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.
