America’s revisionist historians often ignore or discount the influence of the Haudenosaunee people’s representative democracy on the principles and practices written into the US Constitution, ascribing them instead to the ancient Greek democracy, or to the British Parliament. Representative democracy had been practiced successfully by the Haudenosaunee for at least two centuries before the Europeans united their colonies under the Constitution, and Benjamin Franklin among other Constitutional authors learned from Haudenosaunee leadership and incorporated their ancient practices into the new document.
pictured here is an 18th Century French engraving depicting the Haudenosaunee’ s legendary leader Deganawida, often called the Great Peacemaker, presiding over a meeting of representatives from the Six Nations
Read more from Wampanoag and Montauk-Brothertown Indian Nation descendant Amelia Schafer, in her essay “How the Haudenosaunee shaped America’s democracy” appearing in the America 250 feature of ICT (formerly Indian Country Today)