Believe what you want. Good luck!

NATIVE AMERICAN TEN COMMANDMENTS

REMAIN CLOSE TO THE GREAT SPIRIT

TREAT THE EARTH AND ALL THAT DWELL THEREON WITH RESPECT

SHOW GREAT RESPECT FOR YOUR FELLOW BEINGS

WORK TOGETHER FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND

GIVE ASSISTANCE AND KINDNESS WHEREVER NEEDED

DO WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE RIGHT

LOOK AFTER THE WELL-BEING OF MIND AND BODY

DEDICATE A SHORE OF YOUR EFFORTS TO THE GREATER GOOD

BE TRUTHFUL AND HONEST AT ALL TIMES

TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS




ALTHOUGH I KNOW I AM OF NATIVE AMERICAN DESCENT, I AM UNAWARE OF THE HISTORY OF MY FAMILY. HOWEVER I FEEL THE POWER OF MY ANCESTRY IN MY BLOOD. I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DRAWN TO NATIVE AMERICAN ART, MUSIC AND CULTURE. I HOPE YOU WILL ENJOY THIS PAGE AS MUCH AS I HAVE ENJOYED CREATING IT.



CHEROKEE PRAYER

"CREATOR GAVE YOU TWO EARS...
AND ONE MOUTH...
SO YOU CAN LISTEN,
TWICE AS MUCH,
AS YOU SPEAK."

OH GREAT SPIRIT, WHO MADE ALL RACES, LOOK KINDLY UPON THE WHOLE HUMAN FAMILY AND TAKE AWAY THE ARROGANCE AND HATRED WHICH SEPARATES US FROM OUR BROTHERS...

Yeah whatever, I am not interested in people who attempt to garnish sympathy by misconstruing the clear intentions of others. Seeya.

NATIVE AMERICAN TEN COMMANDMENTS

REMAIN CLOSE TO THE GREAT SPIRIT

TREAT THE EARTH AND ALL THAT DWELL THEREON WITH RESPECT

SHOW GREAT RESPECT FOR YOUR FELLOW BEINGS

WORK TOGETHER FOR THE BENEFIT OF MANKIND

GIVE ASSISTANCE AND KINDNESS WHEREVER NEEDED

DO WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE RIGHT

LOOK AFTER THE WELL-BEING OF MIND AND BODY

DEDICATE A SHORE OF YOUR EFFORTS TO THE GREATER GOOD

BE TRUTHFUL AND HONEST AT ALL TIMES

TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS

Tribo, Im sorry but I will just need to read your article and respond by private.

hey K, that was me that got hold of the moderators BB, i dont want any fighting on this post, i told them to delete the last 2 pages which they have not yet, i want this to be like the wiccan post were there is harmony and love and understanding and peace ok? no offence intended and i apologize but i told you to take it somewhere else remember? so again first people stuff only - thnx.

Agreed. I know you mentioned something to him also. Its done. No harm done. Peace.

did you read the stuff i posted about the chinese coming to america ??

3) When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.

Cree Prophecy

3) When all the trees have been cut down,
when all the animals have been hunted,
when all the waters are polluted,
when all the air is unsafe to breathe,
only then will you discover you cannot eat money.

Cree Prophecy

SAVAGERY TO "CIVILIZATION"
THE INDIAN WOMEN: We whom you pity as drudges
reached centuries ago the goal that you are now nearing
The use of Indian women to provide an exemplar of feminist liberty continued into the nineteenth century. On May 16, 1914, only six years before the first national election in which women had the vote, Puck printed a line drawing of a group of Indian women observing Susan B. Anthony, Anne Howard Shaw and Elizabeth Cady Stanton leading a parade of women. A verse under the print read:

"Savagery to Civilization"
We, the women of the Iroquois
Own the Land, the Lodge, the Children
Ours is the right to adoption, life or death;
Ours is the right to raise up and depose chiefs;
Ours is the right to representation in all councils;
Ours is the right to make and abrogate treaties;
Ours is the supervision over domestic and foreign policies;
Ours is the trusteeship of tribal property;
Our lives are valued again as high as man's. [67]




Figure 38, from Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,
Chp.11, "The Persistence of an Idea, Impressions of Iroquois liberty after the eighteenth century"





On the Web:

RACISM & STEREOTYPING:

The Affects On Our Children
On Our Future

By (Kanatiyosh@aol.com)

(Onondaga/Mohawk)

Where do the seeds of racism and the general public's tolerance for stereotyping Native American peoples begin? Children are born, at least I am told by social scientists, with purity, with no predetermined hate of others. Therefore, one can conclude that children learn hatred, racism, and stereotyping, but the question still remains where do these seeds of hate begin, and what can we all do to stop them from growing into dried-up tumbleweeds?

As a child, I grew up within a traditional Native American extended family with my grandmother as my primary role model. My grandmother's traditional Haudenosaunee stories and cultural wisdom passed on to me many lessons of morality. In many ways, as I look back now, I understand her ways of teaching more each day and her voice and lessons still reach out to me during my times of struggle to guide me with her words of the past to take the right road. I worry that today's children are not getting these seeds of morality properly planted within their beings. Today's economy, in the United States, is so bad that both parents have to work just to make ends meet, which is causing many children to have to grow-up fast and raise themselves. Many children are not being given the daily lessons of morality and are not having their seeds of love and compassion watered.

In other words, today's world is much too focused on the individual, when it should be more concerned with our children, for they are our future. If we do not teach our children that racism and stereotyping is unacceptable, then we have failed.

As I look back at my grandmother, I realize that she was a victim of racism and taught self-hatred, for as a very young child she was made to feel sub-human and to hate the things that made her different from other children. Not only was she told, on a daily basis, that she was a no good dirty Indian, but she was purposely shown that her ethnicity was not equal to dominant society. My grandmother was taught that the baby doll with blue-eyes and blonde hair was beautiful, but when she looked in the mirror as a young child she saw her ethnic features. My grandmother saw her long dark black hair and almond shaped eyes set in a face with very high cheekbones, which was very different from the blue-eyed baby doll. My grandmother's self image was greatly affected by this blatant racism that was imposed upon her by those who used the blue-eyed baby doll to teach Indian children that they were not equal to whites.

On the other hand, my friend who is Apache told me that as a child her mother would only allow her to play with ethnic dolls, and that she really wanted to have blue-eyed baby doll. What lessons can we learn from my friend and grandmother's experience?

I think that we need to give our children dolls that represent all the races and teach them that they are all beautiful. If we can teach this equality, then they will retain a positive self-image and a positive image of people who look different than them selves.

Of course giving dolls of all races to one's child is not going to solve the seeds of racism from being planted because children are influenced from outside the family by peers, the school system, team mascots, and by the media; but, it may be a beginning. My premise is that the seeds of love and compassion need to be planted in our children so that they will reject the seeds of racism and stereotyping.

As a child, in Kindergarten the class was asked to participate in projects that were supposed to teach us about Indians. Some of the projects included cutting out of paper eagle feathers and then pasting them into an Indian headdress, which was a western style war bonnet. The class was also asked to learn Indian songs and dances. I was asked to pump my hand over my mouth in a mocking war hoop, to dance around like I had ants in my pants, and to sing the song "Ten Little Indians".

I remember feeling badly. I remember rejecting these class projects, which were reflected in notes that were sent home to my mother about how I did not participate well with others in class projects. I felt like the teacher and the students were making fun of my, Indian people and our ways. This experience made me feel like I was different and unusual, and it made me angry because it was a mockery of my spirituality and way of life.

As I look back, the teacher was very insensitive to the fact that there are numerous Indian Nations and that each one has major differences in clothing, spirituality, etc. Having children make a western style war bonnet, without explaining that not all Indians wear Plains style war bonnets, teaches children to stereotype that all Indians wear this type of headdress, which is not true. For example, my people, the Haudenosaunee wear a Kastoweh, which is a feathered hat that has a certain number of eagle feathers depending on which nation the wearer is from. Furthermore, this project fails to teach children that eagle feathers are sacred to Indian people and that they are earned and worn in special ceremonies to feed the spirit of the feather, to communicate with the Creator, and to keep the wearer safe.

The dancing failed to teach the children that dancing is a spiritual undertaking, for when one dances they are dancing for the Creator. Of course there are social dances, but children should be taught that there is a difference between sacred dances and social dances and that each Indian Nation has unique styles of dance along with some shared dances.

Asking children to sing "Ten Little Indians" is pure racism. The song is an Indian annihilation song that the Pioneers sang to their children to sooth their fears. If you remember the song, they count up and then they count backwards until there is only one Indian boy left. Today most people do not even know about the hidden message of eradicating the Indian people in the song; however, this song still plants seeds of racism and stereotyping in the minds of our children. This song must be stopped from its use in schools today!

When my kindergarten teacher showed the class how to war hoop like an Indian she was further stereotyping Indian people as being war like, and she was embedding the seeds of racism by having children think that Indians are savages. The image of the Indian pumping one hand over their mouth while the other hand is clasping a war club is a very common Indian stereotype, which needs to be stopped in our schools. I can remember teachers, in later grades, telling the class to stop running around like a bunch of wild Indians, as I sat quietly at my desk. I remember how these stinging words made me feel, for it hurt my self-image and my feelings. These careless racist words also need to be swept out of the school systems and from home use, for it plants the seeds of racism in our children's minds.

