what was the first democracy in North America I imagine your first instinct is
to think the United States their Republic was founded in the 18th century
and very often the way that Americans teach history they think that they were
the first democracy or at least the first one since Greece so I imagine the
more astute step back viewers will know that if I started with such a simple
question that there's probably something going on and there is fewer there is you
might have heard of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy it's the name the people of
the Confederacy prefer for themselves Haudenosaunee means people of the
longhouse you might know them as the Six Nations or the Iroquois our story today
is about the legend of the founding of this League of peace and the resilience
and future of the nations within this great Confederation according to the
oral tradition of the Haudenosaunee we begin with an Onondaga man named
hiawatha his story is very much a legend passed down by many generations of oral
storytellers he was likely a historical figure but with lots of edits and
flourishes over the centuries he lived during a time in history known as the
time of the blood feuds it was a violent period before the unification of the
Seneca Cayuga Onondaga Oneida and Mohawk violence from one nation to another
sparked retaliation which would repeat in an endless cycle of bloodshed
Hiawatha's story begins with tragedy as an Onondaga warrior he lost his wife and
daughters to the endless conflict scarring the land the loss sent him into
a deep depression and he wandered the land mourning in his travels he met
Deganawida the peacemaker the Haudenosaunee
portrayed Deganawida as a wise wanderer from the far north he
came to this land with a mission to end the blood feuds and bring peace the two
men met somewhere in the Mohawk nation's territory a nomad who wanted to bring
peace to a war-torn land and a grieving husband and father in self-exile they
both wanted to see an end to the war and violence plaguing the people of a long
time but Hiawatha was in a deep depression
the loss clouding his thinking and he could barely keep himself together if he
were to move forward to save those people from the endless cycle of war
he'd need to process his grief Deganawida taught him an important ritual
still held in sacred practice today by the Haudenosaunee it's a ceremony of
prayer and song used to say way to process grief for the dead this was
meant to replace a practice known as mourning wars these were Wars not for
resources or territory but for revenge a part of their spiritual healing process
the battles included capturing captives to become spiritual successors of those
they'd lost the ceremony was one of the first concrete steps towards peace a way
to put an end to violence met with retaliatory violence and endless blood
feuds and mourning wars that just rampaged every society and left everyone
full of grief and hatred this was a way to heal the wounds between these groups
and for the first time in a long time make peace the ritual requires a
practitioner of a calm mind one unaffected by grief they would clear the
eyes of the mourner from the tears to clear their vision they'd open their
ears to help them hear clearly and their throat so that they may speak the cloud
of pain and suffering would lift and reason would return if the Haudenosaunee
nations were entire tribes in mourning clouded by the grief of endless cycles
of violence than the role of Deganawida would be as a clear-headed outsider
who came to this land to perform this condolence ritual for an entire country
Deganawida had healed hiawatha and soon hiawatha became his follower they
traveled along the five original nations of the confederacy to spread knowledge
of the condolence ceremonies they immortalized the condolence ritual with
an intricate pattern of beads on strings known as wampum to this day the
Haudenosaunee use wampum to remember their history
and laws they trace the origin of this practice to this moment with Hiawatha
the pair's first stop was the Mohawk nation from there they moved west
spreading the knowledge of the condolence ritual the Mohawks accepted
it as well as the Oneida Nation their third stop was Hiawatha's home nation
the Onondaga there they met with a war chieftain named a Tatar ho the legends
say he had snakes for hair and wielded dark magic if you don't choose look at
him literally though you could see at haut our hoe as sort of a counterpoint
to Hiawatha both of them representing the two things that were creating the
great pain and sickness of the Haudenosaunee people before the
confederation Atotarho represents the resistance and the legacy of all of the
anger and hatred that had been pent up through years of war so Atotarho was also a
chief who owed his position of power to war he was a war chieftain and so many
before the founding of the Confederacy held their positions of power based on
being part of the warrior caste to stop the endless cycle of war meant to give
up some of their prestige in their position so while Atotarho represented
the anger and the vitriol and the violence hiawatha represented the pain
and the loss both would need to be overcome in order to build this
Confederacy of peace and so when the pair went to see Atotarho he rejected
their proposal they did not let this rejection defeat their mission soon
Hiawatha and Deganawida met with the Cayuga and Seneca who agreed to join
they returned to Atotarho with the Four Nations backing them he still
