# Iroquois Confederacy and the US Constitution? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 8, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570 "2004-09-08T00:35:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/1 "2004-09-08T00:35:30Z")
A thread over in GD got me wondering about the persistent stories that the founding fathers of the US based our constitution in no small part on that of the Iroquois confederacy. [Here’s](http://tuscaroras.com/pages/history/about_iroquois_constitution.html) what looks to be a pretty good writeup of the matter, but of course it’s hard for the non-historian to sort the truth from the BS in matters like this. Can any of the resident history buffs deliver up the straight dope here? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/2 "2004-09-08T02:36:16Z")
I don’t know how authentic the Constitution that’s linked from the OP is, but it’s clear it bears little resemblance to the US Constitution. It seems closer to the Articles of Confederation which the Constitution replaced. There is a lot of emphasis on unanimous decisions rather than majority rule and the resulting government would be inherently weak. There also is virtually no mention of the citizens rights which makes up a major portion of the American Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![Pythagras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/45deac/32.png) [@Pythagras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pythagras)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/3 "2004-09-08T03:00:32Z")
Original versions of the AoC did indeed have clauses stating that the Iroqoius would have perpetual freedom and usage of their lands. I’d imagine it was for diplomatic purposes. From: [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/compare/artfr.htm](http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/compare/artfr.htm) Article XIV of Dickinson’s Draft of the Articles: [quote] A perpetual Alliance, offensive and defensive, is to be entered into by the United States assembled as soon as may be, with the Six Nations, and all other neighbouring Nations of Indians; their Limits to be ascertained, their Lands to be secured to them, and not encroached on; (7) no Purchases of Lands, hereafter to be made of the Indians by Colonies or private Persons before the Limits of the Colonies are ascertained, to be valid: All Purchases of Lands not included within those Limits, where ascertained, to be made by Contracts between the United States assembled, or by Persons for that Purpose authorized by them, and the great Councils of the Indians, for the general Benefit of all the United Colonies.(8) [quote] ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/4 "2004-09-08T04:58:41Z")
At the top of the site Squink furnished, it reads: "The chairman of the committee was John Rutledge of South Carolina. He had served in an earlier time, along with Ben Franklin and others, at the Stamp Act Congress, held in Albany, New York. . . Rutledge proposed they model the new government. . .along the lines of the Iroquois League of Nations. . ;. and which he had observed in Albany. " The purpuse of those statements were to explain how it was we used the Iroquois ideas of government. The problem is the writer apparently confused two different meetings – the Albany Congress held in Albany,NY in 1754 that included Iroquios leaders and the Stamp Act Congress held in New York City in 1765. The Albany meeting included Colonial reps and Indians at Great Britain’s request to plan a defense against what they believed would be a war with France in the New World. The Stamp Act meeting was only Colonialists to discuss a political defense against the upcoming stamp act. If matters Iroquis were discussed, it would have been only accidental. It is highly unlikely Rutledge would have learned of the Iroquois concepts by attending the Stamp Act Congress and he probably did not attend the Albany Congress, as he was either 14 or 15 at the time. What does all of this have to do with the main question? It shows the author was intentionally inaccurate in order to promote a pet theory, careless with facts or very confused. If you can’t trust the messenger, you should ignore the message. ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/5 "2004-09-08T05:06:08Z")
I think the influence on the founders (esp. Ben Franklin, IIRC) consisted of the **example** that the Iroquois Confederacy set: an example of five nations (five at that time; a sixth joined later) who had sucessfully formed and maintained a confederacy; nations who learned to get along together and settle disputes without separating. The idea was, if these five Indian nations can do this, surely our 13 newly-liberated colonies can also. That was the challenge: to form a nation out of 13 separate colonies. It wasn’t, should we govern ourselves exactly the same way, it was, can we govern ourselves as sucessfully as they? ---
