Topics on the Page

 

The Iroquois Confederacy

 

Native American Citizenship

 

• Helen Hunt Jackson, Native American Rights Activist
  

 

Native American Tribal Governments Today

 

Colonial Events in American Indian history

 

•  The Peskeompskut Massacre or the Battle of Great Falls

 

• Lord Jeffrey Amherst and the Smallpox Blankets

 

Did any Native American group influence the men who drafted the United States governing documents? 

• This focus question is from TeachingHistory.org

 

 

The Iroquois Confederacy

 

Flag of the Iroquois

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Six Nations:  Oldest Living Participatory Democracy

 

• The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee; “People of the Longhouse”) Confederacy of upper New York state and southeastern Canada is often characterized as one of the world’s oldest participatory democracies.

 

• The confederacy’s constitution, the Great Law of Peace (Gayanesshagowa), is believed to have been a model for the U.S. Constitution, partly because Benjamin Franklin was known to have been much interested in the structure of the confederacy and partly because of the balance of power embodied in the Great Law.

 

• According to their founding tradition, the Peacemaker story, these Iroquois peoples—who had warred with each other for decades—came together between 1570 and 1600 to live in peace and harmony after Hiawatha, a mourning Onondaga, joined the itinerant Peacemaker (Dekanawidah) in pursuing unity among the Iroquois.

 

• The resulting confederacy, whose governing Great Council of 50 peace chiefs, or sachems (hodiyahnehsonh), still meets in a longhouse, is made up of six nations: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. 

 

Here is a timeline of the Iroquois Confederacy.

 

Primary Sources

 

• The Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy  

 

• United States Senate Resolution Acknowledging the Contributions of the Iroquois Confederacy (1988)

 

• Obama Native Nations Policy, National Congress of American Indians (June, 2014).

 

 

 

How the Iroquois Great Law of Peace Shaped U.S. Democracy (December 17, 2018)

 

 

The Six Nations Confederacy during the American Revolution

• Source:  Fort Stanwix National Monument
  

 

 

  The role of women in the Iroquois Community

 

 Here is a video that seeks to explain how the current American Government has been influenced by Native Americans.

 

The Iroquois Influence on the Constitution, Massachusetts School of Law Educational Forum (January 27, 2011)

 

 

Native American Citizenship

 

American Indians and the Constitution 

 

1823:  The Supreme Court Rules That American Indians Do Not Own Land (the so-called Marshall Trilogy)

 

 

June 2, 1924:  Congress Granted Citizenship to All Native Americans Born in the United States, from the Library of Congress

 

On this Day, All Indians Made United States Citizens, National Constitution Center

 

 

The United States Government's Relationship with Native Americans, National Geographic (2019)

 

 

Broken Promises on Display at Native American Treaties Exhibit, NPR Code Switch

 

A 1970 Law Led to the Mass Sterilization of Native American Women

 

• Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970

 

 

Helen Hunt Jackson, Native American Activist

 

 Biography from the Poetry Foundation

 

 

Biography from Emily Dickinson Museum

 

Loving Rebel:  Helen Hunt Jackson, 1830 -1885 from History Colorado

 

Read her book, A Century of Dishonor (1881)

 

 

 

 

Native American Tribal Governments Today

 

 

Decal of the Mashpee Wampanoag Police Department

 

Federally Recognized Indian Tribes and Resources for Native Americans, USA.Gov

 

 

Tribal Nations and the United States:  An Introduction, from the National Congress of American Indians

 

• 573 federally recognized Indian nations
• 229 are located in Alaska; the rest in 35 different states

 

Frequently Asked Questions, Bureau of Indian Affairs

 

 

 

Every Vote Counts:  Teacher Guide & Lesson Plans, National Education Association

 

 Teaching and Learning Resources

 

• For more ways that the Native Americans have influenced life in the United States, here is a link. And here is another one.

 

• For a lesson plan on comparing the Iroquois Constitution and the American Constitution, here is a link from Colonial Williamsburg.

 

• There are two more additional websites that include fun learning games and lesson plans with more information on the Iroquois.
• The links can be found here and here.

 

The Indian World of George Washington:  The First President, The First Americans, and The Birth of the Nation.  Colin G. Calloway (Oxford University Press, 2018)