A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
BY GREGORY SCHAAF, PH.D.
From the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the opportunity to create and to establish a new government challenged people to search for the roots of democracy. One of the little-known secrets of the Founding Fathers is the fact that they discovered a democratic model not in Great Britain, France, Italy or any of the so-called “cradles of civilization.” Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and others found the oldest participatory democracies on earth among the American Indians.
Representatives of the U.S. Congress met privately with ambassadors from the Rotinonshonni Six Nations Confederacy, as well as the Lenni Lanape, “Grandfathers” of the Algonquian family of nations. For centuries these American Indian People were governed by democratic principles. Through wampum diplomacy, their traditional philosophy of liberty was advanced in a series of peace talks focused on the law of the land, the balance of power and inherent rights of the people.
American Indian Agent George Morgan and others served as intermediaries in these talks. His role as a diplomat demanded an intimate knowledge of the cultures, social structures and governments of the American Indians. He traveled safely through Indian communities and met with Indian leaders of frontier democracies. He witnessed societies where people were endowed with the right to speak freely, the right to assemble, religious freedom, as well as the separation of governmental powers into three branches.
A system of checks and balances was firmly in place like the branches of the great “Tree of Peace” among the Rotinonshonni, “People of the longhouse”. The United States government was structured surprisingly similar to their Grand Council.
The Onondaga, led by Tadadaho the Firekeeper at the heart of the Confederacy, paralleled the presidency of the U.S. executive branch. Their legislative branch was divided into two parts, the Mohawk and Seneca, united as Elder Brothers, formed the Upper house of the traditional Senate, the Oneida and Cayuga, composed the Younger Brothers, similar to the House of Representatives.
After meeting with representatives of the Six Nations in the summer of 1754, Benjamin Franklin first proposed the creation of a colonial Grand Council in the “Albany Plan of Union.”
“One General Government may be formed in America…administered by a president General…and a Grand Council to be chosen by the representatives of the people of the several colonies…”
Franklin’s plan for a Grand Council of United Colonies clearly resembled the Grand Council of the united Rotinonshonni.
Why did the Founding Fathers choose to keep secret the original design of the United States government? One clue may be related to a major difference between Iroquoian vs. U.S.’s judicial branches. The Iroquoian ‘supreme court’ was entrusted to the women. Clan Mothers and Women’s Councils maintained a balance of power in their matrilineal society. Women nominated chief statesmen as political and religious leaders, lending a maternal insight into good leadership qualities. Their standards were set very high. While under the U.S. Constitution, qualifications of Congressmen were limited to age, citizenship and residency. Iroquoian women moreover required:
All royaneh (Chief Statesman) of the Five Nations must be honest in all things. They must not be idle of gossip, but be men possessing those honorable qualities…Their hearts shall be full of peace and goodwill and their minds filled with a yearning for the welfare of the people of the Confederacy…
Women also held the power to impeach any leader who failed – after three warnings - to serve the best interests of the people. If the Founding Fathers had disclosed the political powers of many Indian women, perhaps women like Abigail Adams, wife of future President John Adams, could have effectively assumed positions as “Founding Mothers”. White women could have argued they deserved, at least, equal rights with American Indian Women.
On behalf of the people, women preserved title to the land through families and clans. This may be another facet of the Iroquoian system, which some Founding Fathers may have preferred not to make public. In contrast, women in the United States were not permitted the right to own land, nor even to vote, much less have control over the system of justice. Iroquoian women also maintained a sort of veto power to stop wars. If women across the land had known the truth about the power of Indian women, the call for equal rights could have been heard earlier, and American history might have changed over the past two hundred years.
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