**Author:** ![Hazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Hazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2004, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/6 "2004-09-08T05:30:36Z")
_Forgotten Founders_ Bruce E. Johansen Harvard University Press _Indian Roots of American Democracy_ Jose Barreiro, editor Akwekon Press / Cornell University ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/7 "2004-09-09T05:34:32Z")
> [@](#): > > … [a] student of the Iroquois political organization was Charles Thomson, the perpetual secretary of the Continental Congress. He spent so much energy studying the Indians and their way of life that the Delaware Nation adopted him as a full member. Following Thomas Jefferson’s request, Thomson wrote at length on Indian social and political institutions for inclusion in an appendix to Jefferson’s _Notes on the State of Virginia_. from Jack Weatherford _Indian Givers_ Crown Publishers, 1988 Weatherford devoted two chapters to this issue - Ch. 7 “Liberty, Anarchism, and the Noble Savage” and Ch. 8 “The Founding Indian Fathers.” I am providing you with a limited selection of additional references (i.e., fewer than half of what he listed) from Weatherford’s bibliography: Robert A. Hecht _Continents in Collision_ University Press of America, 1980 Lewis Henry Morgan _League of the Iroquois_ Sage, 1851 (several reprints in 20th c) Henry Steele Commager _The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment_ Anchor, 1978 Edmund Wilson _Apologies to the Iroquois_ Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1959 If you have access to a library which holds the journal, you might also like to peruse: Bruce A. Burton “Iroquois Confederate Law and the Origins of the U.S. Constitution” _Northeast Indian Quarterly_ Fall 1986, pp. 4-9 ---
**Author:** ![Grundlepuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Grundlepuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grundlepuck)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/8 "2004-09-09T05:49:16Z")
**Hazel** and **tygerbryght** , have you read any of these books, and is there a consensus conclusion that you could summarize for is? Or do the scholars differ too much in their opinions on the nature and size of the influence? ---
**Author:** ![Grundlepuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/5e9695/32.png) [@Grundlepuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grundlepuck)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/9 "2004-09-09T05:54:07Z")
**Hazel** , I just noticed that you posted a summarized position right before you cited the books. That’s good enough for me! ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/10 "2004-09-09T13:38:51Z")
I believe their is a general consensus that the founders noted the Iroquois, though about the level of influence there is some debate. For my part, the Iroquois contribution was much less than the Athenian model and the Lockean model, but from a psychological standpoint may have been even more valuable than either, sine it was an example that the sort of society and government the founders wanted might actually work - a proof which was rather lacking more or less anywhere else in the world, which was all run by Kings and Emperors. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/11 "2004-09-09T16:32:41Z")
> [@Hazel](#): > > _Forgotten Founders_ > Bruce E. Johansen > Harvard University Press > > _Indian Roots of American Democracy_ > Jose Barreiro, editor > Akwekon Press / Cornell University Also, look up Johansen’s [_Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy of Freedom_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0940666790/qid=1094747101/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-9203943-6676645?v=glance&s=books) Clear Light Books According to the book, academics for years tried to cover up any notion that Native Americans could have played any part in the development of the US Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/iroquois-confederacy-and-the-us-constitution/263570/12 "2004-09-09T17:49:27Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > I believe their is a general consensus that the founders noted the Iroquois, though about the level of influence there is some debate. For my part, the Iroquois contribution was much less than the Athenian model and the Lockean model, but from a psychological standpoint may have been even more valuable than either, sine it was an example that the sort of society and government the founders wanted might actually work - a proof which was rather lacking more or less anywhere else in the world, which was all run by Kings and Emperors. AAMOF, there was no previous example of a “democracy” in the “old world” in which the state did not depend completely on slavery.[sup]_[/sup] Of course, there were slave states for the first 90 years of this nation, but slavery already had many opponents. And nearly all recognized moral issues with slaveholding. The lame justifications they offered (sons of Ham, etc.) were clear proof of bad conscience, IMHO. [sup]_[/sup]Parliamentary governments are de facto excluded from this class as of 1776, when even in those nations which had them, the sovereigns still held most of the powers of ruling, as well as reigning.