Native American Political Systems
and the Evolution of Democracy:
An Annotated Bibliography


Bruce E. Johansen
Professor of Communication and
Native American Studies
University of Nebraska at Omaha




1991

Books, Scholarly, and Specialty Journals

(*) __________. "Iroquois Women and the Early Suffragists [is] Topic Selected for Stanton Tea Presentation." Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation [Newsletter, Seneca Falls, N.Y.], Autumn, 1991, n.p.

Berger, Thomas R. A Long and Terrible Shadow: White Values, Native Rights in the Americas, 1492-1992. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & MacIntyre, 1991.

Berger, a lawyer and a former justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court, writes (on page 58) of the Iroquois Confederacy's political system, and observes that "The Europeans, especially the English, were undoubtedly impressed by its sophistication." Berger cites Forgotten Founders [1982,1987] in this regard, and says "This is not an idiosyncratic view. Many historians, including Henry Steele Commager, have acknowledged the contribution of Iroquois political ideas to the political thought of the Founding Fathers, especially Benjamin Franklin."

(*) Davidson, James W., and Michael B. Stoff. The American Nation. (Engelwood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1995.

On page 47, this grade-school text asserts that the opening words of the U.S. Constitution, "We the People," have an Iroquois origin.

(*) Delgado, Richard and Jean Stefancic. "Norms and Narratives: Can Judges Avoid Serious Moral Error?" Texas Law Review 69 (June, 1991), p. 1929.

Delgado and Stefancic write that "Many colonial leaders, including Benjamin Franklin, championed the Indians' cause," as they describe "the 'constitutional' system of the Iroquois, a system the influence of which on Benjamin Franklin was freely acknowledged by him." Delgado is Charles Inglis professor of law at the University of Colorado; Stefancic is a legal librarian at the San Francisco University School of Law.

D'Souza, Dinesh. Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York: The Free Press, 1991.

On page 75, D'Souza derides the contents of Multicultural Literacy [See Simonson, 1988] as ignoring "the literary classics of Asia and the Middle East." Instead, writes D'Souza, the anthology, which has been widely adopted as a text in multicultural education, publishes "thirteen essays of protest." D'Souza names two of them, including Paula Gunn Allen's "The Red Roots of White Feminism."

Foner, Eric and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1991.

On page 551, as part of a discussion of warfare in the Northeast during the early years of European colonization, this encyclopedic-type work mentions the Iroquois League, which, for two centuries, "was able to withstand the efforts of Europeans to seize their living space." A brief description of the Iroquois political structure follows, with this conclusion: "Long before the coming of Europeans, they had put together a federation (similar to the confederation that created the United States)."

Grinde and Johansen. Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center.

Published December, 1991.

Hunter, Robert and Robert Calihoo. Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past. McClelland and Stewart, 1991.

Calihoo was raised in Edmonton under the name Robert Royer by a very proper but racist white grandmother. After her death, when he was 10 years of age, Calihoo calls on his father, Albert Calihoo, whom he had not previously met. He discovers that Albert is a Native American, a Mohawk, whose family hails from Kahnawake, near Montreal. Young Calihoo is introduced to reservation live and its privations as he discovers what Canada has done to the people whose identity he is now assuming. Part of the book is his biography; the rest, by professional writer Robert Hunter, is an expose of conditions faced by First Peoples in Canada. Hunter also surveys Native contributions to many cultures, including the impact of the Iroquois on the likes of Locke, Thoreau, Tolstoy, and, according to one reviewer, "their effect on American democracy, Marxist communism, the French revolution, and the Law of the Sea." In a chapter titled "The Great Gift of the Iroquois," (pp. 190-202) this book describes the operation of the Iroquois League and its impact on the developing United States and its founders extensively, quoting liberally from Johansen, Forgotten Founders [1982, 1987].

Jacobs, Renee. "The Iroquois Great Law of Peace and the U.S. Constitution: How the Founding Fathers Ignored the Clan Mothers." American Indian Law Review. 16 (1991):497-531.

While the founders adapted some aspects of Iroquois law, Jacobs makes a strong case that they were nearly totally blind to the equity of the sexes that was woven into Haudenosaunee fundamental law and political life. She cites Sally Roesch Wagner's introduction to Matilda Joslyn Gage, Woman, Church & State, and Forgotten Founders [1982, 1987].

