The Influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the U.S. Constitution

It has long been held that the structure of the Iroquois Confederacy inspired the development of U.S. government, especially the writing of the Constitution.  The Iroquois Confederacy consisted of Six Nations: the Seneca, Cayuga, Onongada, Oneida, Mohawk and the Tuscarora.

The government of the Confederacy was bound together by an oral constitution.  The law was written on wampum belts, conceived by Deganwidah, known as The Great Peacemaker and his spokesman Hiawatha. The original five member nations ratified this constitution near present-day Victor, New York, with the sixth nation (the Tuscarora) being added in ca. 1720.

It was once thought the Iroquois Confederacy started in the 16th century, but a more recent estimate dates the confederacy and its constitution to between 1090 and 1150 CE.

On June 11, 1776 while the question of independence for the thirteen original colonies was being debated, Iroquois chiefs were 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." After this speech, an Onondaga chief requested permission to give John Hancock an Indian name. The Congress graciously consented, and so Hancock was renamed "Karanduawn, or the Great Tree." 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.

Perhaps the best way to understand the relationship between the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, know as the "Great Law of Peace" and the Constitution of the United States is to study the "Great Law" itself.  It is interested to note one major difference between the two documents.  The Great Law specifically grants rights to women, while the U.S. Constitution is silent on the issue.

You can read the Great Law of Peace in our next blog entry.