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The Tree of Peace
Turtle E eLand
The Unity of Biology and Ecology with Spirit
The Tree of Peace
The Great Law of Peace
New World Roots of American Democracy
by David Yarrow
September 1987
September 17th, 1987, America celebrated the 200th birthday of the United States Constitution, a brilliant jewel
of human liberty and reason, fashioned by the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution to prescribe the
structure of their new American government.
Throughout the year, countless ceremonies, reenactments, rallies, contests, TV shows, articles and conferences
have marked this bicentennial of American government. The televised Senate Iran-Contra hearings and the battle
over Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court have sharply highlighted our national remembrance -- and
the importance -- of the governmental roots of our freedom.
Yet, one vital perspective has been missing from the pageantry: for the true historical origins of freedom and
democracy in the New World -- and indeed, in modern civilization itself -- lie nearly forgotten on the pages of
time, where they were written centuries before the days of King George and the Founding Fathers of the United
States Constitution.
Perhaps, amidst the revelry, we will take this opportunity to turn back these pages, to rediscover and possibly
fulfill our debt to one of the great social wonders of history: The Great Law of Peace.
New World Democracy
As a government, America was a bold new experiment, based on -- what were at their inception -- radical ideas
in European political philosophy. These ideas were given practical expression in the Declaration of Independence
and the U.S. Constitution. For Europeans, these historic documents represented a great leap forward towards
realizing the ideal of "liberty and justice for all."
To the poor, often starving and indentured refugees from European feudal society, the vast, unexplored North
American continent was the far dark shore of hope, an escape from the continued numbness of poverty, suffering
and misery. These newcomers saw the New World as a shining symbol of freedom, fortune and the possibility of
a happy future. But the New World was not only a symbol. In truth it was the birthplace and homeland of liberty
and democracy -- for the arts of peace had taken root on Turtle Island many hundreds of years before.
This September at Cornell University, a special conference entitled The Iroquois Great Law of Peace and the
U.S. Constitution, 200 scholars examined a lost and forgotten origin of the U.S. Constitution. Convened by the
North American Indian Studies Program, this gathering reviewed historical and scholarly evidence that the oldest
democracy on Earth isn't the U.S.A., but rather the Six Nation Confederacy of the Iroquois.
The Iroquois Confederacy existed centuries before the U.S. Constitution was written. Historians, anthropologists
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