11 et ch. 1

1. Chapter 1 - Colliding Worlds: The Europeans “Discover” the
Americas
Two Worlds, Jorge Gonzales Camarena, 1975

3. The preceding image and the fourth one following are maps that detail the
different culture areas of North, Central, and South America (sorry the shape of
South America is too wide and short; it was the only way to get the image to fit in
Power Point and keep the writing legible). The exclusive purpose of the map of
North America, and the partial purpose of that of South America, is to give the
viewer an understanding of what sort of economic culture prevailed in a given area,
and which indigenous peoples…
OK, wait a minute, full stop.
We’ve got to define our terms here.
How are we going to refer to these people?
‘Indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere,’ or ‘of the Americas’…’American
Indians’…’Native Americans’…’First Peoples’…plain old ‘Indians’…which is the right
term? Put simply, there is no right or wrong term. Or maybe there are wrong
terms. ‘Injun’ and ‘Redskin’ are racial epithets akin to the ‘n-word’ in reference to
a person of African descent, or ‘chink’ to a person of Chinese descent so clearly,
we are not going to be using those – they are indisputably WRONG terms. But
what do we use, when the people themselves cannot even come to a consensus as to
what they should be called?

4. I would argue that one of the biggest bad-ass American Indians of the
late 20th century was Russell Means. He was a leader of the American
Indian Movement (A.I.M.) in its heyday, when the group seized control of
Alcatraz Island, stormed Mt. Rushmore, and fought off the FBI for over
two months at the Wounded Knee reservation in 1972. He was, to a lesser
extent, a bit like the Huey P. Newton of A.I.M.
I was fortunate enough to hear Means speak here at WLAC several years
before he died in 2012. Even in his late 60s, he was built like an NBA
power forward, well over six feet tall, and weighing in at probably 240 lbs.
Dude was impressive, just the energy alone – the air seemed to crackle
around him.
In that talk, he said something I’ll never forget, and that was that he
thought that the United States was becoming too factionalized because
so many people wanted to be ‘Mexican American’… ’Italian American’…
’African American’… ’Korean American’… ’Native American’… ’Indigenous
Peoples of the Americas, First Peoples…’ To paraphrase, he said ‘the
problem with all of these names was not that people were proud of their
heritage, but that they were putting the ‘American’ in the wrong place: “It
should be American Mexican, American Italian, American African,
American Korean, American Indian. Columbus may have made a mistake,
thinking he was in India and calling my ancestors ‘Indians,’ but the
mistake is part of history. But now, today, everyone wants to focus on
the part of their identity that is least important – it’s America that, in
spite of its flaws and mistakes, gives us all the possibility to be anything,
to dream big, to change the world, and that’s why I call myself an
AMERICAN INDIAN!
‘
So I’ve heard Means say that, and I’ve heard/read other equally
intelligent and wise Indians say this name is correct, or that name, or
they’re all the same, and it’s much the same with people who are

5. Americans and are descended from people that came, or were taken, from Africa. African
Americans… Blacks… Americans of African descent…? I’m going to use Blacks and African Americans
interchangeably because there is no national consensus on this, and I’m going to use Native Americans and
Indians (because American Indians is too long to be typing over and over, and because everyone knows I’m
not talking about people from the subcontinent of Asia), either/or, for the same reason – because there is
no right or wrong, except in the minds of any given individual. So if – just maybe – you are a person who,
for reasons of your own, is offended by my choice of terms, please bear in mind that this may be your
opinion, but that there is no consensus.
Russell Means, 1939-2012

6. Now…as I was saying, before I went off on a (necessary) tangent: the exclusive purpose of the map of
North America, and the partial purpose of that of South America, is to give the viewer an
understanding of what sort of economic culture prevailed in a given area, and which indigenous peoples
in that region lived according to that economic model, e.g., the Cheyenne were hunters, and the
Cherokee were agriculturalists (farmers), etc. But this does not mean that the Cherokee did not hunt
– they did. The map is concerned with the primary economic culture of the region/people, so again,
for example, the Cherokee hunted, and fished, and gathered wild herbs, roots, etc, but the thing that
provided them with most of their food, the biggest part of their economy was agriculture.
You may at this point be wondering why I am providing you with a map of South America? Since this
is a U.S. history course, clearly we are going to be focusing on North America. This is true, but the
first part of Chapter 1 in your text is partially concerned with trying to give the reader a sense of
the human complexity of the Americas, the wide variety of peoples that were to be found living,
surviving, thriving, in every sort of environment the Western Hemisphere had to offer, no matter how
high or low, dry or wet, cold or hot. And these two maps do not even identify every people – if the
maps were to do that, you wouldn’t be able to read much of anything at all, so crowded would the maps
be with the names of so many Indian peoples. The best guess at this point is that when Columbus
arrived in 1492, there were approximately 2,000 languages spoken in the Americas – that’s 2,000
distinct cultures, realities, worldviews, certainly many of them sharing some cultural attributes, but
nonetheless – an astonishing spectrum of human complexity.

8. Some of these native societies were as simple as small hunter-gatherer bands of 25-30 individuals, and at the other
end of the scale you had the Aztec Empire, with a population of at least 5 million and perhaps as many as 11 million.
There are a variety of factors that lay behind the population size of the Aztec and Inca Empires, as well as the
Mayan “world” of many competing city-states (there was no Mayan Empire), but the most essential reason for their
growth and complexity had to do with agriculture – and not just what they grew, but the ways in which they grew it.
So to consider this, let’s start with a question. Why is it that some of the Indians of Latin America -- Aztec, Maya,
Inca – were able to create vast, complex societies of pyramid-builders, masters of mathematics, astronomy,
engineering…and none of the Indian peoples of what is now the United States ever built anything much bigger than a
really big house made of wood, or living complexes made of adobe, and were far less advanced in terms of scientific
and technological innovation? Did you ever ask yourself that? I’m guessing the answer is no, because you’re not
history professors, and likely not even history majors, but think on it for a moment…what advantages were
possessed by the former, and not the latter?
The answers are two: the advantages of luck and a crop package, or an assortment of plants that could be
domesticated, and when consumed together, provided the necessary nutrients to both sustain human life and feed
much larger populations than a subsistence diet of hunting and gathering ever could. Give me a little time here and
you’ll see what I mean.
(We do not have the time here to address the Inca and their 54 varieties of potatoes, and their remarkable system
of terracing, which allowed them to create sophisticated agricultural works on the slopes of the Andes Mountains so
extensive and productive that an empire of millions was fed from them-- oops, here I am starting to drone on about
the Inca! And I said we do not the time, but ah, what the hell – see the next image for a modern-day Peruvian
version of their terracing technique, then on to the Aztecs!)

