Three nations had now agreed to join the great law of peace,
but there were two more in the Peacemaker's sites.
The Seneca and the Onondaga.
Both were powerful nations renowned in war, and they had every reason to reject a peace
that asked them to lay down their weapons.
War might come at a great cost, but it also kept them safe from their enemies,
and it gave them power.
The Seneca had more warriors than any other nation, including the Onondaga.
They had battled Tadodaho many times,
repeatedly checking his ambition with their own.
But he was far from their only enemy, they fought many wars
outside the five nations which the Peacemaker sought to unite,
and to support those wars, they frequently raided their neighbors.
Many of the envoys who now followed the Peacemaker,
had suffered or lost loved ones in Seneca raids.
Hiawatha and the Peacemaker came braced for an argument.
But they were greeted warmly,
the Seneca had already heard of the peace treaty.
Jagonsaseh who was Seneca herself, had sent her own messengers,
explaining the principles of righteousness, health and power that had convinced her to join the Peacemaker.
Aside from two chiefs who lived to the far west, the Seneca were ready to accept the treaty.
But those two chiefs had the most warriors and the most reason for not accepting the treaty.
They lived on the border. A peace treaty among the five nations would protect the chiefs in the interior, but not them.
if outsiders came to threaten the confederacy, they would be the first to fall.
The Peacemaker called together all the envoys to discuss what they should do.
None of them had participated in a council like this before.
So at first, it was chaos, everybody talked over everybody else
and when nobody could be heard they all grew angry.
Egos swelled, and they began to hurl insults at each other.
They swore that they could never work together, and threatened to return home,
call up their warriors, and take to the warpath again.
The Peacemaker refused to let his life's mission be torn apart in an afternoon.
He sat the envoys down around the longhouse fire, and declared that they must behave like brothers.
The Mohawk and the Seneca were the elder brothers who sat on one side of the fire, and considered new proposals first.
If they approved, the issue would then pass to the younger brothers, the Cayuga and Oneida who sat on the other side of the fire.
And when they took turns like this, everyone's voice would be heard.
In short, he established a bicameral legislature.
There was no place yet for the Onondaga, so Hiawatha sat with the Mohawks.
It had been years since he'd left his homeland,
and since he had joined the Peacemaker the Mohawks had welcomed him as one of their own.
Now his place among them allowed him to be one of the first to review new proposals.
He quickly helps to resolve the matter of the two Seneca chiefs to the far west.
The Seneca would be honored as keepers of the western door,
the Mohawk became keepers of the eastern door.
When strangers approached, the keepers would be the first to judge them,
and could call up the warriors from all five nations if they thought it was necessary.
But their first responsibility would be to offer peace to all who came and to welcome those who accepted it.
Only those who refused the offer three times, would be met with war.
The chiefs accepted this, and the Seneca joined the great peace.
Then Hiawatha made another proposal,
one that he believed would convince Tadodaho to accept a treaty and join the final nation to their cause.
Debate raged around the fire, but Hiawatha urged them all to keep an open mind.
They had secured the eastern and western doors,
But there could not be peace among them as long as the Onondaga who lived in the middle, did not accept it.
So the council put its faith in Hiawatha's plan.
They all returned to the Onondaga together, and met with Tadodaho.
His temper flared when he saw the envoys from the Cayuga,
Whom he had so often bullied, now apparently joining forces against him.
Even though he knew he was outnumbered
he immediately rose from his bench and threatens to crush them all with war.
"We have not come for war, but to make you an offer, we want you to be the leader of our council."
Tadodaho sat back down.
This was Hiawatha's suggestion,
Tadodaho would have the seat of honor,
and hold a veto over all the laws which the council of nations considered.
Including him, the Onondaga would have 14 representatives at the council,
more than any other tribe.
In terms of the great longhouse that the Peacemaker wanted to build,
The Onondaga would be the keepers of the fire.
They would have the last vote on all proposals, and council meetings would always be held on their land.
Tadodaho's mind spun with the possibilities.
Through war, he had been able to claim more and more power for himself,
but nowhere near much as he stood to gain for this treaty.
Four nations wanted to stand before him and offer him the ability to decide their laws for them?
How powerful he would become?
While these thoughts were swirling through his head,
Jagonsaseh stepped forward.
She hadn't believed that Tadodaho could be reformed.
But the peacemaker did, and she trusted the peacemaker.
Even so, she could see the evil ideas slithering through his mind,
and knew that she must put a stop to them.
She walked straight up to him, looked him in the eye,
and ordered him to strike her.
Aghast and confused, Tadodaho looked around.
Who was this woman, to give him orders like this and such orders?
