This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
In "Braiding Sweetgrass" we are embraced with the democracy in coexisting with nature. The regard for all other creatures, animal and plant as equal members of the tribe of earth dwellers, the grateful occupants of Turtle Island, our world.
Kimmerer is a member of the Potawatomi Nation and I couldn't help but think about:
- how little we know of the Native nations who our European ancestors pushed to the curb or he governing structures these nations formed, and
- how much the Natives of the Americas contributed to our founding ideals and even to the "Enlightenment" in Europe.
In "The Hidden History of American Democracy" Thom Hartmann delves into the Indian nations who were indeed nations in their own right, and into the universal impulse for freedom. Hartmann writes, "Democracy, it turns out, is the default state of virtually every animal species on Earth, and humanity is no exception."
During the decade of Ben Franklin's birth and Voltaire's youth a bestselling book in Europe quoted from a Wendat (Huron) statesman, Kandiaronk who criticized European society for its obsession with class and wealth. Already many Natives had traveled to Europe and learned European languages such as English and French, speaking and reading.
Indeed, Kandiaronk was most likely a visitor to the court of Louis XIV in 1691, Louis the "Sun King" the ballet king, the always at war king. So, it is possible that Kandiaronk watched ballet in France.
Where, asks Hartmann, did Rousseau and the philosophers of his day get their egalitarian ideas? Modern scholarship indicates Native Americans, both directly and indirectly. Hartmann notes, "… the most famous philosophers and political thinkers of Europe and the American colonies in the early 1700s were carefully studying reports of how Native American—particularly Iroquoian—societies and polities were structured four generations before the French Revolution."
Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter, who died when Thomas was 14, knew many Native people in his region. As he mapped the Virginia colony in 1751, he met hundreds of Native leaders. Years later, in 1812, writing to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson recalled, "I was very familiar, … they were in the habit of coming often and in great numbers to the seat of government, where I was very much with them. I knew much the Ontasseté, the warrior and orator of the Cherokees; he was always the guest of my father, on his journeys to and from Williamsburg."
Later, Thomas Paine would write, " To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe."
In May of 1776 Iroquois came to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia where they were treated as visiting dignitaries.
Later, as the new constitution was being worked out, John Adams noted the ancient British tribes, Germanic tribes and Native American Tribes all practiced democracy with the three branches of government that he, Adams, and Jefferson were advocating.
Quoting Hartmann:
Adams wrote, “It would have been much to the purpose to have inserted a more accurate investigation of the form of government of the ancient Germans and modern Indians; in both, the existence of the three divisions of power is marked with a precision that excludes all controversy. The democratical branch, especially, is so determined, that the real sovereignty resided in the body of the people.”
He added, “To collect together the legislation of the Indians, would take up much room, but would be well worth the pains. The sovereignty is in the nation, it is true, but the three powers are strong in every tribe.”
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR Radio Readers Book Club