10. The Aztec Empire was built upon the back of a unique and high-yielding form of
agriculture that was established with a crop package often referred to as the “Holy
Trinity” or “Three Sisters” of Mexican agriculture: corn, beans, and squash. These three
crops, when consumed together along with plenty of water, could feed a person, a family, a
city, a society -- for the entirety of their lives. A crop package was what allowed ancient
Chinese civilization (the oldest in the world) to flourish; it allowed the Egyptians of the
pharoahs to thrive; and it is what allowed the great pre-Columbian civilizations of
Mesoamerica to succeed in ways that most other Indians of the Americas could not even
imagine.
The first Mesoamerican Indians to farm the “Three Sisters” were the Olmec, more than a
thousand years before the birth of Christ. After them came the Maya, then the
Teotihuacanos, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Toltec, and finally, the Aztecs, the last great
Indian civilization of ancient Mesoamerica before the Spanish Conquest in 1521.
Each of these peoples used the crop package to expand their societies from simple
hunter-gatherer bands to complex kingdoms. Each of them built upon and added to the
achievements of the societies that had come before them. Trade networks allowed for
the easy exchange of ideas, technology, concepts.

11. In the 1200s when the Aztecs began their climb to power, much of what the older
civilizations had created was known to them; by 1325, when they founded their island city of
Tenochtitlan, they knew it would be easy to defend, but they needed to be self-sufficient.
They created chinampas (see below), small man-made islands that they then planted crops
upon; these were arranged in clusters around their island city of Tenochtitlan, and they
made their way to and from their “farms” by way of canoe; they used their waste products
to fertilize the crops. They produced enough food in this way to feed the city. When the
first Spaniards arrived in 1520 and saw the networks of chinampas, they called them
“floating gardens,” because to them it looked as though they literally suspended on the
surface of the water.

12. An illuminating work by Jorge Gonzales Camarena: Genesis (date unknown), showing
an enormous cob of “Indian” corn (or maize) functioning as a sacred spot of origin
for the original man and woman of ancient Mexican history, the “Adam & Eve” of
Mesoamerica. A testament to corn as the essential building block of the
Mesoamerican crop package.

13. So luck, and a crop package. We have
established that it was corn, beans squash that
allowed for the developments of advanced
civilizations in ancient Mesoamerica, but where
does luck come into it? Like so: how is it that
the ancient Mexicans were able to domesticate
corn, beans, and squash? Because they were
lucky enough to locate those wild plants in the
area where they lived. Wild beans, growing
here and there, through trial and error, became
fields of bean crops, tamed by the ingenuity of
man; ditto, corn, squash, and other plants of
lesser importance. But what about Indians that
were not lucky enough to find these sorts of
wild plants in their part of the Americas, the
kinds of plants that could be assembled into a
crop package? Simple: they could not feed as
many people, so their societies could only grow
so large, and and as a result they never
advanced very far. With a crop package, you
get bigger and bigger populations who are able
to build pyramids, canals, and aqueducts; zoos,
botanical gardens, and museums, all of which
were to be found in Tenochtitlan. With a crop
package, you produce artists who are able to
carve mighty images of your gods out of stone
to thank them for the good fortune that they
have given you. But let’s take a moment to
consider a handful of images of some of the
artistic marvels of the ancient Mesoamerican
world, just in case you are unfamiliar with them.
Coatlicue, the “beloved mother”
of the Aztecs

14. Uxmal, Mexico, the Temple of the Dwarf. The name is a mystery, but there is much
evidence to support the theory that Uxmal was a center devoted to the education of
elite Mayan women, which is why the pyramid you see above has rounded corners,
suggesting the feminine – there is no other pyramid like it in all of the Mayan world.

15. Tikal, Guatemala – perhaps the greatest of all ancient Mayan city-states

16. Here you see some of the highest structures at Tikal, poking their heads above
the rainforest

17. And here you see almost exactly the same view as used in the original
Star Wars for Yavin, the first location of the primary base of the
Rebellion. I know, I know – NERD ALERT!
(But come on – AMAZING what you learn in a history class, right?)

18. Chichen Itza, Mexico, the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl (Mayan). Throngs of people
gather every year at the spring and fall equinoxes, the only two days out of the year
when the sun shines at the proper angle to reveal the “body” of the god Quetzalcoatl,
making its way down the pyramid to join with the carved head at the bottom of the
stairway (with mouth open, just to the right of the pink umbrella).

19. The Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan, called by the Aztecs “the meeting place of the gods,” because it is here that the
gods created the new sun and moon and returned the world to life (according to the Aztecs). If you ever visit central
Mexico, you can’t miss it, truly. This is the largest pyramid in the world, in terms of mass, that is visible and above-ground.
The largest, period, is almost entirely buried and is at Cholula, Mexico, but that’s a story for another time.

20. Again at Teotihuacan – the mighty Pyramid of the Sun

21. Xochicalco, Mexico. The Aztec-built Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent

22. A scale model of the central, ceremonial area of Tenochtitlan, the
capital city of the Aztec Empire. The city housed 250,000 people
at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

23. An anonymous artist’s rendering of what Tenochtitlan may have
looked like from a distance, based on historical sources. You can
see causeways (bridges) that linked the island to the mainland on
both sides and toward the bottom.