Jensen, Erik M. "The Imaginary Connection Between the Great Law of Peace and the United States Constitution: A Reply to Professor Schaaf," American Indian Law Review 15:2 (1991), pp. 295-308.

See also: Schaaf, Gregory. "From the Great Law of Peace to the Constitution of the United States: A Revision of America's Democratic Roots." American Indian Law Review 14 (1989).

Jensen calls Schaaf's argument "one of the more extreme presentations of the idea" of Native American influence on American political theory and practice. Instead of presenting what Grinde calls a "mosaic of history," Schaaf places the Great Law and the Constitution side by side and draws what he believes to be parallels. Schaaf has contended that the Great Law was "the model" for the Constitution, and that the United States' founding document diverges from the Great Law only because the Founders did not go far enough to emulate the Iroquois model.

Jensen comments on page 297: "...[T]he time for Professor Schaaf's theory has not come and will not come -- if we care about historical truth. The proposition is nonsense...and recognized as such by nearly all serious historians." Jensen quotes Francis Jennings, commenting on a U.S. Senate resolution supporting the "influence thesis" (See 1987) as saying that the resolution "destroys my faith in the historical literacy of the Senate." (footnote 14, page 297) Jensen writes that Schaaf's work lacks primary documentation; "This proposition is grounded in quicksand." (p. 301) Jensen does acknowledge that Founders such as Franklin and Jefferson discussed Indians copiously in their writings, and that their images of the Indians were factored into their view of natural rights, citing Forgotten Founders [1982, 1987]. He rejects the native role in formulating governance, however: "A people considered to be without law and government, as the founders saw the Indians, can hardly be considered a model for the U.S. Constitution." (p. 304). He inclines toward the position that oral renditions of the Great Law may have adapted the language of the Constitution, rather than vice versa. Jensen also acknowledges the role of Iroquois philosophy in the development of Marxism, through Lewis Henry Morgan. He cites Grinde and Johansen's early works [1977, 1982], but does not analyze them.

Johansen. "Back to the Future." Native Nations 1:4(1990), pp. 16-17, 32.

Review of Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers and Native Roots.

Johansen. "Native American Societies and the Evolution of Political Thought in the United States." Akwesasne Notes 22:5 (December-January, 1990-91), pp. 7-9.

Written text of a presentation delivered at the University of South Dakota, October, 1988.

Johansen. "Native American Roots for Freedom of Expression as a Form of Liberty." Journal of Communication Inquiry, 15:2(Summer, 1991), pp. 48-69.

Excerpts from Exemplar of Liberty [1991] describing some Founders' (especially Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson's) observations of Native American societies on the subjects of liberty, freedom of speech, et al.

Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the Sacred. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.

In the Absence of the Sacred calls for a return to a sense of sacredness of the earth expressed in many American Indian religious philosophies as an alternative to "technoutopian" thinking which has created an economic system that is devouring the last indigenous niches of the earth, and polluting the entire planet. At a time when toxic levels of PCBs have been found in Inuit (Eskimo) mothers' milk thousands of miles from their sources, Mander calls for a revolution in philosophy and economics. The book surveys Native American history in North America, including the Iroquois League; the author says that the discovery that Native Americans helped shape democratic thought was his most exciting while researching the book. In his rush to embrace the idea, Mander makes several minor factual errors.

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The American Indian. New York: Chelsea House, 1991.

This is a brief survey of American Indian cultures and history introduced by Senator Moynihan. the text itself carries no personal credit. On pp. 55-57, the book briefly discusses the Iroquois and their Great Law of Peace. "Some contemporary Iroquois believe that several aspects of their society were incorporated by the Founding Fathers into the Constitution of the new American nation. They are quick to point out ways in which they were more democratic than the citizens of...Rome and Greece." (p. 57)

(*) Newman, Frank C. "The Randolph W. Thrower Symposium: Comparative Constitutionalism...." Emory Law Journal 40 (Summer, 1991), p. 731.

This is the printed text of remarks by Newman during a symposium at Emory University, in which he discusses the U.S. Bill of Rights and other, similar concepts. He notes that "...Colonial leaders learned about the Iroquois government at treaty councils....They returned with a taste for natural rights -- life, liberty, and happiness -- that they saw operating on the other side of the frontier." Newman, now retired, was Jackson H. Ralston Professor of International Law at the University of California--Berkeley and a justice of the California Supreme Court. He cites Maria Morocco's piece in the American Bar Association publication Human Rights [1990]. She is quoting Johansen at the American Bar Association annual meeting of August, 1990, in Chicago.

