Iroquois Great Law of Peace

The Haudenosaunee confederacy constitution, centuries old, governing by consensus.

Overview

The Gayanashagowa, the Great Law of Peace, united the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations into the Haudenosaunee confederacy, according to tradition through the peacemaker Deganawida and Hiawatha, with dates debated from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. It structures a federal system of fifty chiefs, clanmothers who nominate and remove them, consensus decision making, and a ceremonial division of duties among the nations. Its federal ideas are frequently cited, though debated by historians, as an influence on American framers including Franklin. It remains a living constitution of the confederacy, orally transmitted with wampum records.