24. A detail from a mural by the great Mexican painter Diego Rivera, wherein you can see not only the
ceremonial center of Tenochtitlan in the distance to the left, but the way that the island city was, in
fact, made up of many islands, both large and small, and connected to one another by causeways and
waterways that were navigated by various small watercraft. Some of the Spaniards, who had traveled
extensively throughout the Mediterranean world, said that it was greater than Madrid, Seville, Paris,
Rome, Constantinople, and Cortes called it “the glory of the world.” And then, a year later, they blew it
all to smithereens with gunpowder.

25. OK, so back to the crop package, and the luck. The Indians of North America, could not produce the sorts of scientific,
artistic and architectural marvels that the Indians of ancient Mesoamerica could – because they lacked a crop
package. Oh, they had crops, of course they did – they grew things like goose grass, mayflower, and sunflower
seeds. Now look, I don’t know if anyone in this day and age eats goose grass or mayflower, and I do love me some
sunflower seeds – I mean everyone loves sunflower seeds, especially baseball players. But no one gets big and strong
enough to play big-league baseball by eating goose grass, mayflower, and sunflower seeds, no matter how talented
they may be. To grow big strong bodies like that you need…yup, you guessed it, History Lovers: corn, beans, and
squash, or another crop package like it. So, it takes luck (having the right kind of wild plants in your area), and a
crop package (turning those plants into domesticated crops) to produce advanced civilizations.

26. But I’m betting at least one of you reading this is saying to themselves, ‘Wait a minute! Ever
since kindergarden I’ve been hearing about the Pilgrims, and the first Thanksgiving, and how
Squanto the friendly Indian showed the colonists how to make roast turkey with stuffing,
pumpkin pie, and corn on the cob – so if the Indians of North America didn’t have corn,
DAVE, then how in the world did the Pilgrims eat it with Squanto at the first Thanksgiving?
Your book touches on this, by referencing the fact that corn had spread to the Mississippi
River Valley by 1000, A.D. More specifically, Mesoamerican traders, moving up the east coast
of what is now Mexico, traded for this and that with the seeds of their crops, among other
things. These seeds were planted, grew, and over time, more seeds changed hands through
trade, always moving north, and after several generations had rolled by, corn was being grown in
what is now Louisiana and Mississippi…then Arkansas and Tennessee…then heading east along
the Ohio River and all through Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, spreading in every direction through
the hands of more and more traders, and then ultimately to the East Coast of what is now the
United States. So, by the time the Pilgrims showed up in 1620 – corn was old news to the
Indians of that region.
Dig the following maps to give you a sense of the movements of corn discussed here: locate the
Nahuatl (Aztecs) at the bottom of the map, and look for the Narragansetts toward the upper
right – that’s present-day Massachusetts, where the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth.

29. This map shows how horses spread north from what is now Mexico. Runaways took to the wild and multiplied, and
the Indians of what is now the United States domesticated them so that by the time the U.S. was expanding
west beyond the Mississippi River, there were tremendous numbers of Indians who were expert at fighting from
horseback. I drew this sucker by hand guys, just for you – lotta love here, huh?

30. The Protestant Reformation and Its Impact Upon Europe and Surrounding Areas
(Most of Christendom at This Time)

31. This map shows the points of origin in West Africa for the slave trade, and what percentages of the
slaves arrived in which areas of the Americas. As you can see, Brazil was the single society that consumed
the majority of the trade.

32. To the right, the mighty
Amerigo Vespucci, he whose
name was slightly warped
into ‘America.’ A mapmaker,
among other things, he was
the first to demonstrate,
beyond any shadow of a
doubt, that the so-called
“New World” was, indeed,
new (at least to the
Europeans), and not some
part of Asia.

33. Above you see El Abrazo (The Embrace), by Jorge Gonzales Camarena. In one of his greatest works,
the artist shows an Aztec eagle warrior and a Spanish conquistador impaling one another in a strangely
intimate fashion, almost like a hug, or embrace, suggesting that the Spanish Conquest was something
more than just the defeat of the Aztec Empire – it was also the beginning of the coming-together of
two very different, yet strangely similar civilizations.

34. There were a variety of advantages possessed by the Spanish that made the defeat of the
Aztecs possible, and certainly, steel weapons and firearms were among them. In this detail
from one of Diego Rivera’s legendary murals, Spanish soldiers are shown using a cannon to
repulse an Aztec attack.

35. Another advantage possessed by the
Spanish was that, at least initially, the
Aztecs, and the tlatoani, or emperor, in
particular, believed the Spaniards were
not simply strange men from a distant
part of the world with more advanced
tools and weapons than the Aztecs –
instead, they believed that an ancient
prophecy had come true, and that
these were supernatural beings, in fact
gods, and that it was the Aztec’s
obligation to cooperate with them, and
even do their bidding. To the left you
see a tile mosaic in which a Spanish
conquistador with drawn sword on
horseback is plunging from out an
eclipsed sun, redolent of the idea that
the gods had returned from the sky,
and were angry; consequently the
posture of the warriors at the bottom
reeks of hopeless defeat – for how can
they resist the will of the gods?

36. The next two images are details from an epic mural by Desiderio Hernandez Xochitiotzin,
located in the State Government Palace in Tlaxcala, Mexico. This is one of the largest murals in
existence (over 500 square meters), and relates the whole history of the Tlaxcalans, who were
the most important of the Indian allies that helped Cortes to conquer the Aztecs.
In the first image you see again the notion that the Spaniards are gods, with the conquistador
juxtaposed against the sun, even as he strikes down an Aztec warrior; then at the bottom, and
in the next slide, you see Tenochtitlan in flames and the legions of Indian warriors that helped
to realize the victory for the Spanish.
Lastly, in the third image, drawn from the Florentine Codex, Book XII, you see the Aztec victims
of smallpox – the fact that a devastating plague of this killing disease had swept through
Tenochtitlan, ending the lives of many and rendering others extremely ill for weeks, just as the
Spanish attack upon the city commenced, was seen by the Aztecs as a sign of the anger of
their gods…and by the Spanish as a sign of divine intervention by God on their side. Whatever
the case, this was the last, and arguably most important reason for the Spanish defeat of the
Aztecs.

