On December 6th, 1811, the New York Historical Society invited former Senator and future
almost-President DeWitt Clinton to give a speech at their annual meeting.
Clinton took them up on their offer, and used the opportunity to deliver a 90 minute monologue
arguing that the Iroquois were, in his words, "the Romans of the Western world."
Clinton's overall argument was that New York academia was not spending enough time studying
the Iroquois Confederacy.
This was true.
The Iroquois definitely deserved some serious scholarship, but not for the reasons given
by DeWitt Clinton.
It was a common trope at the time to draw this artificial link between the Iroquois
and the Romans, but in the final analysis, this turned out to be reductive, and lazy,
and fundamentally wrong.
Today, we can do better.
There's a saying that goes: "the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper
name."
The name Iroquois doesn't really tell us anything useful, and the reason for that is that it's
not their proper name.
The Iroquois are known among themselves as the Haudenosaunee, which means "the People
of the Longhouse."
That should give us a clue as to who these people are.
The Haudenosaunee are not one people, but many peoples, knit together by a common culture
and political system.
The Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee were, in descending order of size, the Seneca, the
Mohawk, the Cayuga, the Onondaga, and the Oneida.
These Five Nations formed a confederacy, each semi-autonomous, but united under one supranational
government.
We're gonna tackle that government in a few minutes, but in order to understand it, we
must first understand the Haudenosaunee's most potent political entity.
Any guesses as to what that was?
If only we had some kind of clue.
Oh wait.
We do.
Proper names, they make history easy!
For centuries, longhouses were some of the largest and most sophisticated buildings on
the continent, with some approaching 100 metres long.
The typical longhouse supported 6 to 10 nuclear families, each with their own little section,
kinda like an apartment.
Families opposite each other shared communal fires, which ran the length of the building.
Pay attention, because the imagery of the longhouse and the communal fire is going to
come up a lot when we get into the Haudenosaunee government.
But we're not there yet.
First we need to discuss who got to participate in that government, because it's no simple
thing.
Haudenosaunee society was a matriarchy, meaning that ultimate political power rested with
women.
The most important manifestation of this power was in the position of Clan Mother.
The Clan Mother was basically the head of each family, but in this case the word "family"
had a pretty expansive meaning.
The term included the Clan Mother's spouse and children, obviously, but also her daughters'
spouses, and their children, as well as her own sisters, their spouses, and their children.
As you can imagine, a Clan Mother's family could easily number in the hundreds, which
is where the "clan" part of the name came from.
Everybody in a Clan Mother's extended family were were lumped together and thrown into
one or several longhouses.
On all political matters, the Clan Mother spoke on behalf of the entire longhouse.
This was the most important political relationship in Haudenosaunee society.
Each Clan Mother was empowered to appoint men from her own clan into key political positions.
While in those positions, these people became the personal representatives of the Clan Mother,
and through her, the entire longhouse.
This meant that she was also allowed to un-appoint them at any time, for any reason.
Historian William N. Fenton has said that there's no evidence of one of these political
appointees ever, let me repeat, ever defying the wishes of his Clan Mother.
All political appointees are simply known by the catchall term "chief."
There were 4 kinds of chiefs: Civil Chiefs, War Chiefs, Peace Chiefs, and Sachems.
As you can imagine, Civil Chiefs governed settlements, War Chiefs did strategic war
planning, and Peace Chiefs dealt with diplomacy and trade.
We can ignore Sachems for the moment because we're gonna get into that later.
The most important thing to remember is that every chief was backed by a Clan Mother, and
that the clans, through the Clan Mothers, remained the most important political unit.
All clans within each Nation were arbitrarily divided into two groups which ethnographers
call moieties.
There's not that much to say about moieties right now since they are largely ceremonial,
but you need to know what they are because they're going to come up later.
To summarize, one or several longhouses made a clan, several clans made a moiety, and two
moieties made a Nation.
