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What's your view of the supposed influence of the Six Nations Native Americans as having influenced the shaping of the U.S constitution?
Quote:
Major elements of the Iroquois system are altogether absent in the U.S. government, including hereditary, clan-based governance, and the meme focuses on Iroquois influences to the exclusion of European precedents that are at least as important, and likely more so... Viral meme says Constitution 'owes its notion of democracy to the Iroquois' | PolitiFact
The Iroquois political confederation and its recognition by early Americans was covered in my high school history class. While it is interesting to understand, in a rare example, the receptiveness to a Native philosophical topic by the contemporary colonials, the meme in question is a classic example of making a mountain out of a mole hill and slathering it with innacuracy and outright bullsh1t to make an anti-Western, anti-White point. Probably by a self-hating white SJW.
The Iroquois were a sophisticated multi-national confederacy, but the implication that they were kind to 'women and non-Whites' is laughable. While women did have a different status to western women, it was not an equal status in many ways, at least not in the worldview of modern feminism. And as far as the treatment of 'non-Whites', their history of genocide and torture techniques against enemy tribes in the couple of centuries leading up to the European settlement would make your toes curl. They were widely feared for good reason. The very name, Iroquois, means 'killer people'.
They were widely feared for good reason. The very name, Iroquois, means 'killer people'.
Their actual name is Haudenosaunee.
Here's what I fund on the name Iroquois:
"French linguists, such as Henriette Walter, and anthropologists, such as Dean Snow, support the following explanation. Before France colonized the Americas, Basque fishermen traded with the Algonquins, who were enemies of the Haudenosaunee. The above scholars think "Iroquois" came from a Basque expression, hilokoa, meaning the "killer people", which changed because of different ways that Algonquins and French pronounced words.[8] "
This is old news, and has been researched to death. See Bruce E. Johansen's book from the late 1980's/early 1990's: Forgotten Founders. Here's a link to a US State Dept./Embassy site with more info:
Benjamin Franklin was the ambassador from the colonies to the Six Nations Confederacy, and had many occasions to witness and learn about how their system worked. One of the principles he took from them and included in the Constitution was the right of the people to impeach their leader.
Benjamin Franklin was the ambassador from the colonies to the Six Nations Confederacy, and had many occasions to witness and learn about how their system worked. One of the principles he took from them and included in the Constitution was the right of the people to impeach their leader.
No, the concept of impeachment comes from British Law, not from the Six Nation Confederacy.
Considering that Rome became a Republic in 509 B.C., likely
having a Senate for many years before that, and most
European movers and shakers of the time were enthralled with
classicist Greek and Roman history, no, the Iroquois contributed
absolutely nothing to the Republic here in the U.S.A.
Genocide is not the same as oppression at all. Very different things. They were not going to a land and oppressing a people like most European countries did. Very different things.
I'd say the colonists were more influenced in conjoining to get rid of the Indians, not to emulate them.
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