41. The “Forgotten Founders” of the United States: The Iroquois and the Great
League of Peace
If you look at the map just preceding this page, up in the northeastern corner of what is now the United
States, specifically in what is now the state of New York (upper right corner of the purple, for those of you
who may be geographically challenged, see the big red arrow?), you will see the word ‘Iroquois.’ The
Iroquois were an Indian people occupying most of what is now the interior of New York state, but they
had another name, one they gave themselves: ‘Hau-den-o-sau-nee,’ which meant the ‘People of the
Longhouse.’ Which perhaps raises the question, Why isn’t that name on the map, and what did Iroquois
mean, anyway?
In the early 1600s, when the French began to colonize along the St. Lawrence River, just north and east of
the lands of the Iroquois, they made alliances with several Indian peoples, primarily the Huron, who were
the hereditary enemies of the Hau-den-o-sau-nee; as a result of this the French and the Hau-den-o-sau-
nee were, for a time, opposed to one another and the French discovered that the Hau-den-o-sau-nee
were fierce and implacable enemies, so they gave them a new name which meant one of two things (and
historians are divided on this): ‘Black Serpents’ or ‘Killer People.’
I would suggest to you that either name is not meant as a compliment, especially the former, which is the
name that makes more sense to me. These French colonists were deeply superstitious, strongly Catholic
people, so if you were their enemy, and they called you ‘black,’ not as in ‘like people from Africa,’ but as
in ‘night/darkness/the Devil/the opposite of God and goodness;’ and ‘serpent,’ as in ‘THE
DEVIL/LUCIFER/SATAN/MASTER OF HELL’…they were not exactly throwing you a lot of love.

42. The reason that the name ‘Iroquois’ is on all of the maps, and is the name commonly used for these
people over the last several centuries, has to do with a lot of things, not least among them the fact that
the Hau-den-o-sau-nee embraced the name as a compliment – and why not? When people you have
made war against, and beaten down at every opportunity , call you ‘Black Serpents,’ why WOULDN’T you
wear it as a title of respect? After all, snakes were not symbols of evil to the Iroquois, they were simply
other creatures in the world, like the bears, wolves, squirrels, and eagles.
So OK – the Iroquois. Now let’s get into Sherman and Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine, and head for
the 1350s, a century and a half before Columbus arrived in the Americas. At this time the Iroquois were
not a united people, they were five peoples, or ‘tribes,’ if you will, living in close proximity to one
another: the Seneca, the Cayuga, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Mohawk. Take a moment and dig
the next image for a map that will show you the size and shape of their territories. These people were
separate peoples, yet they shared a great deal in common – in spoken language (some dialectical
difference, but they could all understand one another), spirituality, style of dress, food they ate, crops
they cultivated, dances they performed, ways they kissed, lessons they taught to their children, rites of
passage to transition from youth to adulthood – for all intents and purposes they were the same people,
yet there were distinctions. For those of you who live on the west side of L.A., near the college, let me
create an analogy for you – you have areas of the Westside, neighborhoods, that are primarily Mexican
American, and Salvadoran American, and Guatemalan American, and those folks are different in many,
many ways…but they are also VERY similar to one another, certainly much more so then any one of
those groups is similar to Russian Americans, or Japanese Americans…all of those ‘West-siders’ eat at
Tito’s Tacos, right? EVERYONE on the Westside eats at Tito’s, regardless of race or ethnicity – but of

44. Tito’s Tacos, right? EVERYONE on the Westside eats at Tito’s, regardless of race or
ethnicity – but of these Latino American groups, almost all of them are going to be
Catholic, and almost all speak both Spanish and English, and for the most part, they
shop at the same malls, and go to the same movie theaters, and root for the same
sports teams, the kids go to the same schools, and etc…you get the idea, I’m sure.
Different, yet the same in many ways.
So then tell me, if the Iroquois were basically the same people, then why was it, in the
decade of the 1350s, that they were engaged in a civil war of such bloody
destructiveness that they were headed towards mutual auto-homeo genocide?
Whoa, full stop – mutual auto-homeo genocide? Now you KNOW you’re in college
when I throw a polysyllabic term like that at you, right? Genocide you’re sort of
familiar with as a concept, I’m sure, but the rest of it -- ? Mutual auto-homeo genocide
means ‘a people exterminating themselves,’ civil conflict of such ferocity that 85%,
90%, maybe 98% of them would be dead, if the fighting had continued at the same level
for a long enough time.
How is it that we know this? The stories the Iroquois told the earliest French, Dutch,
and English colonists were all the same, variations on: “If we had not stopped fighting,
the Iroquois would have ceased to be.” This doesn’t mean that it would have literally
come down to two last warriors who killed each other, thus ending Iroquoian existence,
but what it does mean is that the Iroquois lands were coveted by their neighbors
because they were very fertile and easily defended – if their internal fighting had worn
them down to nothing, their enemies (like the Huron) could have invaded and killed
many of those Iroquois left alive, and enslaved or adopted the rest into their clans, and
when a generation or two had passed by, there would have been no living person left
who spoke the languages of the Hau-den-o-sau-nee, or practiced their life-ways any
longer. But the thing is, they DID did stop fighting – and the how and why of that is
really the meat of this story.
So put the Iroquois on the back burner of the stovetop of your mind for a minute,
because now we need to move north to the land of the Huron, those hereditary, mortal
enemies of the Iroquois.

45. In the land of the Huron at this time there was a holy man, a mystic, a shaman, named Deganawidah, and one day, he
died. No mystery here – death comes to all men, and his number was up. So, in the manner of their people, the
Huron bound his body, after the rigor mortis left it, so that he was in an upright, seated position, and they dug his
grave, a deep hole in the ground, a shaft, really, that Deganawidah would be lowered into after the proscribed
mourning period had ended.
And on the day of Deganawidah’s burial, his people approached him, singing his death song. His body was seated in
the center of a blanket, the four corners of which would be lifted by strong men, thus lifting the body, and then
blanket and body would be lowered into the grave, thus sending Deganawidah off to the afterlife in proper fashion.
But everything went pear-shaped when, just as the blanket was about to be lifted – Deganawidah opened his eyes.
You heard me. Opened his eyes. Looked around. Cracked his neck (had to be stiff after three days of being bound
into that one position). Flexed his muscles and burst the ties that bound him. And stood up.
At this point, they ALL stepped back a bit. You don’t need to watch The Walking Dead to know that this is not normal.
Yeah – Deganawidah stands up, and looks at his people. They look back. And he says: “Greetings to my people. I am
Deganawidah, and I have been returned to the land of the living by the Master of Life, with a Message of Great and
Glad Tidings.”
All of the Huron look at him, at each other, and one of them summons up the guts to ask the obvious question: “What
is this Message, O Degenawidah?”
And Deganawidah says: This Message is not intended for the Huron – it is for the Iroquois.”