There is a book that has the premise that we learn all we need to learn in Kindergarten. If the premise is true, then my kindergarten experience shows how the seeds of racism and stereotyping can be planted in the minds of our children. If the seeds of racism are planted in our children's mind from a very earlier age, then they are definitely re-enforced by schools, sports teams, and mascots. Racism is further enforced by society's tolerance for the offensive marketing of Native American people and culture. There are sports team with derogatory names like the Redskins, which as Charlene Teeters points out, the name refers to the scalping practice of the English who were paid for every Indian scalp collected. There are mascots like the Cleveland Indian's Chief Wahoo, which has been describe by Indian activists as a ginning idiot resembling the early Black Sambo. Another Mascot that is offensive to many Indian people if Chief Illinick, who wears a plains style war bonnet, while jumping around war hooping like he has ants in his pants, much like my Kindergarten class did many years ago. Another offensive marketing scheme is using the name of spiritual leaders to sell their alcohol products. There is Big Foot wine and Crazy Horse Malt liquor. Crazy Horse was a Lakota spiritual leader who was opposed to alcohol consumption, yet Hornell Brewing Co. uses name to sell malt liquor.

Dominant society preaches tolerance; however, one does not see a Mother Teresa Tequila or a Martin Luther Malt Liquor and one must question why? One reason is because society would not tolerate such use, for they would effect change by boycotting or other methods of public outrage. So I ask why does society tolerate the use when it comes to Native Americans?

Native American activists become quite upset, and rightly so, when the First Amendment's free speech doctrine is used as a shield to protect the interests of the corporations that use stereotypes that are racist towards Native American Indians. Such was the case in Hornell Brewing v. Brady, 819 F.Supp. 1227 (E.D.N.Y. 1993), in which Hornell Brewing challenged the constitutionality of the Congressional Act Pub. L. 102-393, Sec 633, which banned "the use of the name Crazy Horse on any distilled spirit, wine, or malt liquor beverage product." In essence, the court found that Hornell's first Amendment right was violated by the act. However, when Native American people have to bear more of the weight and burden then others, for the furtherance of free speech, then it is unfair, and furthers racism towards Native American Indians.

If children are taught at an early age that it is ok to mock and stereotype Indians, when they become in the position to change policy concerning the offensive use of Native American Indians and culture, is it any wonder why they don't see such use as racism and stereotyping? What I propose is that we look for the seeds of racism in dominant society and we destroy them by replacing these vile seeds. We need to replace the seeds of racism with seeds of morality, compassion, love, and mutual respect, which is found in our traditional teachings, so that are children and future my blossom.



And it continues on ad infinitum - will we ever learn?

Hiding Genocide: The National Museum Of
The American Indian
by Carter Camp, Ponca Nation
December 6, 1999

Seems we rez-based Indians always are slow to react to events taking place in Washington D.C., by the time we wake up the damage is done. The new "Redskins" stadium is one place we could have made a stand if we were serious about the mascot issue. Another cultural rip-off being foisted on our people is the National Museum of American Indian going up in D.C.. I once warned about about it in a letter carried by Indian Country Today in the early nineties, but a small voice is easily drowned out when millions of dollars are being spent and the voice of the GreatWhiteFather anoints Indian leaders.

For a decade or more the Smithsonian fundraising machine has gone merrily along, draining much needed funds away from the Indian community and diverting Americas attention away from the economic, cultural and legal devastation going on across our homelands. Our leaders are grinning and shuffling into line to endorse another whitemans dream, and our artists and writers can't seem to wait for a grant, the ultimate pat on the head from the hand of power.

Am I the only Indian who doesn't trust the graverobbing Smithsonian or who questions the basic premise of the use of this unique space on the National Mall?

The only good thing I can see coming from this place is it probably will have an Indian-artist designed front entrance, properly blessed by a medicine man, that we can use to protest the various acts of genocide as they are carried out and we ourselves become artifacts. Just what we Indians need, a museum to celebrate our "disappearance" (albeit with a nod to our survivance) before we're quite dead! All is normal in Indian Country.

Once upon a time there were two open spaces for museums on the National Mall. African Americans coveted a space as did Hispanic, Jewish and Native Americans. Many interest groups, from Veterans to the D.A.R., also wanted the rare spaces. Congress in its wisdom awarded one site to a very politically powerful (and deserving) Jewish applicant and another to the very politically powerful Smithsonian Institution, their 'keeper of the loot.'

Then the "fool the Indian" process began and it proved to be very easy. Just put an Indian face on it (out of the vast Smithsonian collection) and it magically becomes an "Indian" project. With a shamans wave, shape changes and crypt-worms become our friends, close enough to be Indian-endorsed as keepers of our precious past and tellers of our history.

Is it merely my imagination that over the generations of conquest and looting, enumerating and studying, digging and classifying, collecting and recording, the Smithsonain might have learned and be USING our own sacred secrets to blind our leaders to the real plan? What else explains the lack of a desenting voice as our leaders and artists shamble all in a line?

Indians stand REDLY in the way of the American dream. For centuries Americans have dreamed we are "vanishing" and have tried hard to make it true. The Smithsonian was created to enclose us in their white past and to chronicle our demise, what medicine has made them our friends? Where has Coyote been lately?

Contrast the two new museums and you can see how they are used to support a conquerors, cleansed view of history: For the Jewish museum no thought at all was given to using it to show the world ancient Jewish culture and artifacts. They could have displayed scenes of ancient Jewish life - hunting, tanning hides and pastoral living. Like an Indian museum. It would have been beautiful and easy for people to enjoy. It wasn't done that way for one reason...The Jewish people were in charge and they decided for themselves what aspect of their history to show the world. They decided with one voice to use the rare space as a shield to protect their people against a repeat of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish politicians funded and protected Jewish intellectuals, artists, historians, Rabbis and survivors as they crafted a way to commemorate their dead and to use their past to protect their future. They refused to allow the dreams of others to distort the truth of their horror, and now their museum is a powerful testament to a Jewish dream, not a gentile revision of reality.

Our space, and the worlds window to our Nations, was turned over to the Smithsonian Institution to enshrine the lie of 'manifest destiny' and the historical inevitability of the American Holocaust. Americas museums have always been a prime purveyor of the big lies of American history, now the largest and worst is given an army of non-Indian historians, anthros, romance writers and a couple of Indian scouts, to define us to the world.

THEY decided with one voice NOT to use our rare and precious space as a shield of truth against the American Holocaust, or to prevent the conclusion of its evil purpose against my people. We still die, our sacred sites still are paved over, our dead dug up, our children stolen and mis-educated. Missionaries search the jungle for the last of us. It hurts me to think about the many atrocities we may have been able to prevent had we Indian traditionalists, (for whom the American Holocaust still burns freshly) been able to tell a true history of our own people. I envy my Jewish relatives for serving their people so well. Our Indian leaders have seen fit to sell our history so the Whiteman can bend it to fit the myth they use to avoid histories judgement... Better for tourism in Washington D.C. too.

The Indian artifacts to be displayed in Washington and New York would be much better displayed by the people they were stolen from (or bought, same thing) upon their own reservations and homelands. If Americans want to know about my Tribe, the Ponca, they should learn from us, here at our home, they might invigorate our economy and begin to see us as Poncas and not "Indians." By coming here they might realize that after 500 years, vanishing is no longer an option.

The dispersal of the Smithsonian collections back to the Tribes would benefit our children the most. They would realize the artistry and beauty of their peoples history and the value of their Nations. They would come to understand that the years since white contact have been only a short, ugly wart on the beautiful history of our people. It would give them faith that one day we will pass back into beauty. Artifacts in Washington DC are dead, cut-off relics in nothingness. At home they are freed from limbo and recharged with life and need. Even Artifacts need to be Ponca or Navajo or Makah.

Americans sensibilities will have been spared at the cost of continuing depredations against Indian people. Americans will go to the Holocaust Museum and be told the horrible truths of what Hitler and the Nazi's did to the Jews. They will cry for the victims and mourn with the survivors, in the end they too will be determined to protect the Jewish people from a repeat of the Holocaust. All thinking people support this. They will also be comforted (and exempted) to know that America defeated the Nazi, stopped the killing and helped Jews return to their homeland.

Next, Americans can walk over to the museum of 'Indian' history. They will be amazed and pleased at the beauty of our past. Scenes of tipis, tanning hides and pastoral living will hide the blood covering every-square-inch of America. Our blood. They will go home marveling at our ancient art and beauty and a little sad we had to pass into history because our buffalo suddenly "vanished." They may even feel a twinge of guilt at the part their ancestors played in our demise. But they will go away without seeing or knowing the "time of horror" each and every Tribe went through upon contact with the European. They will go home without realizing how much of the slaughter was an officially inspired, government planned, racist policy of genocide. They will not realize the depth of the crime committed so they will not understand the crimes being committed today or the need for reparations to heal the devastation. They will not understand that there were entire Societies for whom the "final solution" worked. Entire Tribes, as whole and complete as the the Jewish Tribes, were completely erased from mother earth. Their language will never be heard, their poetry, music, science and art is lost to the world, because they met a people who believed in their own, god given, superiority and the inferiority of all else. (The base cause of all genocide). They will go home without feeling the need to help Indian Nations secure their own homelands or becoming determined there never be another American Holocaust. Worst of all, they will go home not knowing that our people still suffer ongoing policies of genocide and attacks on our existance. Missionaries and Governments still work and plan to erase us from the face of our Mother Earth. Indian Country, from the Artic to Anartica, is still awash in the blood of our People.





