Native American Societies and the Evolution of Democracy in America, 1600-1800

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“…I use "officially recognized" in scare quotes because the possibility exists that Indigenous societies also may have utilized forms of governance that one might today call democracies, but western historians' penchant for locating Greece as the locus of civilization obscures this possibility. We know, for example, that Indigenous forms of egalitarian democracy were in place when colonizers arrived in North America in the fifteenth century; Benjamin Franklin drew upon examples from the Iroquois League and other Indigenous societies to draft the first version of the US Articles of Confederation (Gould 2007, 230;Johansen 1990) in July 1775, although that draft never received formal consideration. Unclear in historical accounts, however, is for how long Indigenous groups may have been self-governing with egalitarian principles prior to European contact.…”

“…While the Iroquois and other Native American societies did not provide the model for the Constitution by and of themselves, American Indian societies did provide our founders with examples of societies that were substantially freer than Europe's of that time. (Johansen 1990, 288, italics in original) Although it is beyond the scope of this short essay to explore core ideas of democracy within Indigenous societies (in North America and beyond; for example, the Celts) (see Johansen 1990), perhaps the important take-away is that democracy is not an "invention" of the ancient Greeks, the British Magna Carta, or the United States Constitution; as a concept, it has operated in different configurations across history and around the world. While dictionary definitions of democracy describe it as a system of government whose officials, as representatives of the people, are elected by those eligible to vote, voting eligibility laws vary widely from one system to another.…”

The Origins of Modern Nationalism in the North Atlantic Interaction Sphere

“…A lore has developed that the Iroquois commanded a powerful indigenous empire, and that their notions of government significantly influenced the constitutional ideas of the founders of the United States. Reinvigorated in the 1980s and 1990s, the 'Iroquois influence thesis' has been debated and effectively criticised (Johansen 1990, Tooker 1988, Levy 1996. While there was diplomatic contact between the Iroquois and figures such Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, among others, these seem to have largely concerned the pragmatics of power relations on the frontier, and any admiration for the vigour and liberty of the Iroquois, as representatives of indigenous Americans more generally, appears to have been mixed with a clear sense of the ultimate superiority of European ways.…”

Academic Indianismo: Social Scientific Research in American Indian Studies

“…Johansen published an annotated bibliography on the entire affair in 1996, Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy, and a supplemental bibliography came out in 1999. 64 Although the evidence for the Iroquois contribution to the evolution of American democracy appears to be indisputable, its detractors have not entirely given up their academic turf war. Vine Deloria characterized this state of affairs with the following piece of sarcasm:…”