46. Say WHAT?!
Yeah, I’ll even say it again: SAY WHAT?!
This would be like…like Robin coming back from the dead, telling Batman and Alfred that he has a super-groovy way-
out message, but sorry…it’s for the Joker. Because remember – the Iroquois are the eternal enemies of the Huron.
One French colonist asked the Huron, “So, how long ‘ave you been fighting wiz zee Iroquois?” (Use your best fake
French accent here for maximum effect) And the Huron answer? “So long as the grass has grown and the stars have
been shining in the sky.”
Wow. EN-E-MIES. Big-time.
So the Huron were shocked, even angry, maybe but not so angry they didn’t move double-quick when Deganawidah
walked towards them, and through the crowd, them parting like the Red Sea before Moses, and then they followed
him, down to the shore of Lake Ontario, and what they saw there blew their minds even more – a giant canoe, made
of white stone, just at the water’s edge. They looked at it, and as soon as their minds said, That thing isn’t going any
– that was when Deganawidah stepped into the canoe, and without a sound, it magically whooshed off onto the
water, ultimately disappearing into the mists out on the lake…and Deganawidah was never seen in the lands of the
Huron again.
Now, some of you are thinking, What kind of a numbskull fairy tale is this anyway? And that’s fine. But this is the
sacred story of the birth of the Iroquois League, and they say this happened, and – I wasn’t there, so I believe it – why
not? It’s no harder to believe than Jesus rising from the dead, not for me. I believe everything until it’s disproved, so
for me – this HAPPENED. You can make up your own mind, but not til you find outwhat goes down next…

47. At this same time in the lands of the Mohawk, at the east end of
Iroquoia, a warrior named Hiawatha (see statue, right) was in mourning
for the deaths of his wife and children (we only know they died as an
accidental by-product of the warring – what we would now call
“collateral damage”). As was the custom of the Iroquois, he had gone to
live in the woods until his period of grief was over, because the Iroquois
believed that when a man was possessed by strong negative emotions
like anger, resentment, envy, or grief, he could spread this energy, like a
virus, from one, then to another, and another…and maybe lay low a
whole clan. So the men had go away when in mourning, and wait until
they were purified by solitude. Because of this, Hiawatha was living in a
small wickiup (a shelter made out of tree branches), alone with his pain,
when into the clearing where he had situated himself walked a Huron
holy man.
Imagine Hiawatha’s surprise! Here in the middle of Mohawk territory, he
encounters a Huron, the Iroquois’ worst enemies – this would have been
like running into Osama Bin Laden in a Blockbuster Video back in 2004 --
completely unexpected. You can also imagine, I’d guess, that Hiawatha’s
first thought was to be on guard, thinking this was part of some deep
invasion plan of attack, but then before he could react, Deganawidah (for
of course, it was he) raised his hands in the universal gesture of “I come
unarmed and in peace,” and said “Greetings, Hiawatha of the Mohawk, I
am Deganawidah of the Huron, and I have been raised from the dead by
the Master of Life to bring the Iroquois a Message of Great and Glad
Tidings.”
Hold on, wait a minute – this changed everything. The Master of Life?
We have no time to go into the spiritual dimension of Iroquoian lives, but
just let this be said: the Iroquois believed in many different supernatural
forces that were engaged in managing the affairs of the natural world,
but the Master of Life, the Maker of All Things, Him Who We Do Not
Name…nobody named him. EVER. He was unapproachable, no one
talked about him in the abstract, and no one prayed to him. And
Hiawatha knew that not even a low-down Huron would take his name in
vain.
No way, no how.
This image and the next: statues of Hiawatha, artists unknown

48. So he was curious, was Hiawatha, and he invited this Huron to sit down at his fire for something to eat and drink and to tell him what
this…message was? And – or so the story goes – Deganawidah talked, and Hiawatha listened. And when the one was through talking,
and the other through listening, they shook hands, and Hiawatha realized that the Message had purified him – his grief was gone, he
could return to his people, in fact, he needed to return to his people, because there was no time to waste.
So they went to Hiawatha’s clan, and it was he that conveyed the Message to the sachems (lawmakers), for Hiawatha was a powerful
and persuasive speaker (why the master of Life sent Deganawidah to him?). And Hiawatha’s clan agreed to the plan (what PLAN? I
hear you – HANG ON!), and they traveled, one by one, to every Mohawk village, and did it all over again: pitched the Message, got the
agreement, and again, and again, and then to the lands of the Oneida, and the Onondaga, the Cayuga, and lastly to the lands of the
Seneca, and this took how long? I don’t know, a while, several years I’d guess, but by the time they were done, they had every Iroquois
village and clan on board, signed off, 100%, agreeing to be a part of what would come to be known as the Great League of Peace of the
Iroquois, also sometimes called the Iroquois Confederacy, and by the European colonists, for short, simply the Five Tribes.
Because the Message was simple – the Master of Life is angry that the Iroquois are killing one another with so little reason (for a while
now some of you must have bene wondering, why WERE they fighting such a bloody and destructive conflict, and all I can say is – the
Iroquois would never speak of the cause(s), and so we will never know) – why should brother kill brother when all of this martial
energy could be used to strike against the enemies of all of the Iroquois in common? If men have to fight (and they do), then let them
only fight common foes – and let the Iroquois never fight one another again. Instead, let them build a Great League of Peace, a
political and military alliance that would allow them to become more powerful collectively than any of their neighbors, and so would
ensure them great strength and prosperity into the future.
So stop fighting, and become best friends? How easy would that be, after all of this time of war?
Actually, easier than you might think, because the Message contained a blueprint for a new government, and the laws by whichthis
government would function – it was a HOW TO: BUILD A PERFECT GOVERNMENT AND NEVER FIGHT AGAIN plan for a better future,
and it was so well-designed, and so convincing in every detail, that the sachems of (remember?) every Iroquois village voted to take
this bold step forward, to leave war behind (war against one another) and to take a chance upon a very different destiny. And the
nutty thing is – it worked. The League was established somewhere around 1360 (we can never be totally precise), and as a result of it
the Iroquois grew to such power that they dominated the region between the Great Lakes in the North and the Gulf of Mexico in the
south, and between the Atlantic seaboard in the east and the Mississippi River in the west...for the next four hundred years.