)))))))Should American Indians be suspicious about the placement and content of these two Museums? Jew and "Indian?" Did it take some C.I.A. psy-war expert to figure out how best to ""cover-up"" the murder of over >>>>>200 million people?<<<<<< - (((((((






Will this museum, with a mere nod to the 500 year holocaust, stand as the permanent enshrinement of the American lie and the final resting place of Indian history? I believe there should be a holocaust museum on Americas National Mall in Americas Capitol city. But not one of the European disaster. It must be a Bright Red Museum of the American Holocaust! It must call the roll of entire Nations of beautiful people who succumbed to to the genocidal onslaught. "IT MUST BEGIN OUR TIME OF MOURNING BY ENDING OUR TIME OF FEAR."


TRIBO: 200 million indians, makes the nazi's sound like mother teresa's

The Guardian
by John Kahionhes Fadden
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The eagle is the guardian bird of the Haudenosaunee,
and is often seen in images as being above the Tree of Peace.



A Basic Call to Consciousness, The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World,
Geneva, Switzerland, Autumn 1977
What is presented here is nothing less audacious than a cosmogony of the Industrialized World presented by the most politically powerful and independent non-Western political body surviving in North America. It is, in a way, the modern world through Pleistocene eyes.
Scholars and casual readers alike should question the significance, in the age of the Neutron bomb, Watergate, and nuclear energy plant proliferation, of a statement by a North American Indian people. But there is probably some argument to be made for the appropriateness of such a statement at this time. Most of the world's professed traditions are fairly recent in origin. Mohammedanism is perhaps 1500 years old, Christianity claims a 2000-year history, Judaism is perhaps 2000 years older than Christianity.
But the Native people can probably lay claim to a tradition which reaches back to at least the end of the Pleistocene, and which, in all probability, goes back much further than that.
There is some evidence that humanoid creatures have been present on the earth for at least two million years, and that humans who looked very much like us were in evidence in the Northern Hemisphere at least as long as the second interglacial period. People who are familiar with the Hau de no sau nee beliefs will recognize that modern scientific evidence shows that the Native customs of today are not markedly different from those practiced by ancient peoples at least 70000 years ago. Indeed, if an Iroquois traditionalist were to seek a career in the study of Pleistocene Man, he may find that he already knows more about the most ancient belief systems than do the modern scholars.
Be that as it may, the Hau de no see nee position is derived from a philosophy which sees The People with historical roots which extend back tens of thousands of years. It is a geological kind of perspective, which sees modern man as an infant, occupying a very short space of time in an incredibly long spectrum. It is the perspective of the oldest elder looking into the affairs of a young child and seeing that he is committing incredibly destructive folly. It is, in short, the statement of a people who are ageless but who trace their history as a people to the very beginning of time. And they are speaking, in this instance, to a world which dates its existence from a little over 500 years ago, and perhaps, in many cases, much more recently than that.
And it is, to our knowledge, the very first statement to be issued by a Native nation. What follows are not the research products of psychologists, historians, or anthropologists. The papers which follow are the first authentic analyses of the modern world ever committed to writing by an official body of Native people.

-- from the Introduction





Figure 3. Peacemaker presents his vision. By John Kahionhes Fadden.
(from Chp.2, "Perceptions of America's Native Democracies", Exemplar of Liberty)





COMPLETE BOOK:
Exemplar of Liberty, Native America and the Evolution of Democracy,
by Donald A. Grinde, Jr. and Bruce E. Johansen, 1990


from the Introduction:
We believe that American history will not be complete until its indigenous aspects have been recognized and incorporated into the teaching of history. We have assembled here a mosaic of fact and opinion which, taken together, indicates that the objective of the contemporary debate should be to define the role Native American precedents deserve in the broader ambit of American history. . . . Our thesis holds that the character of American democracy evolved importantly (although, of course, not soley), from the examples provided by American Indian confederacies which ringed the land borders of the British colonies. These examples provided a reality, as well as exercise for the imagination -- and it is imagination, above all, that foments revolutions. In this book, we attempt to provide a picture of how these native confederacies operated, and how important architects of American institutions, ideals and other character traits perceived them. We operate as much as we are able from the historical record per se, relaying as much of original accounts as possible. . . .
We attempt to trace both events and ideas: life, liberty, happiness; government by reason and consent rather than coercion, religious toleration (and ultimately religious acceptance) instead of a state church; checks and balances, federalism; relative equality of property, equal rights before the law and the thorny problem of creating a government that can rule equitably across a broad geographic expanse. Native America had a substantial role in shaping all these ideas, as well as the events that turned colonies into a nation of states. In a way that may be difficult to understand from the vantage point of the late twentieth century, Native Americans were present at the conception of the United States. We owe part of our national soul to those who came before us on this soil.
As is the case with many histories, this book proceeds along a time line. Except for a few earlier premonitions, our historical study begins around 1600 with "Vox Americana," which summarizes early English and French traders', missionaries' and settlers' accounts of native political organization and attitudes toward liberty. "Perceptions of America's Native Democracies" continues this theme with brief descriptions of how Native American nations that bordered the British colonies ordered their affairs. "Natural Man in an Unnatural Land" examines the image of American Indian peoples in European popular culture in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; "Ennobling `Savages'" considers the degree to which the same image was reflected in the works of major French and British philosophers of the time. "Errand in the Wilderness" takes the story back across the Atlantic for a detailed study of Roger Williams's use of native precedents for political freedom and religious toleration. "The White Roots Reach Out" concentrates on the idea of federalism as seen through the eyes of Benjamin Franklin and mid-eighteenth century leaders of the Iroquois such as Canassatego and Hendrick (Tiyanoga), centering on the Albany Congress of 1754.
The revolutionary era begins with "Mohawks, Axes, and Taxes," an account of ways in which the image of the Indian was reflected in propaganda and popular art between 1763 and 1776. "A New Chapter" compares the images of native America as utilized by Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The timeline resumes once again in "An American Synthesis," which organizes events (between roughly 1775 and 1786) around the founding of the Sons of Saint Tammany, a patriotic organization succeeding the Sons of Liberty, which combined European and Native American ideas and motifs. "Kindling a New Grand Council Fire" continues the study into the constitutional period. "The Persistence of an Idea" traces references to native ideas in governance (particularly those of the Iroquois) through the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century and thus concludes our analysis.





Figure 10. "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 neighboring Nations. We are a powerful Confederacy; and by your observing the same methods, our wise forefathers have taken, you will acquire such Strength and power. Therefore, whatever befalls you, never fall out with one another." Canassatego, the great Iroquois chief, advising the assembled colonial governors on Iroquois concepts of unity in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1744.
Artwork by John Kahionhes Fadden.
(from Chp.6, "The White Roots Reach Out", Exemplar of Liberty)





COMPLETE BOOK:
Forgotten Founders, Benjamin Franklin,
the Iroquois and the Rationale for the American Revolution,
by Bruce E. Johansen, 1982; inside Book Jacket Book excerpts

New additional formats: PDF | ASCII text

from the Introduction:
This book has two major purposes. First, it seeks to weave a few new threads into the tapestry of American revolutionary history, to begin the telling of a larger story that has lain largely forgotten, scattered around dusty archives, for more than two centuries. By arguing that American Indians (principally the Iroquois) played a major role in shaping the ideas of Franklin (and thus, the American Revolution) I do not mean to demean or denigrate European influences. I mean not to subtract from the existing record, but to add an indigenous aspect, to show how America has been a creation of all its peoples.
In the telling, this story also seeks to demolish what remains of stereotypical assumptions that American Indians were somehow too simpleminded to engage in effective social and political organization. No one may doubt any longer that there has been more to history, much more, than the simple opposition of "savagery" and "civilization." History's popular writers have served us with many kinds of savages, noble and vicious, "good Indians" and "bad Indians," nearly always as beings too preoccupied with the essentials of the hunt to engage in philosophy and statecraft.
This was simply not the case. Franklin and his fellow founders knew differently. They learned from American Indians, by assimilating into their vision of the future, aspects of American Indian wisdom and beauty. Our task is to relearn history as they experienced it, in all its richness and complexity, and thereby to arrive at a more complete understanding of what we were, what we are, and what we may become.

from Chapter 3, Our Indians Have Outdone the Romans:
The Iroquois' extension of liberty and political participation to women surprised some eighteenth-century Euro-American observers. An unsigned contemporary manuscript in the New York State Library reported that when Iroquois men returned from hunting, they turned everything they had caught over to the women. "Indeed, every possession of the man except his horse & his rifle belong to the woman after marriage; she takes care of their Money and Gives it to her husband as she thinks his necessities require it," the unnamed observer wrote. The writer sought to refute assumptions that Iroquois women were "slaves of their husbands." "The truth is that Women are treated in a much more respectful manner than in England & that they possess a very superior power; this is to be attributed in a very great measure to their system of Education." The women, in addition to their political power and control of allocation from the communal stores, acted as communicators of culture between generations. It was they who educated the young.
Another matter that surprised many contemporary observers was the Iroquois' sophisticated use of oratory. Their excellence with the spoken word, among other attributes, often caused Colden and others to compare the Iroquois to the Romans and Greeks.

