Great Law of Peace
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gayanashagowa or the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois (or Haudenosaunee) Six Nations is the oral constitution that created the Iroquois Confederacy. The law was developed by a Huron[citation needed] man known as The Great Peacemaker and his spokesman Hiawatha. Member Nations ratified this constitution near present day Victor, New York.
The Iroquois Confederacy was once thought to have started in the 1500s, but more recent estimates date the confederacy, and its constitution between 1090 and 1150 CE. These estimates were based on the records of the confederacy leadership and astronomical dating related to the lunar eclipse that coincided with the founding of the Confederacy [1].
According to some researchers, history professor Dr. Donald A. Grinde in particular, the Gayanashagowa is said to have provided significant inspiration to Benjamin Franklin and James Madison in the writing of the United States Constitution. Other specialists, such as Jack Rakove of Stanford University, note the lack of documentation to support this view.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Mann 2005, p.332
[edit] References
- Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
[edit] External links
|
||||||||||
 |
This article relating to Indigenous peoples of North America is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