49. Dominance…the Iroquois dominated the aforementioned
area. That’s right: dominance. They had no interest in
empire, unlike the Aztecs or the Inca, so there would be no
outright conquest, but what the Iroquois had was similar to
what the United States had towards the end of the 20th
century: they were the one nation that every other nation
had to think about, had to take into account, before they
made any major move, did anything aggressive. The same
way that in North Korea, Iran, Russia, the question is
always, “Yes, but what will the Americans do…?” the
question then was, “If we do this, will the League be
angered,” or “What will the Iroquois think if we…?” An
instructive example – at one point in the 1600s the
Cherokee considered war upon their neighbors the Creeks,
but the Creeks had good relations with the League. So the
Cherokee decided to send a group of ambassadors north to
see what the League thought about their plans for war.
The Iroquois were located in New York, and the Cherokee in
upstate Georgia – the distance between them, about 900
miles. Now you could drive that in about fifteen hours, on
modern interstates, sure – but to run it, on dirt paths
through the wooded mountains, you’re talking about
twenty-five miles per day, more or less, so call it thirty-five
to forty days of travel. A long way for that time and place
in the world. But the Cherokee went to the League, and
they asked if the Iroquois wouldn’t mind terribly if they
were to take up war against the Creeks for this reason and
that and…?

50. No, said the League. And the Cherokee said, Um, OK, and they went back home and forgot about it. Because even though the Iroquois
were forty days hard running away, the Cherokee knew that if they angered the Iroquois, that the League could put so many warriors on
the warpath, that it could ultimately lead to their undoing. Make no mistake about it, the Cherokee were a powerful people, the most
powerful in the southeast of what is now the United States – but they were not the Iroquois League.
Now let’s talk about creating the idea of the League. Not creating the League itself, but the idea of the League of Peace, amongst a
people who had been hard at war for years as recently as…well, yesterday, practically. The Iroquois were smart, and exceptionally canny
when it came to understanding the power of symbols. They knew that to convince their peoples to give up fighting one another, they
had to create symbols of strength and unity that would bind the hearts and unconscious minds of their people to the idea of the League
of Peace. So they started with the most primal aspect of their material identity as their first symbol – the longhouse.
To the right is a Dutch lithographer’s 17th-century
rendition of an Iroquois village. You can see the fence,
or stockade, all around the perimeter for defense; and
within it, you can see a variety of structures, most
about the same size – these are the longhouses which
the Iroquois lived in. They were literally LONG houses,
on average about thirty yards, or one hundred feet
long, and about twenty feet across. In each longhouse
lived the people of a clan who were all related, by
blood or marriage, to the same female ancestor. When
a young Iroquoian boy and girl were married, they
went to live, by law, in the longhouse of the girl’s family
– she was related by blood to that female ancestor, and
the boy would marry into that clan.

52. The Iroquois were matrilineal, meaning they traced their lineage through their mother’s bloodline, not as we do, through our father’s. So
everyone living in a longhouse, and there might have been ten, twelve, fifteen nuclear families, they were all related, making the
longhouse the heart of Iroquoian life and culture. So the leaders of the League, thinking of the shape of their territory, decided that they
would reimagine it as a longhouse. Look at the map on the previous slide – it’s long, right? Now follow along with me below: a
longhouse had doors at each end, and one on each side; in the center was a fire pit for warmth and illumination at night and in winter.
The territory of the League was geographically defended at north by the lake and the mountains, and at south by other mountains; at
each end, east and west, they were vulnerable. Below you see the shape of the League’s territory superimposed over a diagram of a
longhouse – four doors, fire pit. So the leaders of the Iroquois decided that their government would do its business in the Great
Longhouse, which they built in the land of the Onondaga at the center of their territory. Three hundred feet long, forty feet wide, to
symbolize them and the strength of their League, and it would have four doors, just as their territory had four “doors.”
Each tribe received a duty and a title. The Mohawk and the
Seneca, the two strongest tribes, situated at east and west
ends where Iroquoia (the land of the Iroquois) was vulnerable
to attack – they were the Keepers of the Western and Eastern
Doors, respectively. Iroquoia, and its maintenance and
security, would become synonymous in the minds of the
Iroquois with the general symbolic meaning of a longhouse,
any longhouse, as well as the Great Longhouse. The Onon-
daga, in whose lands the center of government was erected?
They became the Keepers of the Central Flame, it was their
task to make sure that flame never went out -- why? Because
it represented the life, the vitality, the very existence of the
League of Peace – so long as it burned, the Iroquois were
safe, secure, alive. Young Onondaga boys were given the task
of feeding the Flame, several hours at a time, keeping it
burning – and believe me, the kid who snuck off to see his
girlfriend, or snoozed off, and then found the fire had died –
scared, you bet, rekindling that flame as fast as possible,
hoping no one came in and saw it.

