I am a member of the Oneida Nation Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, whose governance model influenced modern democracy and the women’s rights movement. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy is recognized as the oldest continuous, participatory democracy in the world.
Our representative form of government, organized on local, state, national and international levels, flows organically from our Creation Story, which begins with Sky Woman, pregnant, falling from Sky World. She descends toward an endless water world, where water animals already reside and help form the first land, known as Turtle Island. Through their efforts, the living world we inhabit today was brought forth.
Haudenosaunee women inherently hold political, economic and spiritual authority—a significant difference from colonial patriarchy.
When the U.S. founding fathers drafted their Constitution, drawing inspiration from Haudenosaunee governance, they committed a catastrophic omission: matrilineal leadership. As the U.S. commemorates the 250th anniversary of its founding documents amid political, social and ecological upheaval, the country has a unique opportunity to revisit the original influences of American democracy.
(This essay is part of the FEMINIST 250: Founding Feminists series, marking the 250th anniversary of America by reclaiming the revolution through the women and gender-expansive people whose ideas, labor and resistance shaped U.S. democracy.)
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