COMPLETE living BOOK:
Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy:
An Annotated Bibliography, by Bruce E. Johansen
Updated to November 12, 1997 (reflecting the author's continued gathering of citations).
Since 1992, I have kept a bibliography of commentary on assertions that the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) and other Native American confederacies helped shape ideas of democracy in the early United States. By 1995, the bibliography had reached roughly 455 items from more than 120 books, as well as newspaper articles and book reviews numbering in the hundreds, academic journals, films, speeches, documentaries, and other sources. The bibliography was assembled with the help of friends, as well as searches of libraries and book stores, and personal involvement in various skirmishes of the debate. The number of references exploded during 1995 because I began to search several electronic databases.
Before I explored these databases, I had been acquainted with the spread of the idea on a more personal level, especially through debates in academia that have been chronicled with Donald A. Grinde, Jr. in Akwe:kon Journal (now Native Americas) and the American Indian Culture & Research Journal (1993.014, 1990.002). Now, I was watching the idea take on an animus of its own, detached from its scholarly moorings. As the debate expanded in popular consciousness, a grand cacophony of diverse voices debated the type of history with which we will enter a new millennium on the Christian calendar. . . .
Despite its caricature as a horror story of "political correctness" and the jarring nature of some of the debate over the issue, the idea that Native American confederacies are an important early form of democracy has become established in general discourse. History is made in many ways, by many people; the spread of the idea that Native American confederacies (especially the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) helped shape the intellectual development of democracy m the United States and Europe is an example of how our notions of history have been changing with the infusion of multicultural voices. It is fascinating to watch the change in all its forms -- and the debate over the issue in all its cacophonous variety. This bibliography comprises the "field notes" of my journey.

-- from the Preface

Reaching the Grassroots:
The World-wide Diffusion of Iroquois Democratic Traditions
by Bruce Johansen, April 2002
A new "influence" summary:
Immigrants from Europe often have borrowed from native peoples, embraced this knowledge as their own, and then forgotten its origins. Meanwhile, the prevailing assumptions of the "winners'" histories condemn Native Americans as primitive and brutish. The reconstruction of history in its true complexity takes some work, since it often runs counter to the heavy weight of well-established assumptions.

So it has been in the evolution of democracy, [Richard] Williams [executive director of the American Indian College Fund] believes: "The political structure of the great Iroquois Confederacy served as a model for democracy among the founding fathers, who wrote the Constitution based on `we the people,' something unheard of in the aristocratic, feudal societies of Europe. In fact, there is no word for `I' in any American Indian language, which was a profound concept to the framers who closely studied the tribes' customs, government and culture."

Haudenosaunee Faithkeeper, Chief Oren Lyons
addressing delegates to the United Nations Organization
opened "The Year of the Indigenous Peoples" (1993)
in the United Nations General Assembly Auditorium,
United Nations Plaza, New York City, December 10, 1992.
This is (verbatim) that opening statement:




For all of us. I am Oren Lyons, Hau de no sau nee, and speaking on behalf of the Indigenous People of North America, this Great Turtle Island. Mr. President, distinguished delegates, Chiefs, Clan Mothers, Leaders and Members of the World's Indigenous Nations and Peoples, we thank you, The General Assembly, for the recognition and the proclamation of "1993, The International Year of the Indigenous Peoples," for the theme of, "Indigenous Peoples, a New Partnership." We thank Madam Chairman Repal Chur (sp?) of the Working Group for Indigenous Populations for consistent, enthusiastic support, and Diaz. And at this time, we recognize the inspiration and spiritual force of Augusto Williamson Diaz, for his vision of such a day as this, and our gratitude to those leaders of Indigenous Peoples and people who also had the vision of this day for our people, who put their blood, their sweat and their tears into this moment. And to those who are no longer here, our profound gratitude and appreciation.

This proclamation brings home inspiration and renewed dedication to our quest for self-determination, justice, freedom and peace in our Homelands and our Territories. Indeed, the quest is a renewal of what we enjoyed before the coming of our White Brothers from across the sea. We lived contentedly under the Gai Eneshah Go' Nah, The Great Law of Peace. We were instructed to create societies based on the principles of Peace, Equity, Justice, and the Power of Good Minds.

Our societies are based upon great democratic principles of the authority of the people and equal responsibilities for the men and the women. This was a great way of life across this Great Turtle Island and freedom with respect was everywhere. Our leaders were instructed to be men of vision and to make every decision on behalf of the seventh generation to come; to have compassion and love for those generations yet unborn. We were instructed to give thanks for All That Sustains Us.

Thus, we created great ceremonies of thanksgiving for the life-giving forces of the Natural World, as long as we carried out our ceremonies, life would continue. We were told that `The Seed is the Law.' Indeed, it is The Law of Life. It is The Law of Regeneration. Within the seed is the mysterious force of life and creation. Our mothers nurture and guard that seed and we respect and love them for that. Just as we love I hi do' hah, our Mother Earth, for the same spiritual work and mystery.

We were instructed to be generous and to share equally with our brothers and sisters so that all may be content. We were instructed to respect and love our Elders, to serve them in their declining years, to cherish one another. We were instructed to love our children, indeed, to love ALL children. We were told that there would come a time when parents would fail this obligation and we could judge the decline of humanity by how we treat our children.

We were told that there would come a time when the world would be covered with smoke, and that it would take our elders and our children. It was difficult to comprehend at the time, but now all we have to do is but to walk outside to experience that statement. We were told that there would come a time when we could not find clean water to wash ourselves, to cook our foods, to make our medicines, and to drink. And there would be disease and great suffering. Today we can see this and we peer into the future with great apprehension. We were told there would come a time when, tending our gardens, we would pull up our plants and the vines would be empty. Our precious seed would begin to disappear. We were instructed that we would see a time when young men would pace back and forth in front of their chiefs and leaders in defiance and confusion.

There are some specific issues I must bring forward on behalf of our Nations and Peoples.

North America. The issue of nuclear and toxic waste dumps on our precious lands; the policy of finding a place for the waste with the poorest and most defenseless of peoples today. This brings the issue of the degradation of our environment by these waste dumps, over-fishing, over-cutting of timber, and toxic chemicals from mining processes throughout our lands.

Treaty violations. We have with the United States and Canada 371 ratified Treaties and Agreements. The Ruby Valley Treaty of the Western Shoshone is a prime example of what the violation of treaties brings: human rights violations, forced removals, disenfranchisements of traditional people with confiscations of their property and livestock.

The refusal to recognize and support religious freedoms of our people and the decisions by the [U.S.] Supreme Court which incorporates this attitude into Federal Law. This translates into the violation of Sacred Sites. Mt. Graham in the Apache Country is now a project site for an observatory, causing great stress to the Apache People who have depended upon the spiritual forces of this mountain for survival. Ironically, a partner in this project is the Vatican. And even further, it has proposed to name this project `Columbus.'

The appropriation of our intellectual properties is continuous and devastating. Land is the issue. Land has always been the issue with Indigenous Peoples. Original title is a problem for all of you. We must try to reach an agreement on a more level playing field that allows us to, at least, a chance for survival.

Out brother, Leonard Peltier, has been too long in prison, In 1993, to signal a new attitude -- and what better than his release after 16 years -- symbolic of the exercise of dominion over our Peoples.

All this has come from across the seas. The catastrophes that we have suffered at the hands of our brothers from across the seas has been unremitting and inexcusable. It has crushed our people, and our Nations down through the centuries. You brought us disease and death and the idea of Christian dominion over heathens, pagans, savages. Our lands were declared `vacant' by Papal Bulls, which created law to justify the pillaging of our land.

We were systematically stripped of our resources, religions and dignity. Indeed, we became resources of labor for goldmines and canefields. Life for us was unspeakable, cruel. Our black and dark-skinned brothers and sisters were brought here from distant lands to share our misery and suffering and death.

Yet we survived. I stand before you as a manifestation of the spirit of our people and our will to survive. The Wolf, our Spiritual Brother, stands beside us and we are alike in the Western mind: hated, admired, and still a mystery to you, and still undefeated.

So then, what is the message I bring to you today? Is it our common future? It seems to me that we are living in a time of prophecy, a time of definitions and decisions. We are the generation with the responsibilities and the option to choose the The Path of Life for the future of our children. Or the life and path which defies the Laws of Regeneration.

Even though you and I are in different boats, you in your boat and we in our canoe, we share the same River of Life. What befalls me, befalls you. And downstream, downstream in this River of Life, our children will pay for our selfishness, for our greed, and for our lack of vision.