53. But the Great Longhouse was just the beginning. They also located the tallest pine tree in Iroquoia…which just happened to be on top
of the highest mountain in Iroquoia…which just happened to be in the lands of the Onondaga near the Great Longhouse – awfully
convenient, huh? And then to the lands of the Onondaga came a sorcerer, a wizard, a magician – yeah, like Gandalf, Dumbledore, Dr.
Strange, Merlin, pick your favorite, but of course these were Native Americans, not dried-up old white dudes with long beards and
pointy hats – one from each of the Five Tribes, and they brought with them an arrow, one each, all five arrows impregnated and
imbued with powerful magics, and they climbed to top of that mountain, and they pooled their magic and summoned the greatest
bald eagle the world has ever known, like a pterodactyl, a 747, impossibly gigantic, and they bound it to the top of the pine tree,
because of all avian predators, the bald eagle has the keenest eyesight, and with that eagle bound to the highest point in Iroquoia,
watchful, vigilant, the idea was that no enemy would ever be able to sneak up on the Iroquois ever again. Then they buried the five
arrows in a bundle in the roots of the pine tree, and later on the Founding Fathers co-opted the eagle of the Iroquois (who many of
them admired enormously), and placed it on the back of the one-dollar bill. Let’s look a little more closely at this on the next slide…

54. The one-dollar bill is all symbolism, but as
far as the eagle goes, it’s all about the
‘13s’ – the 13 stars above represent a new
constellation appearing in the galaxy, just
as a new nation takes its place amongst
other established nations, and 13 stripes
up and 13 down on the shield that
protects the eagle from harm. In its left
foot (claw?) the eagle clutches a bundle
of 13 arrows (sound familiar?), to indicate
that the United States is ready to go to
war to protect itself, but in the right foot
is an olive branch of 13 olives and 13
leaves; the eagle looks towards it, and to
the west, the direction of the future for
the young nation in 1801 when these
symbols were adopted. So the symbol
becomes not bellicose, but hopeful for
peace, which was, after all, also the idea
behind the Iroquois League: we don’t
want to fight you, but we will if we have
to – if possible, we prefer peace.

55. Here you see the flag of the Iroquois League, showing the through line of unity that
binds the tribes together, five tribes with the Onondaga at center, symbolized by the
pine tree.

56. And here you see a young Mohawk man,
a member of the Iroquois National
Lacrosse Team (a game which the
Iroquois may or may not have invented).
His tattoo shows the Five Tribes and the
through line of unity, with the eagle atop
the Onondaga pine tree flanked by two
lacrosse sticks

57. So the leadership of the Iroquois came up with symbols and metaphors to conjure the idea of the League in the
minds of their people. But how did the League government work?
As you read through this next section, I’d like you to try and makes points of comparison and contrast between the
way the Iroquois ran their government, and the way in which the United States government operates.
Features of the Kaianerekowa,the governmental system of the Great League of Peace of the Iroquois
• The Council of the League would meet in the fall, once in every five years, minimum
• Each Iroquois town elected men to the tribal council; from the tribal council delegates were elected to the
Council of the League. These men were called sachems (“lawmakers”), and they represented the interests of
their own tribe, but also spoke for the greater interests of the League. There were fifty seats at the Central
Flame, but one was always left empty for the spirit of Hiawatha, who the Iroquois believed was always there to
guide the Council in its decision-making
• Under the U.S. Constitution as written in 1789, senators were selected from the state legislatures
• The sachems were legislators, not warrior-chiefs – they were not allowed to go to war; if they wished to, they
were required to resign their position as sachem for that time period
• Under the Constitution, civil authorities such as members of Congress and judges could not join the
military, nor could military men be elected to political office without first resigning their commission
• The five tribes were divided into two subsets:
• Any tribe could introduce a topic for debate, but the Oneida and Cayuga were the Younger Brothers and
always voted first
• The Mohawk and the Seneca were the Older Brothers, and voted second
• The Onondaga never voted except in the case of a gridlock, which, according to the Iroquois, never
occurred, but if it had, they would vote as Younger Brothers
• Members of either House of Congress may bring a bill to the floor for debate, but the only the House
of Representatives may introduce fiscal bills, and the House votes first

58. • After the Younger Brothers debated and then voted, the Older Brothers would do the same; if
they agreed, they moved forward to the next topic. If not, then sachems from each side would
speak, trying to sway the vote of both Older and Younger Brothers in one direction or another.
Then they would vote, and talk, and vote again if need be, until enough sachems had shifted their
position so that they could reach a consensus wherein all would agree on the same course of action
• Important point - the League was not a democracy that operated according to majority rule.
They practiced consensual politics where no decision could be reached until all agreed that it
was the best thing to do – they believed that this was the only way to ensure harmony and
good feelings
• You may recall their understanding of negative emotions – the Iroquois believed that the
government had to reach harmonious decisions, because if they governed by majority
rule (as in a democracy) then there would always be an unhappy minority, which could
lead to problems within society
• Think about how much dissension there is in Congress now and for a number of years,
how much divisiveness because the Democrats can’t stand it when the Republicans win a
vote, and vice versa – perhaps the Iroquois way of making decisions and legislating is
better?
• The power of women – each sachem brought a number of women with him to the Council of the
League. These women functioned as a caucus to influence the voting of their sachem, and by
extension of all of the sachems. The sachem did not have to follow the wishes of “his” women, but
he did have to listen to them during the deliberations.
• Most importantly, the women of the tribal councils, and of the Council of the League, had an
absolute veto on decisions of war. And when war of any kind was decided upon, it was the
women who selected special chiefs to lead the war effort – they were called Pine Tree Chiefs

