before European contactPrimary sourceDebated
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Great Law of Peace
On the timeline · around before European contact ·
What happened
Five nations of what is now upstate New York — the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca — united under the Great Law of Peace, an oral constitution attributed to the Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy governed itself through a Grand Council of chiefs, with the Tuscarora joining as a sixth nation in the 1700s.
Why it matters
The Confederacy was one of the oldest participatory democracies on earth, and some scholars and a 1988 act of Congress hold that its federal, consensus-based model helped inspire the framers of the U.S. Constitution.
How we know
The Confederacy's exact founding date is debated — estimates range from the 12th to the 15th century — but its existence well before European contact is firmly established.
Sources
Related timelines
- History of Democracy → — An Indigenous model of confederated self-government