(*) Worthen, Kevin J. "Essay: Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Potential Normative Power of American Cities and Indian Tribes." Vanderbilt Law Review 44 (November, 1991), p. 1273.

Worthen, associate professor in the Brigham Young University School of Law, mentions the Iroquois political system and its influence on American democracy as an aside in his comparison of tribal and urban governance. He cites Bagley and Ruckman (1983).

Newspapers and Magazines

Asimov, Nanette. "Multicultural Approach: History Rewritten for the New School Year," San Francisco Chronicle, September 3, 1991, p. A-1.

The article begins: "Historic changes are happening to history. As students return to public schools throughout California today, many will learn stories that they nor their parents have not heard before -- That an African doctor named Imhotep made significant contributions to medical knowledge 2,000 years before Hippocrates; that the framers of the U.S. Constitution studied the bylaws of the Iroquois nation..."

Brett, Brian. Our History From a Native Point of View..." Vancouver Sun, August 17, 1991, p. D-19.

In this review of Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo's Occupied Canada, Brett says that "The text oozes into the wild assertion that anarchism, communism, and modern democracy (tell that to the Greeks!) evolved directly from the Iroquois."

Cronin, Mary Elizabeth. "Indian Influence on U.S. Founders." Seattle Times, May 17, 1991, p. B-2.

Report on a presentation by Grinde at the University of Washington (Bothell campus).

Doyle, Leonard. "American War of Interdependence Breaks Out." The Independent [London], June 22, 1991, p. 1.

Doyle surveys debates over multicultural education in the United States, describing controversy attending the New York State Education Department's recent report "One Nation, Many Peoples: a Declaration of Cultural Interdependence." He writes, in part, that "pupils will learn that the American Constitution owes as much to the political system of the Iroquois Confederacy...as to European models."

D'Souza, Dinesh. "The Visigoths in Tweed." Forbes [Cover Story, April 1, 1991, p. 81.

D'Souza, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, targets "a new barbarism -- dogmatic, intolerant, and oppressive" that he says has "descended on America's institutions of higher learning...a neo-Marxist ideology promoted in the name of multiculturalism." He quotes William King, president of the Black Student Union at Stanford University, who cited a number of items of multicultural history before that school's Faculty Senate, including "that the Iroquois Indians in America had a representative democracy which served as a model for the American system."

George, Douglas M. (Kanentiio). "Dancing With Myths." Washington Post, April 13, 1991, p. A-17.

George, editor of Akwesasne Notes, is replying to a piece by Paul W. Valentine [Hollywood's Noble Indians: Are We Dancing With Myths?" Washington Post, March 31, 1991]. George says Valentine argues that the movie Dances With Wolves stereotypes Indians as he uses stereotypes himself. George says that Valentine characterizes most Indians as members of the Plains cultures, and indicts all Native Americans for scattered instances of human sacrifice and slavery. According to George, Valentine also ignores "native achievements in architecture, political theory, and the arts." One such example of the rich history that Valentine ignores, says George, is "the democratic institutions created by the Iroquois, which formed, according to historian Donald Grinde, the basis for the U.S. system of government," including universal suffrage, a right not extended to women in the United States until 1919.

Grenier, Richard. "Revisionists Adrift in a Sea of Ignorance." Washington Times, November 15, 1991, p. F-3.

Grenier is splitting a gut over multiculturalism. "New York State, as its official educational policy, now honors the Iroquois Nation as a prime cultural influence on American civilization....Why does the U.S. Constitution, on which the Iroquois are now credited with having a powerful influence, not provide for such well-established former Iroquois traditions as raiding and murder of rival tribesmen, old people, and children too small to be useful? Why doesn't it guarantee the right to rape..." Grenier says that the Indians cast in the movie Black Robe were "bracingly authentic." He defines "authentic" as "Dirty, cruel, they brutalize, [and] torture."

Hilderbrand, John. "Rewriting History? School Panel Wrestles With Curriculum." Newsday, June 18, 1991, p. 5.

Hilderbrand describes New York State proposals to change the teaching of social studies in its public schools which are being accused of comprising "ethnic cheerleading." Among specific issues that he cites as being involved in this debate is "Was the U.S. Constitution inspired by the earlier Iroquois government?"