500 years ago, you came to our pristine lands of great forests, rolling plains, crystal clear lakes and streams and rivers. And we have suffered in your quest for God, for Glory, for Gold. But, we have survived. Can we survive another 500 years of "sustainable development?" I don't think so. Not in the definitions that put `sustainable' in today. I don't think so.

So reality and the Natural Law will prevail; The Law of the Seed and Regeneration. We can still alter our course. It is NOT too late. We still have options. We need the courage to change our values to the regeneration of our families, the life that surrounds us. Given this opportunity, we can raise ourselves. We must join hands with the rest of Creation and speak of Common Sense, Responsibility, Brotherhood, and PEACE. We must understand that the law is the seed and only as true partners can we survive.

On behalf of the Indigenous People of the Great Turtle Island, I give my appreciation and thanks. Dah ney' to. Now I am finished.





(Oren Lyons received a standing ovation and shouts of approval from Indian spectators.)

8


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A NEW CHAPTER

Images of native America in the
writings of Franklin, Jefferson,
and Paine



"[T]he Five Nations of Central New York . . . instituted a
form of democratic representative government before the
coming of the white man, that antedated the Confederation
of the Thirteen Colonies. The League of the Iroquois
was much in the minds of the colonial statesmen, Franklin
in particular, and others who met the "Romans of the New
World."


--William N. Fenton,
1939-41[1]



Happiness is more generally and equally diffus'd among
Savages than in civilized societies. No European who has
tasted savage life can afterwards bear to live in our
societies.


--Benjamin Franklin,
1770[2]



As the American colonists moved towards independence, the use of American Indian imagery became more widespread among the colonists. In December of 1775, John Hancock had welcomed a Delaware Chief to "this council fire, kindled for all the United Colonies," and members of the Continental Congress had heard Captain White Eyes (Delaware) refer to the Continental Congress as "the Grand Council Fire" in his reply. On New Year's Day, 1776, a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress, Robert Treat Paine, wrote a letter to a constituent referring to the Continental Congress as "the Grand Council Fire at Philadelphia."[3]
By 1776, Iroquois imagery was used not only in treatymaking but also as a pervasive idiom in American society. A few weeks after Paine's use of Iroquois imagery, John Adams (Paine's fellow delegate from Massachusetts) would have dinner with several Caughnawaga Mohawk chiefs and their wives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. George Washington and his staff also were present. Washington introduced Adams to the Mohawks chiefs as one of the members "of the Grand Council Fire at Philadelphia" and Adams noted in a letter to his wife that the Mohawks were impressed with Washington's introduction. Although it can be argued that George Washington and the Continental Congress used American Indian rhetoric and imagery to explain to Native American people the nature of the new American government, such an argument does not explain how such rhetoric begins to occur in Robert Treat Paine's private correspondence to Non-Indians. Actually, the ideas and symbols of Native America became important facets in the formation of a new American identity.[4]

In February of 1776, Benjamin Franklin began to design money for the emerging American nation and he used Iroquois Covenant Chain imagery in designing the new "Two[-]Thirds of a Dollar." The bill depicted an emblem of the Thirteen colonies interlocked in a continuous chain of unity. A motto asserted "American Congress, We are one." (See figure 30.) The same design would reappear on American coinage in 1787 when the founders began to wrestle with the idea of creating a new federal constitution. Indeed, the Grand Sachem of the Tammany society wore a silver chain with thirteen links throughout the period after the American Revolution. Such imagery symbolized union and the link between the Americans and the wisdom of the Iroquois.[5]








Figure 30. "Two Thirds of a Dollar." Continental currency of 17 February 1776. Designed by Benjamin Franklin, with chain imagery.




At this time, Adams became interested in formulating "constitutions for single colonies" and a "great model for Union for the whole." A few months later in April of 1776, Adams published his Thoughts on Government , which was intended as a handbook for the implementing of new American state and national constitutions as independence unfolded. Later, Adams would write in his Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States (1787) of the "precise" separation of powers that were present in American Indian nations on the eve of the creation of the United States Constitution. As with the earlier Thoughts on Government, the Defence was meant to be used as a handbook at the Constitutional Convention. American Revolutionaries like John Adams sought to retain their sacred "property rights" as Englishmen which they felt the British Crown was usurping through its taxation policies. Often, their rationales have been interpreted as "conservative" in order to thwart some of the objectives of more radical colonial politicians.[6]


In this environment with colonial Americans' passion for liberty about to break into revolution, Thomas Jefferson addressed the world as a political seer:

This whole chapter in the history of man is new. . . . Before the establishment of the American states, nothing was known to history but man of the old world, crowded within limits either small or overcharged and steeped in the vices which that situation generates. [7]

Anyone who believes the United States was molded primarily in Europe's image should listen to Benjamin Franklin, who so much embodied the spirit of America in Europe that he came to be called a "savage as philosopher."[8]

Whoever has traveled through the various parts of Europe, and observed how small is the proportion of the people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compared with those in poverty and misery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject, rack-rented, tythe-paying tenants, and half-paid and half-starved laborers; and view here [in America] the happy mediocrity that so generally prevails throughout these States, where the cultivator works for himself, and supports his family in decent plenty, will, methinks, see the evident and great difference in our favor.[9]

The assertion of an independent identity for America, and Americans, sometimes became almost messianic. Thomas Paine enthused: "We see with other eyes; we hear with other ears; we think with other thoughts, than those we formerly used."[10] Jefferson described the class structure of Europe as "hammer and anvil," horses and riders, and "wolves over sheep."[11] As a student of government, Jefferson found little ground less fertile than the Europe of his day. The political landscape of England was, to Jefferson, full of things to change, not emulate. Writing to John Adams, Jefferson said that force or corruption had been "the principle of every modern government, unless the Dutch perhaps be excepted." He continued:

I am sure you join me in the detestation of the corruption of the English government that no man of earth is more incapable than yourself of seeing that copied among us, willingly. I have been among those who have feared the design to introduce it here, and that has been a strong reason with me for wishing there was an ocean of fire between that island and us. [12]




On the same day that the Iroquois appeared in Congress and named John Hancock, plans for a confederation based on Franklin's Albany Plan of Union were formulated in committee. Twenty two years after the Albany Plan had been formulated with Iroquois advice, the image of the American Indian held by founders such as Franklin, Jefferson and Paine was helping shape the ideas that kindled the American revolution. Within a month, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence would demand the same rights for the colonists that prominent Americans, as well as European savants, had seen illustrated in the native
Jefferson repeated the same sentiment to the Earl of Buchan: "Bless the almighty being who, in gathering together the waters of the heavens, divided the dry land of your hemisphere from the dry land of ours."[13] Americans had not only encountered a new vision of society in their experience with American Indians but they also developed new concepts about land ownership that were quite different from their European ancestors.


During this time, two schools of political thought were emerging in the Continental Congress as to the nature of American government. While both schools agreed that the British should be defeated and expelled, there was no agreement as to what governmental system should be devised to replace the old order. One group (led by Samuel Adams) believed that the main business of Congress was to defeat the English and not to look toward the future. Another group (led by Franklin and Wilson) asserted that the creation of a new government must be simultaneous with the destruction of the old. Hence, a wide difference of opinion arose in the Continental Congress on how the business of the body should be conducted. Some members maintained that the legislative and executive powers assumed by Congress should be preserved without change.

Other members of the Congress believed that the unwieldy standing committee system should be modified so that an executive department outside of Congress could efficiently implement the resolutions of the legislative body. Any attempt to create an executive department smacked of monarchical tendencies, however, and would not be accepted. Samuel Adams, leader of the anti-monarchical group, brought his "town meeting" ideas with him to Philadelphia and insisted on their efficacy in national and local affairs. It would take time to iron out these differences and the Iroquois Confederacy would provide a viable model for those that argued that an executive need not be a king.[14]

In early 1776, Joseph Galloway, an ally of Franklin, suggested a plan of colonial union to restore harmony with England. Galloway's proposal was very similar to the Albany Plan of Union that Franklin had proposed in 1754(after consulting Cadwallader Colden's notes on the Iroquois and attending an Iroquois Condolence Ceremony in 1753). Those who supported Galloway's "olive branch" stalled on the issue of independence in the Second Continental Congress. The supporters of the Galloway Plan feared a lapse in governmental authority and wanted a plan for American union before Imperial authority was forsaken. To salve such fears, Richard Henry Lee's independence resolution of June 7, 1776 included a clause proposing a plan of confederation that would be transmitted to the colonies for debate.[15] During this time there were so many Indians coming to Philadelphia that Congress appointed a committee (headed by Roger Sherman) to "inquire into the cause that brings so many Indians . . . at present to Philadelphia."[16]

In the midst of this debate on government and independence, twenty-one Iroquois Indians came to meet with the Continental Congress in May of 1776. At the Albany Conference of 1775, the Iroquois had expressed concern about the nature of the executive in the Continental Congress. For over a month, the Iroquois would observe the operations of the Continental Congress and its president, John Hancock, as they lodged on the second floor of the Pennsylvania State House (later called Independence Hall), just above the chambers of the Continental Congress. On May 27, 1776, Richard Henry Lee reported that the American army had a parade of two to three thousand men to impress the Iroquois with the strength of the United States. "4 tribes of the Six Nations" viewed the parade, and Lee hoped "to secure the friendship of these people." Newspaper accounts stated that Generals Washington, Gates and Mifflin, "the Members of Congress . . . and . . . the Indians . . . on business with the Congress" reviewed the troops.[17]