Clan Mothers picked the chiefs, and the chiefs helped administer each Nation.
But there's one more thing we haven't considered yet.
The actual subject at hand.
The fact that Five Nations made a Confederacy.
The Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy met in Onondaga territory and formed the Haudenosaunee
Council.
Who did this?
Sachems.
Remember, Sachems were the fourth category of chief that I said we'd get into later.
WELL, BUCKLE UP, 'CAUSE WE'RE GETTIN' INTO IT NOW.
The Haudenosaunee Council consisted of 50 Sachems from across the Five Nations.
Membership in the Council broke down like this:
The Mohawk sent 9 Sachems, the Onondaga sent 14, the Seneca sent 8, the Oneida sent 9,
and the Cayuga sent 10.
It would be embarrassing if that didn't add up to 50.
Oh, good.
Under the Confederacy, the Five Nations considered themselves one family, living under the same
longhouse.
This symbolism was extremely important.
The Mohawk were the founders of the Confederacy, and as such they were recognized as the theoretical
eldest sibling of this theoretical family in this theoretical longhouse.
The Onondaga were recognized as the middle sibling, and the Seneca were recognized as
the youngest sibling.
Then, for a change of pace, the Oneida and the Cayuga were recognized as another set
of child-siblings, with the Oneida being the elder and the Cayuga being the younger.
This wasn't just for fun.
The exact positioning within this family was the end result of some tough negotiations,
and would have real world implications.
I explained moieties a minute ago, and that's going to come in handy now.
This family structure divided the Five Nations into two moieties.
The Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Seneca formed the Senior Moiety, and the Oneida and the
Cayuga formed the Junior Moiety.
Remember how different nuclear families would come together to share a fire in the centre
of the longhouse?
That conceptual framework came into play here.
Council meetings took place around the eternal fire of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
As hosts, the Onondaga Nation was entrusted with maintaining this fire year round.
During actual council meetings, for both symbolic and practical reasons, the job of maintaining
the fire fell to the 14 Onondaga Sachems, who sat in the centre of the longhouse, closest
to the fire.
In the literature these are sometimes called the Onondaga Firekeepers.
The two remaining Nations from the Senior Moiety sat together on one side of the fire,
and the two Nations from the Junior Moiety sat on the other.
Let's get into how the Council worked.
Step 1: Somebody introduces a thing.
Am I going too fast?
This would normally be a foreign policy thing, so for the sake of clarity we're going to
pretend that one of the Mohawk Sachems introduced a peace treaty or something.
Step 2: Whichever Nation brought the proposal would debate the issue among themselves, with
everybody else looking on.
Multiple speakers were given a chance to make their case, but eventually, the Sachems within
that Nation had to come to some sort of consensus.
Without consensus, the proposal died.
Step 3: Once a consensus was reached, the question got passed to the other Nation within
the same moiety.
In this case, since the Mohawk were in the Senior Moiety, that would mean the Seneca.
For the time being, the Onondaga Firekeepers remained separate from this process.
Within that sibling nation, the same process played itself out.
There was another internal debate, and again, speakers got a chance to make their case.
Just like last time, the question could not proceed until there was consensus.
Now it starts to get complicated.
If the two Nations within the same moiety came to different consensuses, they would
have to start the whole thing over again.
Step 4: If that moiety reached a consensus, the issue got kicked across the fire for the
other moiety's consideration.
That moiety, in this case the Junior Moiety, would debate as one, and the issue would not
proceed until they reached a consensus.
However, and this is key, the two moieties did not have to reach the same consensuses.
Just to keep things interesting, we're going to pretend that that happens here.
Step 5: Finally, the Onondaga Firekeepers got to weigh in.
As the host Nation, they got to position themselves as a neutral third party.
Just like everybody else, the Onondaga had to reach an internal consensus.
Now, in this case, where the two moieties disagreed, the Onondaga got to play the role
of tiebreaker, and whatever they decided would become the final result.
