When the United States was discovered, it was not really DISCOVERED. People had been living here for thousands of years and there has been plenty of evidence found lately that shows that many other people from far off lands were able to make the voyage here. There is almost no doubt that the Vikings, Chinese, Europeans and maybe even Egyptians landed on our shores. Stones that were found off the west coast of this country puzzled scientists for many years. They were round and had a hole in the center. One day someone realized that all those stones were ancient Chinese anchor stones. The amount of stones indicated that there were many ancient Chinese ships that made their way to the west coast. Perhaps some Chinese people remained and intermarried with the local Indians of the area. Maybe it is time to do a genetic test to see if this is the case?

Stories abound that ancient Egyptian mummies and artifacts have been found in Death Valley. An article was even published in a newspaper confirming this, but the story seems to have died at that point, but not so with the Viking settlements on the Atlantic coast of the United States. One major discovery with the Viking settlements here is that they seemed to be temporary and small and didn't compare to those in Greenland. You would have thought that the Vikings would have made permanent settlements after they observed our climate and fertile land. One of the problems was that they were told that Greenland was a paradise and it was named Greenland to get them to go there.

When the settlers came from Europe they didn't enter an uninhabited country, they actually settled in an area that was already a nation. The nation was known as the Iroquois Confederacy or League of Peace and Power. It also had other names such as the Five nations, the Six nations, and the People of the Longhouse. The tribes that belonged to it were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Later the Tuscarora joined it. They didn't call themselves the Iroquois as others did, they called themselves Haudenosaunee. They were based in the northeastern part of what is now the United States. Like almost all nations the Iroquois had enemies and they were the Huron and the Algonquin tribes. The league had been created in 1570 by the Great Peacemaker.

When the Iroquois fought in a war, it was usually to capture people and make them into citizens of their nation, not kill them as the Europeans did. The idea was to mold them into good citizens. They would educate them as they would their own children and there was no distinction between the young people they captured and their children. The idea was to make up for losses because of wars and disease. They were good farmers, but they also fished and hunted and at times went out and gathered food. They used science to help them grow crops. They would grow corn and beans would climb the stalks with squash planted below to ward off weeds. It was quite an ingenious method of planting.

The Iroquois nation believed in God or the Great Spirit. They believed that God was responsible for lesser spirits that controlled nature. One government ruled the Iroquois and it was based on equality. The tribes that belonged to the Iroquois Nation each remained independent in matters pertaining to local self-government. They were sort of equivalent to the powers of a state, while the nation was loosely equivalent to our federal government. The Great Council had to pass laws unanimously before they would become laws. The system was so good that some of the features of the Iroquois nation were said to have been incorporated into the Articles of Confederation and it is also said that their principles of democratic government influenced the United States Constitution.

Are the Iroquois gone and if so, where did they go? In the 2000 census, there were almost 81,000 people that claimed Iroquois ethnicity. In 1996 tribal registrations for the Iroquois were 30,000 with another 45,000 living in Canada. New York State seems to have some people from every tribe of the Six Nations still living there, although the numbers are low. There are 7,581 Seneca in New York, 448 Cayuga, 1596 Onondaga, 1,200 Tuscarora, 1,109 Oneida and 5,632 Mohawks. These nations still maintain their Grand Council and it is the oldest government institution that maintains its original form in North America.

The United States has now overshadowed this first democratic government, but it is still functioning. These six tribes were able to live in peace with each other and improved their societies. So the next time someone tells you that we settled in a wild country, you can remind them about the Iroquois and the people of the Six Nations.