On June 11, 1776 while the question of independence was being debated, the visiting Iroquois chiefs were formally invited into the meeting hall of the Continental Congress. There a speech was delivered, in which they were addressed as "Brothers" and told of the delegates' wish that the "friendship" between them would "continue as long as the sun shall shine" and the "waters run." The speech also expressed the hope that the new Americans and the Iroquois act "as one people, and have but one heart."[18] After this speech, an Onondaga chief requested permission to give Hancock an Indian name. The Congress graciously consented, and so the president was renamed "Karanduawn, or the Great Tree." (See figure 31.) With the Iroquois chiefs inside the halls of Congress on the eve of American Independence, the impact of Iroquois ideas on the founders is unmistakable. History is indebted to Charles Thomson, an adopted Delaware, whose knowledge of and respect for American Indians is reflected in the attention that he gave to this ceremony in the records of the Continental Congress.[19]








Figure 31. On June 11 1776, an Onondaga sachem gave John Hancock an Iroquois name at Independence Hall. By John Kahionhes Fadden.




On the same day that the Iroquois appeared in Congress and named John Hancock, plans for a confederation based on Franklin's Albany Plan of Union were formulated in committee. Twenty two years after the Albany Plan had been formulated with Iroquois advice, the image of the American Indian held by founders such as Franklin, Jefferson and Paine was helping shape the ideas that kindled the American revolution. Within a month, Jefferson's Declaration of Independence would demand the same rights for the colonists that prominent Americans, as well as European savants, had seen illustrated in the native peoples' "natural societies."
Amid the meetings with the Iroquois and discussions of confederation that included native concepts of democracy, Adams wrote to his wife on July 10, 1776 that he wished he were

at perfect liberty to portray . . . the course of political changes in this province. It would give you a great idea of the spirit and resolution of the people, and shew you, in a striking point of view, the deep roots of American Independence in all the colonies. But it is not prudent, to commit to writing such free speculations, in the present state of things.

Time . . . [will take] away the veil, and lay open the secret springs of this surprising revolution. [20]

Adams referred to American Indian ideas of government rather reluctantly in 1776, but by 1787, on the eve of the creation of the United States Constitution, he would advocate "a more accurate investigation of the form of governments" of the Indians "while creating a new constitution."[21]

The following rules of Congress were passed on July 17, 1776, after the Iroquois sachems' visit to Congress; they appear to reflect some Iroquois ideas about the conduct of government.

Rule No. 3 No Member shall read any printed paper in the house during the sitting thereof, without the leave of Congress.
Rule No. 4 When the house is sitting, no member shall speak to another, so as to interrupt any member who may be speaking in the debate. [22]


Certainly, no such decorum was required in the British House of Commons to deal with the shouts and hoots of the "back benchers." American Indian observers of colonial assemblies had noted early that colonial legislative bodies lacked decorum and respect for the speakers that had the floor.[23]

In November and December of 1776, the Iroquois and Ohio Indian chiefs that had met with James Wilson and others at Fort Pitt in the Fall of 1775 visited Congress. Benjamin Rush (who seemed to have some previous experience with Iroquois imagery) related that

[t]hey were all introduced to Congress. They took each member by the hand, and afterwards sat down. One of them (after a pause of 10 minutes) rose up and addressed the Congress in the following words.

Rush then recorded the rhetoric of the Iroquois Condolence Ceremony, which was now being used in the halls of Congress.

Brothers[,] we received your commissioners at the little counsel fire at Fort Pitt. We wiped the sweat from your bodies. We cleansed the dirt from their ankles. We pulled the thorns from [their] feet. We took their staffs from their hands, and leaned them [against] the tree of peace, we took their belts from their waists, and conducted them to the seats of peace.[24]

This meeting held a special place in the memories of the members of Congress as did the earlier one with the Iroquois on the eve of the Declaration of Independence. After the American Revolution, Rush recalled another speech from that day that was also given by an Iroquois sachem:

During my attendance in Congress in Philadelphia, I had the pleasure of being present at an interview between some chiefs of the Six Nations and Congress in the hall in the State House. After a pause of about ten minutes one of the chiefs rose from his seat, and pointing to the Sun said "the business of this day will end well. Yonder Sun rose clear this morning. The great spirit is propitious to us."[25, emphasis added]

In his concluding remarks at the Constitutional Convention, Franklin invoked a similar image in order to impart his hopes for a propitious beginning for the United States constitution.[26]

While Ambassador to France during the American revolution, Franklin would discuss in the salons of Enlightenment philosophers "with great exactness" the ways of Indians and the "Politics of the Savages."[27] The French Enlightenment philosophers observed that Franklin believed American Indian ways more appropriate for the good life than were the manners of "civilized nations."[28] Pierre Jean George Cabanis noted that in Franklin's discussions among the philosophes (which included Cabanis, Turgot, Helvetius, La Rochefoucault, Condcorcet and others), he often referred specifically to the Iroquois and made use of their rhetoric.

[He] loved to cite and to practice faithfully the proverb of his friends the American Indians, "Keep the chain of friendship bright and shining." [29]


As American ambassador to France, after Franklin, Jefferson had admired that nation's neat farming fields and the beauty of its music, but he reacted with a kind of smug horror when beggars gathered around his carriage nearly every time it stopped in a town or city. "Behold me at length on the vaunted scene of Europe," Jefferson wrote Charles Bellini.
You are perhaps curious to know how this new scene has struck a savage from the mountains of America. Not advantageously, I assure you. I find the general state of humanity here most deplorable. The truth of Voltaire's observation offers itself perpetually that every man here must be the hammer or the anvil. [30]

When Jefferson first arrived in Paris, the city was the largest in the Christian world, with a population of about 600,000. A fifth of the city's adult population was unemployed, a number larger than the total populations of New York, Boston and Philadelphia combined. Tens of thousands more were only marginally employed. "Of twenty millions of people supposed to be in France, I am of the opinion that there are nineteen millions more wretched, more accursed in every circumstance than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the whole United States," Jefferson wrote.[31]

In the realm of politics, moderate Tories often touted Britain's constitution of 1689 (as some modern American scholars are fond of tracing our ideological ancestry straight back to it). True, the commons had been granted a small measure of participation in government, but nearly a century later, at the time of the American Revolution, barely 5 per cent of the English population was allowed to vote.[32] The Crown still held an absolute veto over Parliament.

Thomas Paine, feeling the British government repressive, left England and came to America on the eve of the American Revolution to teach but he quickly was swept up in the events of the Revolution. Paine expressed his opinions of the British Constitution in Common Sense. He called the English constitution "the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, [the monarchy and the Peers] compounded with some new republican materials [the Commons].[33] No place, surely, to look for definitions of "life," "liberty," and "happiness" for a new nation being born. To Paine, America was "the only real republic, in character and practice, that now exists."[34]


Even after a revolution against the British, even after five to ten per cent of the former colonies' populations, the heart of the Tory opposition, had fled to Canada and England, the new United States had citizens who argued that the country's political system should be more explicitly modelled after Britain's. It was to them that Jefferson referred in his letter to Adams. They were in a minority, however. The United States was propelled into independence by a belief that a "new chapter" was opening in the affairs of humankind. The founders erected a national system with no singular precedent, but many, just as the United States became (and remains, even more so, in our day), a mixture of peoples and cultures. While those who founded the United States carried plentiful European cultural baggage, their writings at the time show that they reached out for other examples: to European antiquity, especially, and to societies native to America. Memories of one seemed, according to common intellectual assumptions of the time, to reinforce the reality of the other. American Indian societies were consistently cited as living examples of a distant European Golden Age -- to some they seemed Greek, or Roman, Celtic, or even Jewish.

Too much government and law bred tyranny, Jefferson reasoned. When comparing the governments of France and Britain to those of the American Indians, Jefferson left no doubt which he favored:

As for France, and England, with all their preeminence in science, the one is a den of robbers, and the other of pirates, as if science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality. I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable as our neighboring savages. [35]

As they decried contemporary Europe, architects of the new nation such as Franklin, Jefferson and Paine described American Indian societies in ways strikingly similar to their visions of the state they hoped to erect, modified to suit a people of Old World ancestry. In many ways, these Revolutionary Americans were taking up the argument of American freedom where Roger Williams left off. All were pragmatic enough to understand that a utopian vision of a society based on natural rights could not be instantly grafted onto thirteen recent British colonies. Writing Madison January 30, 1787 from Paris, Jefferson examined three forms of societies:


Without government, as among our Indians.

Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in great one.

Under governments of force, as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the [first] condition [the Indian way] is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. [36]

At the same time, most "Americans" (the word still sounded a little odd applied to people with European ancestors, rather than Indians) avidly sought relief not only from a raft of British taxes, but also to the entire European way of ordering society and government. This was to be Jefferson's "new chapter" in the history of humankind.

