John Mohawk, a prominent Seneca educator and author, discussed the influences American Indians had on the early development of U.S. culture and government Tuesday evening at the Syracuse Stage.
The speech was the fourth event in an educational series called "Onondaga Land Rights and Our Common Future." The series is sponsored by the Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation and by several departments in Syracuse University and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.
"Europeans came from a place where the military requirements of their society created a hierarchical government," Mohawk said.
Ideals of freedom and liberty that inspired the founders of the United States contradict this hierarchical concept of society, and many historians attribute these ideas only to British and French philosophers, he said.
However, there were other forgotten influences, Mohawk said.
"The norm in European society was where people expected a great direction in an authoritative figure," he said.
But when the first Europeans came to the Americas, they encountered nations - a fact Mohawk was quick to emphasize - with no apparent hierarchy or authoritative figure, he said.
The starkly different society appealed to many of the Europeans.
"Early colonizers noticed something: If a person joined an Indian group, they were reluctant to rejoin their old group," Mohawk said. "People tended to vote with their feet."
As Europeans continued to encounter American Indian culture, they brought back some of its aspects to their own culture.
The freedom of speech, the freedom of religion and other basic tenets of the U.S Constitution, in part, were affected by this cultural crossover, Mohawk said.
For example, as the early colonists looked for ways to organize themselves, they looked to town meetings - democracy in an early stage - held by American Indians, Mohawk said. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most involved creators of the U.S. government, had an interest in American Indians.
"The first draft of the first proposal of a unified system of colonies is very similar to the six nations (of the Iroquois)," he said. "Could it be that the Indians may have inspired the U.S. government?"
Fatma Husein, a Syracuse resident, said most of Mohawk's speech revealed things she said she didn't know.
"I always thought (the philosophers) were the ones who invented the ideas of freedom and justice," Husein said.
Rafael Sorkin, an SU physics professor who had attended several other events in the series, said it's important that people learn about American Indians' influence on U.S. culture and government.
"We have a whole nation in our midst that, in principle, has a very different way of life, and we don't know how they influenced our life," Sorkin said.
Mohawk's speech also covered the U.S. treatment of American Indians and land rights.
"Most of the time, it would have been simple to do things the right way in the first place," he said of land rights. "We can come back now and do it right."
Mohawk directs the Indigenous Studies Center and co-directs the Center for the Americans at State University of New York, Buffalo. He has worked on various American Indian publications and is the author of several books.
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