Let us give thanks for democracy as well this Thanksgiving

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In 1744, leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy met with representatives of several British colonies to negotiate a treaty. One of the Native Americans, an Onondaga diplomat named Canassatego, pointed out that the colonies could learn from their alliance, which dated back hundreds of years.

“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,” he said . “We are a powerful confederacy, and, by your observing the same Methods our wise Forefathers have taken, you will acquire fresh Strength and Power.”

The speech was included in a collection printed by Benjamin Franklin, who later mused in a 1751 letter to a friend that it would be “a very strange Thing” if the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Haudenosaunee, were able to form a union and not “ten or a Dozen English Colonies.”

These are some of the facts cited by supporters of the Iroquois influence theory, which holds that the Native American alliance was an inspiration for the U.S. Constitution . Its adherents further point to similarities in everything from federalism and the impeachment process to the use of the bald eagle and a bundle of arrows as symbols.

Within the field of history, this theory is a subject of some dispute. Historians have picked apart various pieces of evidence and claims about the specific influences that the Iroquois may have had on the delegates to the constitutional convention. And to be fair, some of the scholarship put forward for the Iroquois influence over the years has been overstated or thinly sourced , though no one would argue that the framers were not aware of the Iroquois example.

The Europeans who came to North America were from countries that had largely run into an authoritarian dead end.

As Kirke Kickingbird, co-author of “Indians and the United States Constitution,” once said , imagining that the framers weren’t influenced by Native Americans would be like saying the Germans and the French didn’t know each other. That influence is worth contemplating on Thanksgiving, a day that acknowledges the debt that all Americans owe to the people who were here first.

The Europeans who came to North America … Read More