This attitude sometimes reached silly extremes. Jefferson once warned against sending America's brightest students to European universities, despite the rudimentary nature of most American schools at the time. George Washington refused to eat European wheat when American corn was available and, at least for a time, spurned European cloth in favor of homespun. Jefferson so loathed European class distinctions that as president he rather enjoyed getting seating assignments mixed up at state dinners, so he could watch various self-conscious aristocrats stumble over each other as they sought to settle the correct hierarchy at table.

Europe did have dreams of a better order -- it had copious books on the philosophy of natural rights, as well as utopian speculations about societies that did not stack themselves into hierarchies in which a wealthy minority starved the mass of citizens. If one wanted an example of European-descended humankind's best attempts to fashion such a government in practice, the United States was the place to look in the late eighteenth century. It was an experiment in carrying natural-rights philosophy -- much of which was based on observations of American native societies -- into the realm of practice among peoples of European extraction who had copious opportunities to observe the daily workings of "natural societies" on which European savants based their speculations. For those interested more in making than dreaming, America was a laboratory of natural-rights philosophy in its early years. "To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural state of man, such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America," wrote Thomas Paine.[37]


Not only was America distinct from Europe, but Britain, according to Franklin, had no right under natural law to claim land in the New World. To support his position, Franklin used an argument strikingly similar to that which he had often heard (or read) native Americans make at treaty councils as he started his diplomatic career in the 1750s. Franklin argued that the land belonged to its native inhabitants by natural right. The colonists could lay clam to portions of it by negotiating a transfer of ownership (by treaty), or by winning it in war. The mere claim of a European secular or religious sovereign was not enough. Franklin supported his reasoning by observing that the French astronomer Cassini had just discovered a previously unnamed region on the moon through his telescope, and named it Louisiana, after Louis XIV:

By a successful War, perhaps, we might oblige Louis to give it up, and agree that, henceforth, in all maps of the Moon [it] be called Nova Britannia, and be held by King George as Trustee for the People of Great Britain. But if the Englishmen could fly as well as sail, and arriving there should claim the country upon that Right, the native inhabitants, to acknowledge and submit to it[,] must be Lunatics indeed. [38]

Franklin's argument also was strikingly similar to that of Roger Williams a century and a half earlier. Franklin's argument was political and Williams' was religious when he stated that the Puritans' claim to land in the New World was invalid. Both invoked the Indians' title to America by natural right, and used this right as an example by which property rights should be governed.

While still in England, Franklin sponsored Thomas Paine's visit to America in 1774. Paine's ideas are a good example of the transference of New World ideas to the Old. Paine's Common Sense illustrated how imbued Americans were with the "self-evident" truths of natural rights. Paine's examples of free government in a natural state exemplified the need for religious freedom in America. Common Sense captured the essence of the American spirit by saying that civil and religious liberties stemmed from governments in a natural state. In discussing the origins of American government, Paine felt that a "convenient tree will afford . . . a State House, under which" the colonists "may assemble to deliberate on public matters." He believed that in the "first parliament every man by natural right will have a seat."[39]

"Among the Indians," wrote Paine, "There are not any of those spectacles of misery that poverty and want present to our eyes in the towns and streets of Europe."[40] To Paine, poverty was a creation "of what is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. . . . The life of an Indian is a continual holiday compared to the poor of Europe."[41] As one who sought to mold the future in the image of the natural state, Paine admired the Indians' relatively equal distribution of property, but he realized it impossible "to go from the civilized to the natural state."[42] Years after the Easton Treaty, Paine recalled an anecdote told by a chief called "King Lastnight" at the meeting. In criticizing the viability of British naval might on North American soil, the chief said that "The King of England is like a fish, when he is in the water he can wag his tail. When he comes on land he lays down on his side."[43]

With knowledge of the natural state, however, Paine, with Franklin and Jefferson, could attain what Franklin called "happy mediocrity," a compromise between the nearly-pure democracy of the Indian nations (with their egalitarian distribution of property) and the "rack-rented" hierarchies of Europe. The "natural state" of the Indian, as they became familiar with it, could be used as a cultural influence to lighten Europe's cultural baggage in America. What emerged was a republican form of government (representative, not direct, democracy) with a relatively flat (but hardly absent) class structure, allowing people to rise or fall by their own efforts in what Jefferson sometimes called an "aristocracy of merit."


While Jefferson, Franklin and Paine were too pragmatic to believe they could copy the "natural state," it was woven into our national ideological fabric early, and prominently. Jefferson wrote: "The only condition on earth to be compared with ours, in my opinion, is that of the Indian, where they have still less law than we."[44] When Paine wrote that "government, like dress is the badge of lost innocence," and Jefferson that the best government governs least, they were recapitulating their observations of native American societies, either directly, or through the eyes of European philosophers such as Locke and Rousseau.

During the few years that Paine lived in America, he spent considerable time with American Indians, especially the Iroquois. On January 21, 1777, Paine was appointed by Philadelphia's Council of Safety as a commissioner to negotiate a treaty with the Iroquois and allied Indian nations at Easton, Pennsylvania. The commissioners toted a thousand dollars worth of presents with them to the Dutch Reformed Church in Easton where, by Paine's account, "after shaking hands, drinking rum, while the organ played, we proceeded to business."[45] Paine -- his prominent nose, lofty forehead, ruddy complexion and eyes that Charles Lee said shone genius -- was particularly well-known among the Senecas. John Hall, who emigrated from Leicester, England, to Philadelphia in 1785, recorded in his journal for April 15, 1786:

Mr. Paine asked me to go and see the Indian chiefs of the Sennaka Nation. I gladly assented. . . . Mr. Paine . . . made himself known . . . as Common Sense and was introduced into the room, addressed them as "brothers," and shook hands cordially[.] Mr. Paine treated them with 2s. bowl of punch. [46]


Jefferson's life was rich in association with native peoples, from childhood. His father, Peter Jefferson, was an avid naturalist who introduced young Thomas to Indian sachems who lodged at the family home on their way to or from official business in Williamsburg. Late in his life, in a series of published letters that reconciled the political differences of the two retired presidents, Jefferson wrote to John Adams that he believed his early contacts with Native Americans were an important influence on his development.
"Concerning Indians . . . in the early part of my life, I was very familiar, and acquired impressions of attachment and commiseration for them which have never been obliterated. Before the Revolution, they were in the habit of coming often and in great numbers to the seat of government where I was very much with them. I knew much the great Ontassete, the warrior and orator of the Cherokees; he was always the guest of my father, on his journey's to and from Williamsburg. [47, emphasis added]

Adams replied:

I also have felt an interest in the Indians, and a commiseration for them with my childhood. Aaron Pomham and Moses Pomham . . . of the Punkapang and Neponset tribes were frequent visitors at my father's house . . . and I, in my boyish rambles, used to call at their wigwam. [48]

Commenting on this process of reconciliation, Benjamin Rush wrote to Adams on February 12, 1812 that he hoped "the chain which now connects Quincy with Monticello continues to brighten by every post."[49]

Throughout his life, Jefferson frequently voiced respect for Native Americans. For example, in 1785 he wrote,

I am safe in affirming that the proofs of genius given by the Indians place them on a level with the whites. . . . I have seen some thousands myself, and conversed much with them. . . . I believe the Indian to be in body and mind equal to the white man. [50]

All during his life, Jefferson's political activities often delayed, but never diffused his interest in native societies. Entering Monticello, visitors in Jefferson's time were greeted in the Great Hall (or entry way) by walls laden with native American artifacts. Jefferson was especially interested in native languages. For more than twenty years after he first discussed Indians' languages in Notes on the State of Virginia [1782], Jefferson collected Indian vocabularies, doing work similar to that of Roger Williams.

By 1800, Jefferson was preparing to publish what would have been the most extensive vocabulary of Indian languages in his time. It also was the year Jefferson became president, so his work was delayed until he left office in 1808. Jefferson packed his research papers at the presidential residence, and ordered them sent to Monticello. Contained in the cargo were Jefferson's own fifty vocabularies, as well as several compiled by Lewis and Clark. Boatmen piloting Jefferson's belongings across the Potomac River ripped them open and, disappointed that they could find nothing salable, dumped the priceless papers into the river.[51]

Jefferson's Declaration of Independence placed its case not before the Christian God, but before "Nature's God," and "the Supreme Judge of the World." Like others of the revolutionary generation, Jefferson usually called the diety just about anything except "God," including "The Great Spirit," and even "the Great Legislator." Jefferson's naturalistic conception of the diety provided him with a sense of universal morality very much like that of Roger Williams. Indeed, it took a sense of universal morality to believe that "all men are created equal." In theory, at least, this belief cut across racial and sexual lines, and no doubt Jefferson would have approved of efforts in centuries after his to address the practical contradictions such theory presented in his own time. Jefferson himself owned slaves. In Jefferson's time, only the most radical of visionaries (Paine among them) advocated emancipation of women.