refused their offer unable to see past his own rage and hurt
the other foreign nations proposed attacking the Onondaga to force them
into the Confederacy but hiawatha did not want a black mark on the birth of an
era of peace he offered Atotarho a sacred position that of the great chief
or chief such 'm the Onondaga Nation would also become the home of the Grand
Council it would be the meeting spot for all of the nations to discuss
Confederacy and you know what he agreed the message
of peace had gone through from this moment the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was
born after Atotarho experienced his own condolence ceremony he and Hiawatha
were his brothers the early Haudenosaunee Confederacy was a massive power in the
region their ability to cultivate the three sisters of corn squash and beans
led to a vast population hold on I think I'm getting a collaboration thing one
sec hi I'm cogito you can tell it's someone from another channel because the
art is a better I've made a video in collaboration with step back on the
amazing agricultural technology that the Native Americans possessed if that
sounds like something that you're interested in then head over to my video
once you finish watching this one with this superior population they were able
to expand in two regions less populated that is until they got farming as well
and even the odds I will mention though these archaeological theories clash with
the Haudenosaunee themselves who dispute this things seem to be going well until
the 15th or 16th century the Haudenosaunee began to face their
greatest threat a force which threatens their existence to this day they met
Europeans historians dispute whether their first interactions with Europeans
was in 1535 meeting Jacques Cartier or in 1608 meeting Samuel de Champlain
regardless they soon became well known to the French the French would forgo
calling them the Haudenosaunee or the name of the nation they belonged to
opting for the name Iroquois contact was a disaster the European diseases brought
mass deaths to the Haudenosaunee people as well as every indigenous
nation on the hemisphere estimates range from 80 to more than 90% of the
population of North and South America this mass dying represented about a
fifth of the human population in a never-ending drive to secure more
hunting territory for beaver pelts the Haudenosaunee launched a conflict
against the French and their Huron allies known as the beaver wars they
purchased guns from their Dutch allies in modern-day Albany to fight back
scholars now believe this conflict was a new emergence of the mourning wars they
looked for people to bolster their population captives would become
symbolic reincarnation of the many many lost though they
managed to dodge and even expand their territory by the early 18th century the
Haudenosaunee were a major power in north america they could play the rival
empires of the British and French against each other to their benefit
displace from their homes in North Carolina the Tuscarora asked to join the
great Confederacy and they became the sixth nation today you might hear the
Haudenosaunee referred to as the Six Nations other nations became subjects of
the Confederacy and something called overlordship the Confederacy assimilated
them as part of the Covenant chain they were essentially made tributaries during
the Seven Years War the Haudenosaunee allied with the British against the
French after the British victory they signed a
tree ensuring them land to live upon which settlers could not expand into
just want to mention though that many citizens of the thirteen colonies both
ignored this treaty and complained about it frustration over this qurban
expansion as well as many other issues from the Seven Years War prompted the
thirteen colonies to rise against the British in the American Revolution
the Haudenosaunee initially tried to keep neutral in the conflict as the war
dragged on though loyalties to the British or Americans split the
Confederacy they weren't able to recreate their great bonfire until after
the war in Buffalo but now the nation straddled two separate countries the
Americans demanded through a series of treaties a majority of Haudenosaunee
territory the governor of New York tried to convince them to sell their land to
white settlers even exploiting an alcohol dependence epidemic to
strong-arm them into giving up their ancestral territory by the 1950s the US
was still confiscating land from the Confederacy after World War two the US
began something they called Indian termination they went through the act of
trying to dismantle indigenous governments in favor of forced
assimilation into American culture they attempted to officially terminate
relations on a nation to nation level nowadays in America the legal status of
indigenous people is a messy oppressive patchwork of laws depending upon who
could lobby for their existence to this day the Haudenosaunee government still
exists it still strives to keep a secure future for its people while resisting
colonization this is the part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy I
really want to impress they're still alive we tend to conceive of the stories
of indigenous people as being past tense on this long era of decline on this
inevitable path towards oblivion but they are alive they are current they
have not just a present but a future and it's a future that we can all do
something to make better I want to give a huge shout out to my patrons who
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