Iroquois Confederacy

Treaties and Contact

The Haudenosaunee have long been leaders in indigenous rights and recognition issues, beginning with contact with the early explorers. One of the first treaties negotiated between the Haudenosaunee and a European power was originally made between the Mohawks and the Dutch explorers in 1613. The belt that records this treaty is known as the Guswenta (Two-Row) Wampum. The Guswenta became a tool of negotiation between the Haudenosaunee and those who succeeded the Dutch, including the English, the French, and eventually the Americans. The Guswenta would serve as a model of diplomacy for the next two centuries, arguably even into the modern era. Other major treaties and frameworks between the Haudenosaunee and Western peoples include the Covenant Chain of Friendship, the Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794, and controversial treaties like the Treaty of Fort Stanwix.

Metaphors of the Iroquois Confederacy

Using the metaphors of the great white pine tree, bundled arrows, and notions of consensus in reaching decisions affecting clan, nation, and confederacy, the Iroquois codified these frameworks into the Great Law. At the core of the Great Law is thinking with the Good Mind. Debate has centered on two unique aspects of the Great Law of Peace and the Iroquois Confederacy. One is the founding date of the confederacy. The other debate centered on whether or not the Founding Fathers were influenced or borrowed ideas from the Great Law of Peace in their vision for the United States.

Age of the Iroquois Confederacy

The founding date has long been a source of contention between academics and traditional thinkers and oral historians of the confederacy. Academics have stated the date of the formation of the Iroquois Confederacy as between 1450 and 1650, often preferring the 1650 date. Academics have long believed that the confederacy formed in direct or inferred response to European contact and trade. William N. Fenton, Elizabeth Tooker, Dean Snow, and others spearhead this line of thinking. Barbara Mann, Jerry Fields, and Bruce Johansen have argued for an earlier date of formation, using elements contained in the oral history of the Great Law, placing the date at 1142—far earlier than previously thought.

Some holders of tradition, speakers of the longhouse, and oral historians and leaders of the traditional communities place the date of the formation of the Great Law in the late 10th century, based on the oral culture so heralded for the verbatim recitations recounted by early observers and academics alike of the Haudenosaunee.

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