Do you know how Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers of our country came up with the idea of uniting the colonies into a confederacy of states? If you come up clueless, you’re not alone. Most people have no idea how or where the idea originated.
A couple of hundred years before the Constitution was drafted a Native American from the Huron tribe was born. He was Deganawidah, but in time would be known as the Peacemaker, and his birth name would become so sacred that it would not be spoken aloud. He was outcast from his own tribe for a radical vision sent to him by the Great Spirit of a unified peace amongst various tribes.
In his exiled travels he met a woman named Jigonsasee and shared his vision with her. She knew he was someone special and that his vision was indeed inspired and became known as “The Mother of Nations.” He also met an Onondaga man who had lived in exile and was reviled and feared by the Mohawks. The Peacemaker brought out the good in this man and he saw the errors of his ways which were not his doing for he had been under a curse. Now lifted from the veil of evil that plagued him, he was called Hiawatha. Together the Peacemaker and Hiawatha made their way from tribe to tribe bringing the message of “The Great Peace” and united five warring tribes into a confederacy of nations.
Within one longhouse meeting place, all five tribes would send representatives to have equal say in the running of the new nation. The Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, Onondagas and Mohawks joined together as one large tribe to become the Iroquois nation. Though they were one, they each still retained their own identities, customs and spiritual practices, yet lived in peace. Eventually a sixth tribe, the Tuscaroras joined them.
A great white pine was uprooted and all five tribes threw all of their weapons into the hole and the tree was replanted as “The Great Tree of Peace.” This became a sacred spot in which all nations joined together to meet and discuss the affairs of the confederacy. They were open and hospitable and invited other tribes and peoples to join them in their league of peace and unity. Even the early European colonists were given an open door and a welcoming face. But the colonists and native peoples clashed on a number of issues, primary of which were the Europeans’ misjudgment of the native peoples as being savages for the way they lived and worshiped and for their inability to comprehend the European concept of land ownership. In their minds the land was a living, breathing entity that you could not possibly stake an ownership of.
For a time peace and trade existed. It’s not known whatever happened to the Peacemaker after he accomplished his impossible feat and brought his vision to fruition, but he has lived on in legend, myth and as an archetype. He remains an unsung hero of American history for truly he was the father of the concept on which the founding fathers of the United States based their vision of a country of freedom and independence.