If, on the other hand, we were in a situation where the two moieties agreed, one of two
things could happen.
The Onondaga could simply endorse the group's decision, simple enough, or they could send
the question all the way back to the beginning for a second round of debate.
If, after that second round, it came back to them again, they had no choice but to agree.
Still with me?
It's complicated, so let's do a simplified summary.
A person would introduce a question, then their nation would debate, then their sibling
nation would debate, then the other moiety would debate, then the Onondaga would debate
and offer their final approval.
Each one of these steps required internal consensus.
Let's consider the implications of a system like this.
Internally, the Confederacy was extremely unbalanced.
The two most powerful Nations were the Mohawk and the Seneca, and nobody else even came
close.
These two Nations also happened to be located at opposite ends of the Confederacy.
So take a moment and think: which situation would the Haudenosaunee want to avoid at all
costs?
It makes sense when you look at the map.
What they wanted to avoid was the Mohawk taking one position, the Seneca taking another position,
everybody in the middle being forced to pick a side.
A situation like that can lead to a civil war.
Instead, what did they do?
They said "Mohawk, Seneca, the group isn't even going to discuss your proposal until
you two agree."
If the two heavyweights could not reach a consensus, the smaller Nations never entered
the debate.
A similar things happened if the proposal came from the other side of the fire.
If there was consensus among the smaller Nations but the Mohawk and the Seneca couldn't come
to terms, the issue was dropped, nothing happened.
What else would the Haudenosaunee want to avoid?
Well, you wouldn't want the Mohawk or the Seneca dominating the Council, lest you spawn
some kind of Mohawk or Seneca Empire.
So how did they stop this?
The Council isolated the two most powerful Nations in the Senior Moiety.
Remember, the two moieties did not have to agree, so if the smaller Nations said one
thing, and the powerful Nations said another thing, the Onondaga, another small Nation,
got to break that tie.
In other words, if the Mohawk and the Seneca decided to gang up on the rest of the Council,
the smaller Nations could still bypass them.
The Council counteracted the imbalance within the Confederacy.
It's really a remarkable invention.
In the early 18th century, the Tuscarora Nation lost a war against the Europeans, and then
migrated north, straight into Haudenosaunee territory.
The Oneida proposed offering the Tuscarora full membership into the Confederacy.
The Tuscarora were also People of the Longhouse.
Same language, same culture.
It made a lot of sense.
Since the Oneida proposed the idea, the Cayuga were consulted next.
After some internal debate, they agreed.
With the Junior Moiety in agreement, the proposal was kicked across the fire to the Senior Moiety,
who agreed as well.
Finally, the Onondaga Firekeepers were consulted.
They gave the thumbs up, and with that, proposal was adopted.
In 1722, the Five Nations became the Six Nations.
The Tuscarora were adopted into the Junior Moiety as a new, youngest sibling.
However, in a move that tells us that the Tuscarora were in no position to negotiate,
they were not given any representation on the Council.
Up until the mid-18th century, whenever European settlers wanted something from the Haudenosaunee,
they would would ask to see their chief.
If you're made it this far, you should understand that that was a confusing request.
Which chief?
Even if they sent somebody, they couldn't make any decisions without first consulting
with their Clan Mother, and they certainly could not conduct foreign policy without the
Council's approval.
This centuries long miscommunication was completely avoidable.
In 1811, when DeWitt Clinton delivered his speech before the New York Historical Society,
academia was just beginning to take the Haudenosaunee seriously.
It was long overdue.
That's why he devoted so much time trying to convince his peers that the Haudenosaunee
were, in fact, "the Romans of the Western world."
It's unfortunate phrasing, and by now you understand that it's not remotely true.
What he could have said is "you should take the Haudenosaunee as seriously as you take
the Romans."
After all, unlike the Romans, they're still here, still running what can plausibly be
called the world's oldest democracy.