Believing in the universal morality of humankind, Jefferson had no objection to intermarriage between races. He, like Patrick Henry, occasionally promoted intermarriage with native peoples to create a "continental family." In January, 1802, Jefferson told an Indian delegation: "Your blood will mix with ours, and will spread, with ours, over this great island."[52] The reference to "this great island" could have been an Iroquois term: the Haudonesaunee origin story calls America "Turtle Island."

Patrick Henry even advocated state subsidies for Indian-white marriages. In the fall of 1784, he introduced such a measure into the Virginia House of Delegates. The bill directed the state to pay an unspecified sum for the marriage, and an additional sum on the birth of each child. In addition, Henry proposed that Indian-white couples live tax-free. Henry pushed the bill with his usual enthusiasm and oratorical flourish as it survived two readings. By the time it reached third reading, Henry had been elected governor of Virginia. Without him in the House of Delegates, the intermarriage bill died.[53]


As Americans, and as revolutionaries who believed in a universal moral sense for all peoples, the backs of Franklin, Jefferson and Paine bristled at suggestions that nature had dealt the New World an inferior hand. Under the guise of science, so-called "degeneracy theories" had gained some currency in Europe during the late eighteenth century. This particular school of pseudo-science was pressed into service as a justification for colonialism in much the same way that craniology (which linked intelligence to the volume of a race's skulls) would be a century later.

Jefferson wrote Notes on the State of Virginia in part to refute the assertions of France's Comte de Buffon, and others, that the very soil, water and air of the New World caused plants and animals (including human beings) to grow less rapidly and enjoy less sexual ardor than their Old World counterparts. The ongoing debate over the innate intelligence of American Indians also was factored into this debate, with de Buffon, et. al. asserting inferiority. Jefferson took the lead in countering the degeneracy theorists, maintaining that native peoples of America enjoyed mental abilities equal to Europeans. In Notes on Virginia, Jefferson used the eloquent speech of Logan (delivered after whites had massacred his family) as evidence that American Indians were not short on intelligence and compassion.[54] Portions of this speech were introduced to millions of elementary-school pupils during the nineteenth century in McGuffy's Readers.

America's revolutionaries never missed a shot at turning such theories on their heads. While serving as ambassador to France, Jefferson was fond of relating a dinner attended by Franklin, a few other Americans, and French degeneracy-theory advocates while Franklin was representing the new nation in France. Franklin listened to Abbe Raynal, a well-known proponent of American degeneracy, describe how even Europeans would be stunted by exposure to the New World. Franklin listened quietly, then simply asked the French to test their theory "by the fact before us. Let both parties rise," Franklin challenged, "and we shall see on which side nature has degenerated." The table became a metaphorical Atlantic Ocean. The Americans, on their feet, towered over the French. "[The] Abbe, himself particularly, was a mere shrimp," Jefferson smirked.[55]

Jefferson complained that traditional university curricula, based on European precedents, did not pay enough attention to the natural history and cultures of the Americas and Africa. When Jefferson designed a curriculum for the University of Virginia, he included traditional European subjects, and added courses in American Indian cultures and languages.[56] To Jefferson, control of educational content was just one more way in which British mercantile-imperialism sought to dominate (and often exterminate) native peoples, from Ireland, to Africa, to America, "wherever Anglo-mercantile cupidity can find a two-penny interest in deluging the world with human blood."[57]

Franklin used his image of Indians and their societies to critique Europe for him:

The Care and Labour of providing for Artificial and fashionable Wants, the sight of so many Rich wallowing in superfluous plenty, while so many are kept poor and distress'd for want; the Insolence of Office . . . [and] restraints of Custom, all contrive to disgust them [Indians] with what we call civil Society. [58]

Men who held such ideas would not seek to transplant England's political system to America intact. Jefferson himself argued that the United States was a combination of Old and New World ideological materials.

Every species of government has its own specific principles. . . . Ours perhaps is more peculiar than any other in the universe. It is a composition of the freest principle[s] of the English constitution, and others derived from natural right and natural reason. [59]

American Indians and their societies figured into conceptions of life, liberty, and happiness in the mind of Jefferson, who authored the phrase in the Declaration of Independence, and Franklin, who operated in many ways as Jefferson's revolutionary mentor. A major debate at the time resulted in the phrase "happiness" being substituted for "property," in which the two founders' description of American Indian societies played a provocative role.[60] Both sought to create a society that operated as much as possible on consensus and public opinion, while citing the same mechanisms in native societies. Both described Indians' passion for liberty while making it a patriotic rallying cry; they admired Indians' notions of happiness while seeking a definition that would suit the new nation. Franklin turned for help to all "the Indians Indians of North America not under the dominion of the Spaniards," who

are in that natural state, being restrained by no Laws, having no Courts, or Ministers of Justice, no Suits, no prisons, no governors vested with any Legal Authority. The persuasion of Men distinguished by Reputation of Wisdom is the only Means by which others are govern'd, or rather led -- and the State of the Indians was probably the first State of all Nations. [61]

Jefferson called up the same images in his Notes on Virginia in a section that was inserted into the 1787 edition while the Constitutional Convention met. The native Americans, wrote Jefferson, had never

[s]ubmitted themselves to any laws, any coercive power and shadow of government. Their only controls are their manners, and the moral sense of right and wrong. . . . An offence against these is punished by contempt, by exclusion from society, or, where the cause is serious, as that of murder, by the individuals whom it concerns. Imperfect as this species of control may seem, crimes are very rare among them. [62]

The lesson here seemed clear to Jefferson:

Insomuch that it were made a question, whether no law, as among the savage Americans, or too much law, as among the civilized Europeans, submits man to the greater evil, one who has seen both conditions of existence would pronounce it to be the last. [63]

Principles for Environmental Restoration
and Sustainable Development
of the Haudenosaunee in North America




Chapter 26 of Agenda 21 formulated at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit recognizes the right of the indigenous communities and their representatives to undertake reviews as well as develop environmental strategies with regard to land and water based pollution.

Where environmental pollution created is transboundary in nature, originating in one state or jurisdiction and causing harmful impacts on another, it is the responsibility of individual indigenous organizations to address this damage and develop necessary steps to reduce the damage.

Haudenosaunee communities have been impacted with environmental pollution created by surrounding industries and settlements. This environmental strategy of the Haudenosaunee constitutes the first comprehensive indigenous response to Chapter 26 of Agenda 21.

As specified in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on Human Environment, states have a responsibility to ensure that their activities do not cause environmental damage beyond their own jurisdiction. States also have a duty to cooperate to further develop the international law regarding liability and compensation for the victims of transboundary pollution and other environmental damage.

A critical issue which requires addressing is the existing relationship between the industries and the indigenous communities. Such an issue calls for constructive approaches and measures to emphasize both `prevention/cure' and `cause/effect'.

The environmental pollution the Haudenosaunee people have been subjected to requires comprehensive restoration and development of preventative environmental measures at community, Nation and Confederacy levels.

The restoration must not be confined just to removing the wastes and pollution, but must also be extended to the social and cultural dimensions of the communities, the nations and the Confederacy.

Multi-disciplinary approaches to ecosystem recovery are necessary at international, national and regional levels.

Any project dealing with environmental pollution in indigenous territories must recognize and cooperate with the affected indigenous residents and community, and in the process show due respect to indigenous culture and tradition.

In order to address the mounting pollution problems, relevant Haudenosaunee research programs currently in progress must be supported and new investigative research must be designed and carried out on a continuous basis, directed by the Haudenosaunee.

The Haudenosaunee must establish community, national and international standards, and these standards need to be recognized and respected in order that the Haudenosaunee can participate and have a meaningful voice in the international regulatory community.

Councils of individual nations of the Haudenosaunee must play a primary role in the restoration and development process of indigenous lands. Partnership and collaboration with the United States Government and its federal agencies, the Canadian Government and its federal agencies, the United Nations and its Programmes, and other international organizations such as the Agenda 21 Forum, Indigenous Development International, and Global Green USA are essential in redressing the environmental disasters.

Haudenosaunee have a fundamental right and responsibility to participate in policy and decision-making processes affecting any aspect of the environment impacting significantly on their territories. Haudenosaunee should have a respected voice and more influence regarding environmental issues.

As sovereign governments, the Haudenosaunee have complete jurisdiction over native territories. The Haudenosaunee jurisdiction should extend cooperatively to the surrounding areas that impact the ecosystem of the native territories.

The United States and Canada should commit themselves to implement legislation that bans any transboundary or transnational pollution. Industries and polluters of lands and waters in and around the territories are liable for damages. The restoration of damaged elements of ecosystems on native territories must be a cooperative effort between industry, government and the affected Nation. Furthermore other governments must acknowledge and recognize the Haudenosaunee right to exercise jurisdiction in deciding whether to accept nuclear and other toxic and noxious wastes, or develop waste-processing enterprises in lands and territories of the Haudenosaunee. The Onondaga Nation has already declared itself a nuclear-free zone. The Council at Grand River territory has banned the importation of toxic substances.

Haudenosaunee should be assured adequate international legal resources that must ensure that the U.S. and Canadian legal systems recognize a right to full compensation for collective and individual damages from the effects of environmental pollution.

Fundamental human rights and intellectual property rights of the Haudenosaunee people must be protected.


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