Hildebrand, John. "Iroquois Stake Claim to Constitution." Newsday, June 18, 1991.

Holt, Patricia. "Technology on Trial..." [Review of Mander, In the Absence of the Sacred] San Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 1991, p. 1 [Sunday Review].

The reviewer calls the Iroquois "our true founding fathers...whose Great Law offered a model for democracy."

Holt, Patricia. "Indian Influences at America's Core." [Review of Weatherford, Native Roots] San Francisco Chronicle, December 25, 1991, p. E-8 [Books].

This is a review of Native Roots, as well as an interview with Jack Weatherford, "who believes...the big surprise of our history is that Indians...Americanized European settlers." In the arena of politics, says Weatherford, "The League of the Iroquois was Benjamin Franklin's model for parts of the Constitution."

Hopkins, Anne and Daniel S. Levy, "Upside Down in the Groves of Academe." Time, April 1, 1991, pp. 66-69.

The article's focus is "political correctness." On page 67, the authors take up the "influence thesis" in this context: "In the nation's elementary and secondary schools, the polarization is not yet so extreme. But increasingly curriculums are being written to satisfy the demands of parents and community activists. In some cases, expediency counts for more than facts. New York State officials, for example, have responded to pressure from Native American leaders by revamping the state high school curriculum to include the shaky assertion that he U.S. Constitution was based on the political system of the Iroquois Confederacy."

The early drafts of Haudenosaunee: Past, Present, Future did not argue the case in the narrow terms that this article asserts. The guide cited some of the evidence in support of the "influence thesis," but never made a comprehensive case that the Constitution was "based" on the Great Law. The Time article cites no names, nor sources for this allegation. Like many opponents of this idea, the authors of this article overstate the thesis as they discredit it. [Files contain an unpublished letter from Johansen to the editors of Time, March 28, 1991.]

Johansen. "The Search Goes on in America for Complete, Credible History." Omaha World-Herald, November 6, 1991, p. 27.

Rebuttal to George Will's syndicated column [below], addressing critics of "political correctness."

Johnson, Christine. "Johansen's Book Credits Native Americans." University of Nebraska at Omaha Gateway, April 9, 1991, p. 10.

Report on presentation by Grinde and Johansen at UNO, April 4. Files contain an advertising flier for the event, prepared by Johansen.

Kaminski, John. "U.S., Soviet Constitutions Stolen From the Iroquois: But Our Founding Fathers, Engels Bungled the Theft." The New England Pilgrim, 1:1(December, 1991), pp. 1, 8-9.

As the headline suggests, the lead story of the Pilgrim's first issue, written by its editor, is a sometimes hyperbolistic description in avid support of the idea that the Iroquois Great Law of Peace helped shape the founding documents of the United States. History indicates that the Great Law was freely offered to the colonists, so it couldn't have been "stolen."

(*) Koehler, Robert. "Moyers Explores Spirit of Indian Faith Keeper." Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1991, p. F-9.

This is a review of Bill Moyers' interview with Oren Lyons, which was broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System July 3. Koehler, who characterizes Lyons as "a down-to-earth sage," describes how the Onondaga faithkeeper "takes...us through the tale of the founding off the Six Nations, or Iroquois Confederation, how this union not only established a democratic peace-keeping forum, but how it deeply influenced Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other framers of the Declaration of Independence."

Lord, Lewis and Sarah Burke. "America Before Columbus." U.S. News & World Report, July 8, 1991, p. 2.

This cover story is a survey of Native American life before the arrival of Columbus. It says: "Three centuries before the U.S. Constitution took shape, the Iroquois League ran a Congress-like council, exercised the veto, protected freedom of speech, and let women choose officeholders..."

Maracle, Brian. "Native History Uneasily Packages Two Books As One." Montreal Gazette, July 27, 1991, p. J-1.

Maracle, a Mohawk writer and broadcaster, says that Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo's Occupied Canada [1991] is "part autobiography, part history, part diatribe and plea for justice, and, ultimately, [a] frustrating experience." The most satisfying chapters in the book, writes Maracle, contain its "searing assessment of Canada's treatment of native people," as well as work which details the Iroquois' influence on many philosophies around the world, including American democracy, Marxist communism, et. al.

(*) Pierre, Henri. "L'offensive de la 'Afrocentrisme...'" Le Monde (Paris), March 7, 1991, n.p.

