Condolence ceremony was a kind of swearing-in or installation ceremony for new members of the League council. Before the business of the council could be taken up it was necessary to know what men were to replace those who had died since the last meeting; this was accomplished at the Condolence ceremony, customarily the first order of business of the League council. By Morgan's time, the League council had far less business to transact than it earlier had, and it seems to have met infre- quently if at all. The Iroquois, however, felt it necessary to have such sachem chiefs in place, and consequently continued to raise them up. (Reports on the proceedings of three such Condolence councils-those held in 1845, 1847, and 1848-are preserved in the Morgan papers in the University of Rochester Library; see, for example, Tooker 1988.) This practice has continued in the twentieth century, and for reason. The councils governing the Onondaga and the Tonawanda Seneca reservations are composed of their respective tribes' sachem chiefs and these chiefs' subchiefs, necessitating the continued perfor- mance of the Condolence ceremony. By default the Condolence ceremony has become the principal business of the League and is sometimes so reported in the ethnographic literature. (On the Six Nations Reserve in Canada a League council separate from that in the United States served as the governing body of the reserve until 19z4, and the Condolence ceremony served as the installa- tion ceremony for these chiefs.)

Richter, I suspect, was led to this dubious conclusion-that the Grand Council of the League existed merely to preserve the "Great Peace" through the forms of the Condolence ritual, a ritual that includes the "ceremonial Words of Condolence and exchanges of ritual gifts" (now the latter involves only the passing and return of a set of strings of wampum)-by a failure to grasp the reality of unanimity in Indian political life, not only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also today among some Indians, including some Iroquois. He is thus led to contend that previous students of the Iroquois League have confounded "two related but distinct phenomena": what he terms the "League"-"a cultural and ritual institution" that "is undeniably old, relatively unchanging, and very much alive to the present day"-with what he terms the "Confederacy"--"a political and diplomatic entity" that "virtually ceased to exist" during the American Revolution (Richter I987: II-iz).

The Condolence ceremony, however, is not held now for merely ritual or cultural reasons involving the "Great Peace" as Richter supposes, but for practical political ones. League chiefs are still raised up either because they constitute the governing council of a reservation (as they do on the Onondaga and the Tonawanda Seneca reservations and as they did until I9z4 on the Six Nations Reserve) or because some faction wishes to reestablish the League council as a legitimate governing body. And if the League as "a political and diplomatic entity" seems to have "virtually ceased to exist" during the War of Independence, it is because after that war the political situation changed. After the Revolution, the Iroquois found themselves divided, roughly half in the United States and half in Canada, each with its own set of League chiefs, facing two militarily superior powers, the Americans in the United States and the British in Canada. To the degree that the Iroquois could no longer control events in the Northeast, coordinated activities of the Iroquois became superflu- ous and councils involving all the Iroquois of little consequence. Among those Iroquois who remained in their own homelands, now within the territorial

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limits of the United States, each nation continued to decide matters of interest to the nation, most notably sale of their lands; over time it became largely the right of each reservation to decide matters of interest to those "belonging"- as the Iroquois say-to that reservation.

Io I have more fully discussed some aspects of this question in Tooker I98I. 11 As William N. Fenton has suggested to me, this press release was undoubt-

edly written by Thomas R. Henry, who was press writer for the Smithsonian Institution and concurrently science writer for the Washington Evening Star. At the time, Henry wrote a thrice-weekly science column for the Star, but this press release was neither mentioned in his column nor published by the Star, although Henry later quoted extensively from it in his book Wilderness Messiah: The Story of Hiawatha and the Iroquois (Henry 1955: zz6-z8).

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