59. • If the conduct of any sachem was deemed inappropriate then he would be impeached by the women of his
clan and removed from power. The women would then select the new sachem.
• The reason women had so much power in Iroquoian society is because the Iroquois men and women as
being of equal importance, and as counter-balancers to one another. Men, they believed, were
fundamentally destroyers – they went to war, they chopped down the trees and uprooted their
stumps to prepare fresh fields for farming, they hunted and fished to provide meat. Women, on the
other hand, were fundamentally creators – they gave birth, they raised both boys and girls til boys
were of a certain age at which point their fathers began teaching them the ways of warriors; they
did most of the work making weapons and tools, they planted the crops, and together men and women
did the harvesting
• European traditions of the 1700s that differed from those of the Iroquois, as well as the American people:
• In Europe, military men and government officials could move from one sphere (military or government) to
the other as the mood took them – not so with the Iroquois, nor in the U.S.
• Monarchs ruled until death, even if insane (don’t believe me? Read all about King George III), whereas the
Kainerekowa had provisions for removing sachems that were not doing their job properly, and the U.S.
Constitution provides procedures for the removal from office of the president
• The British tradition in Parliament was to allow political opponents to shout and argue one another down,
whereas the Iroquois allowed only one sachem to speak at a time, and even made it a rule that a short
period of silence be observed after each man’s comments to give him time to add a late thought or
elaborate a point; this was also adopted by the U.S. Congress
• Newly acquired territories of European powers became colonies, subject to the will of the colonial power –
on the other hand the Iroquois allowed new members to join the League, as in 1722 when the Tuscaroras
applied for membership, and the “Five Tribes” became “Six”. In the same way, the United States would
decide to admit territories as new states and equals in the federal union rather than possess them as
colonies
Now you may be asking yourself what’s the point of all of this? Answer on the next page and (I swear!) you’re
almost done with the Iroquois, like 90%!

60. If you were to read any book on the writing of the Constitution in 1787, published between 1800 (when the first such book was written),
and the 1960s, you would find that all such books were firmly in agreement on at least one thing – while our Founding Fathers were a
group of extraordinary leaders, and men of rare intellect and ability, they were not creating something wholly original when they
produced the Constitution. It’s no coincidence that we have Greco-Roman words like ‘legislature,’ ‘judiciary,’ ‘representative,’ ‘senate,’
‘democracy,’ ‘republic,’ and, indeed ‘constitution,’ as part of our political lexicon – the Founders were deeply, profoundly influenced in
their thinking by the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
They also admired the British government as a model from which one might derive inspiration for creating a new government; they were
not at all crazy about the men who ran the British government – those are the guys they rebelled against. But the government itself –
they thought it marvelous, so it’s no coincidence that the United States Congress functions an awful lot like Parliament.
Right – recent (at the time) British government, and noble Greeks and Romans of the ancient world – these were the influences on the
writing of the U.S. Constitution. But in none of these books did anyone ever mention the Iroquois, a living, breathing, functioning system
of representative government that had a bicameral legislature that was right in the American backyard, so to speak – isn’t it just
possible that they may also have exerted a bit of influence upon our Founders as well…? Just maybe?
Evidence – Thomas Jefferson and George Washington
both had written of their admiration for the Kainerekowa,
and Benjamin Franklin had done that and more: he had
traveled from Pennsylvania north to Iroquoia in order to
see for himself how the League ran its business of
government, and it was Franklin who, in 1754 at the
Albany Congress received this advice from the Iroquois
sachem Cornplanter: You colonies should form a union, like
the League, so that together you wound be stronger and
more difficult to defeat… Franklin wrote articles of
glowing admiration in his newspaper back in Philadelphia,
and at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, made several
suggestions of ways in which the new government could be
made more to resemble the Kainerekowa. And on the very
first day of the convention, one of the delegates (whose
name I’m forgetting because he was a minor player
overall, I know: LOSER, DAVE!) asked for permission to
read aloud to the assembly a lengthy description of how

61. the League functioned, because he thought it might be useful to keep in mind as the delegates began work on the difficult business of
writing what would become the United States Constitution.
Not convinced? There’s more! The Iroquois had a bicameral legislature (see previous page’s diagram), with an upper and a lower house,
just like we do, where the lower house talked things over before then handing it off to the upper house. The lower house had a larger
number of members (when you count the Onondaga as – usually -- non-voting Younger Brothers), but the upper house (Older Brothers)
had more power; just like the House of Representatives in relation to the Senate.
And there are all those other points of comparison I bullet-listed earlier when I described the workings of the Kainerekowa to you. And
the word ‘caucus’ – we got that from the Iroquois (unfortunately we did not give women a larger share of the power pie in terms of
government, but nothing’s perfect). And the eagle on our money. And there’s more…but we have no time for everything, and honestly, I
think I have given you enough, enough to support my unspoken thesis (until now), which is this: that to study the early history of the
United States without first taking a good look at Native Americans and what they accomplished well before European colonizers ever
arrived on these shores; and that if this is going to be done, and you only have the time to talk about some one Indian people, then by all
means it should be the Iroquois, the Hau-den-o-sau-nee, the People of the Longhouse, the architects of the Great League of Peace.
Because even if they didn’t influence the thinking of the authors of the United States Constitution, nonetheless, who they were and
what they achieved was remarkable, and worthy of our attention and respect.
I know – I hear some of you, even now: Come on Dave, it was a bunch of dried-up old Romans and Greeks from 2,000 years earlier and
half a planet away, and on top of that, a government built by the English, those champions, of tea time, the over-consumption of sugar,
and scarily bad dental habits...they were the ones, it was all them. I know that I can’t convince all of you.
But for those who are wondering, Wait a minute, why didn’t the books written prior to the 1960s ever mention the Iroquois as having
influenced the writing of the Constitution, and are you saying that nowadays they are mentioned? The answer to the latter question is
yes, in many texts published since the 1960s, perhaps the most important being Bruce Johansen’s Forgotten Founders; and the answer
to the former question is, I think, unconscious denial. It’s hard to say, Wow, those Indians were really something else! I mean just look
at all of the great things they gave us! Our super-bitchen government is based on theirs! and then, in the next breath, follow up with:
Gosh, I guess it’s sort of too bad that we made war upon them, took all their land, largely destroyed their cultures, and nearly
exterminated them…uh…hi?
Yeah. It’s difficult to reconcile those things, just as it’s difficult to reconcile what African American slaves contributed to the growth
of the U.S. with the hideous legacy of slavery. But even though African-, Mexican-, and some other hyphenated-American groups have
legitimate gripes to air regarding the way they have been treated by the processes of the development of the United States, never
forget, friends – no one has the kind of gripes that Native Americans have, and no one lost as much as they did.

63. Respect the Iroquois, folks – respect
the people of the longhouse,
the Hau-den-o-sau-nee, the memory
of Hiawatha, Deganawidah, and the
Great League of Peace.
Respect our ‘forgotten founders.’
RESPECT.