Pierre describes debates over multicultural history in the United States, particularly Afrocentric ideas that are being used in various school districts. He also briefly describes the debate in the New York State of Department of Education guide Haudenosaunee: Past, Present, Future that Iroquois precedent helped shape the origins of democracy in the United States. "La tache n'est pas facile," he writes. "Etant donnee l'importance de la pression des groupes ethniques....inclure cette affirmation que le systeme politique des Iroquois a influence la redaction de la Constitution des Etats-Unis."

Reich, Ernest J. "'Politically Correcting' History is Bad." [Letter to the editor] Orlando Sentinel-Tribune, September 13, 1991, p. A-18.

Borrowing from a column by George Will (see below), Reich picks up the anti-multiculturalist wail about students in New York State who are supposedly pressing their noses to the academic grindstone in pursuit of Iroquois influence on the Constitution. This writer puts the case even more crudely than Will: "A school system in New York State was blatantly teaching the falsehood that the development of the U.S. Constitution was directly influenced by the Iroquois Indians."

Rohn, Elizabeth J. "Anti-Columbus Protestors Ignore Iroquois' Wishes." [Letter to the editor] Washington Times, October 25, 1991, p. F-2.

Following an act of vandalism against a statue of Columbus on Columbus Day, 1991, in Washington, D.C., Rohn notes that an Iroquois delegation planted a white pine tree in Constitution Park on September 17, 1988. Rohn, who says that she attended the tree planting, thinks that the Iroquois would disapprove of the vandalism. She adds: "Some Native Americans believe this confederacy [the Iroquois] was the first form of representative government, and the idea was given to the Founding Fathers."

Russell, George. "Reading, Writing -- and Iroquois Politics." Time, November 11, 1991, pp. 20-22.

Interview with New York Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol. In response to a question about the "influence thesis," Sobol replied: "Well, it depends on the way we teach it. It's very clear to me that our Constitution derives from the political traditions and thinking of Western Europe. Now it is a fact, I guess, that the Iroquois nations learned to live compatibly with one another. Whether or not they had any impact on the framers of the Constitution, I don't know, but I am set to acknowledge its possible influence in part. It makes sense to me not to overemphasize it." The interviewer then asked, "Why teach it at all?" Sobol replied: "Why teach anything that's part of our history if there's only a few people involved. Why would you want not to teach it?...There's no harm in talking about it."

Seneca, Martin W. "Adrift in a Sea of Ignorance? Indians Deserve the Last Word." Washington Times, November 24, 1991, p. B-5.

Seneca, who lives on the Cattaraugus reservation, is replying to a column [above] by Richard Grenier (November 15) that held the Iroquois to be primitive, violent, and ignorant. Referring to the influence of the Iroquois political model on the United States, Seneca writes: "This powerful Iroquois influence was known even...in 1776 when Benjamin Franklin was drafting the Constitution [Articles of Confederation]....Any articulate historian, honest and unbiased, should not have to ask about Iroquois influence. We are well-documented on this."

Starna, William A. "Iroquois Constitutional Influence?" Letter to the Editor, Time, December 2, 1991, p. 10.

Starna, responding to a Time interview with New York Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol [Nov. 11], says that he and other university-based non-Native American academics reviewed Haudenosaunee: Past, Present, Future, and found "no good evidence" to support "Iroquois impact on the framers of the Constitution." "Years of research by non-conspiratorial scholars" has disproved the idea, Starna asserts; "No informed historian makes this argument." Starna charges that Sobol has chosen to go along with "a small group of Native American writers and their partisans" to make the "influence" argument in the New York State curriculum. [Files contain a letter from Johansen to Starna, December 5, 1991.]

Stewart, Edison. "Grant Natives 'Real Power,' Clark Says." Toronto Star, September 10, 1991, p. A-13.

Constitutional Affairs Minister Joe Clark says that the recognition of natives' right to govern themselves is "no less fundamental than the recognition of Quebec as a distinct society." In a speech at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, attended by a standing-room only crowd, Clark said that both issues "will determine whether this country will succeed or fail." To support his contention that aboriginal people should govern themselves, he said, according to this account, that "elaborate and sophisticated systems of native self-government existed long before European settlers arrived. The Iroquois Confederacy, for example, was a model for the American constitution."

Weatherford, Jack. "A Year to Discover Rich History of the Very First Americans." Minneapolis Star-Tribune, October 13, 1991, p. 21-A.