He couldn't strike a woman, especially a clan mother.
And he told her so.
"Is that not what you do?"Jagonsaseh challenged.
"I have heard many tales of your power, of how you a powerful man, strike the women in your longhouse."
"How you make men afraid of you by threatening their lives?"
"Why should you now hesitate to do it to me what you have done to so many others?"
"Isn't that what your power is for?"
"Will that not be how you lead our people?"
Tadodaho bowed his head in shame.
Suddenly he saw all of his plans for what they were.
Greedy and cruel.
He begged for forgiveness.
Jagonsaseh saw that spark of goodness take light in him, and filled with mercy,
She ran her hands through his hair, and soothed him like a mother sooths her child.
Now that Tadodaho who was ready to listen,
Hiawatha explained the rest of his proposal.
All votes of the council would be unanimous.
In effect, they all had veto power,
and all the nations would be equal,
but Tadodaho would vote last.
And as the leader they all looked to,
he had a responsibility to use his veto only when he could give a strong reason for his refusal,
Tadodaho agreed, and at last, the Onondaga joined the great peace.
All five nations now agreed to peace,
But it remained for them to finalize the laws of their new confederacy.
Jagonsaseh with her knowledge of every nation,
sat with the women's councils and decided which of the former war chiefs would now become council representatives.
These men were given antlers to represent their new position,
and the women who put them there, received strings of Hiawatha's wampum beads.
Signifying the fact that whoever they might choose to sit on the council,
the seat itself belongs to the women.
All these representatives gathered for the first time on the shores of Onondaga lake,
where the Peacemaker awaited them.
Before the meeting began he asked one of the warriors for an arrow from his quiver.
Then he held up the arrow and snapped it.
"See how easily this breaks?" he told them.
Then he asked for a warrior from each of the five nations to give him an arrow.
Bundling these five together he bent them with all of his strength,
but the five arrows together held firm .
"When we are united," he explained.
"we cannot be broken."
Before they could begin the council however,
the Peacemaker insisted that all of them cast away their weapons and commit their minds to peace.
He chose a white pine tree,
whose needles grew in bunches of five,
all the warriors uprooted the tree,
buried their weapons under its roots and then replanted it.
And became law makers instead.
An eagle came to perch on this new tree of peace,
and the Peacemaker explained that
it would watch over them, and sound a warning if danger approached.
Centuries later, men like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington,
would sit down with the descendants of the first Haudenosaunee counsel,
to learn how they had governed themselves for so many generations.
They studied the great law of peace and later,
they adapted many of its principles into the US constitution.
As a tribute, they adopted the eagle as their national symbol, and
placed a bundle of 13 arrows in its claws,
one for each colony of the new United States of America.
But that's a story for another time.
Back to Hiawatha.
The council began to draft laws forged by the lessons the Peacemaker had taught them.
He had always insisted that the government must function for the will of the people.
So they decreed that leaders must evaluate
how each new law would affect the people for seven full generations.
If they failed in their duties,
they would be warned,
and then removed from office.
Only clan mothers like Jagonsaseh could appoint a new leader.
And the Peacemaker believed that government only functioned,
if everyone had a role and a voice.
So the men's and the women's council of each clan,
received the power to propose laws.
As the constitution took shape,
Hiawatha wove together strings of wampum to commemorate the new laws.
Holding the wampum would help people remember,
he hoped the spirit of each law, and the council that passed it.
Determined to create something grander than the simple string
he had given the Peacemaker at their first meeting,
Hiawatha designed a broad belt,
that would become the symbol of the confederacy.
White lines of peace connected the five nations of confederacy,
with the Onondaga at the center, represented by the tree of peace.
Those lines extended to the edge of the belt,
for he hoped that the great peace would extend outwards to other nations.
An invitation which the Tuscarora nation accepted in 1722.
Hotinonshonni history is seldom told outside of their own traditions.
But the legacy of Hiawatha remains a vibrant one.
His name, and the names of his fellow Council members,
Survived as titles given to the council leaders who inherited their seats.
And a man called Tadodaho leads the council to this day.
The original Tadodaho followed through on his promise to Jagonsaseh,
and became a leader that the Haudenosaunee could be proud of,
as well as proof of the peacemakers conviction,
that men forged in war still carried peace in their hearts.
For the Peacemaker he alone had no successor.
for he explained that other men could counsel the people.
But none could do as he had done in founding the great law of peace.
His work here was done.
Thank you again to DomiNations, for sponsoring Extra History and making these episodes possible. To play DomiNations,
go to your Google Play, or IOS app store, or click the link in the description. It's free, give it a look!