"In the realm of politics, the Indians not only gave us the word 'caucus,' but they taught us how to make a caucus, and from this developed a major part of our political system and the convention system by which we nominate presidential candidates. Other parts of Indian political institutions were incorporated into the constitution, including impeachment of elected officials, the separation of military and civilian personnel, and the admission of new states as equal members into the union."

Will, George. "Therapeutic History is Snake Oil," syndicated column [Washington Post Writers Group] in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 14, 1991.

Will, writing about "feel-good history," brings the New York State curriculum guide into his argument as an example. Referring to references in the guide to Iroquois contributions to the Constitution, Will says: "Such fictions are supposed to nurture minorities' 'self-esteem'...on the basis of scant evidence."

Witham, Larry. "Indians' Political Muscle Flexed Over Past 20 Years." Washington Times, July 23, 1991, p. A-5.

A speculation presented in a letter by William A. Starna appears again as fact in this news article. During the debate over the New York State "Curriculum of Inclusion," Starna expressed a fear that he would be "blacklisted" (his word) from doing anthropological work on Iroquois reservations. He presented no evidence to substantiate this fear. Nevertheless, in this article, we are told that "Indian leaders blacklisted anthropologist William A. Starna for rejecting the idea that the U. S. Constitution was based on the Iroquois federation." The author of this piece also asserts that "some Indians [are] beating an ideological drum by calling America's European heritage into question or making unreasonable claims." He does not specify who is making the assertions, or what is being claimed (not to mention whom "blacklisted" Starna).

Wisneski, Richard. "Indian Says Environment Important Heritage." Plattsburgh Press-Republican, n.d.

Interview with Ray Fadden: "...[T]he Declaration of Independence was based on the Indian system of government. Thomas Jefferson said this himself. The ideas of democracy, freedom and tolerance are more Indian than European."

Other Items

1. Jan Maher and Doug Selwyn, Native Americans: Grades 3 and 4. Seattle: Turman Publishing, 1991. Pages 15-16 discuss the Iroquois Great Law of Peace, Benjamin Franklin, and the writing of the Constitution. This is an elementary school workbook.

2. Letter, John H. Elovson to John Kahionhes Fadden, July 23, 1991. "AND Communications, Inc. is an interactive multimedia production company currently producing an educational project on various literary forms entitled 'The Classics Series' for IBM."...for 9th through 12th grade use. One section of this series, "1744-1783, The Iroquois and Democracy," says "There is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers of the United States partly based our government on democratic ideas they got from the Iroquois Indians." Text mentions Cannassatego's 1744 speech, Franklin's Albany Plan, Jefferson, Paine, etc.

3. Announcement of Exemplar of Liberty in newsletter of the Nebraska State Council for the Social Studies, May 5, 1991. Published in Omaha, NE.

4. Advertising flier for Exemplar of Liberty, composed and designed by Johansen.

5. Letter to Johansen from Nick Hart-Williams of Nexus Television Ltd., London, England, proposing a television series on the history of the Iroquois. June 11, 1991.

6. Correspondence between Johansen and George Cahill, president of the National Flag Foundation, regarding design of an exhibit on the Iroquois for the National Flag Pavilion, Pittsburgh.

7. John Kahionhes Fadden [illustrator] and Johansen. "A Mohawk Field Expedition Into Anthrolandia." Omaha, NE, 1991. This spoof of anthropologists and "experts" in Indian country was produced on office machines by Johansen, using Fadden's artwork from the files of Akwesasne Notes.

8. Letter, Valerie Jackson Bell, curator, Onondaga County [New York] Parks, to John Kahionhes Fadden, April 5, 1991. Bell requests the use of one of Fadden's paintings [The cover illustration of Barreiro, ed., Indian Roots of American Democracy, 1988] for a museum exhibit to observe "the concept of the Confederacy and the development of the American States."

9. Letter from Native American Indian Cultural Awareness Group, Truth in Peoples' History, "and other residents of Onondaga County [New York] and the City of Syracuse," to County Executive Nicholas Pirro and Mayor of Syracuse, Thomas Young, "as per your request for reasons as to why the weekend of October 11-14, 1991 should be designated and proclaimed Native American Cultural Awareness Weekend." The letter lists intellectual contributions of American Indians to general American conceptions of freedom, contending that "Democracy in its purest form flourished in America, especially among the Iroquois nations." The letter is dated September 23, 1991.

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