Iroquois Confederacy and the Influence Thesis

The Iroquois people with their Iroquois Confederation were among the most powerful native groups on the American continent at the time of European contact. They remained powerful through the American Revolution. The Iroquois Confederacy and the Great Binding Law is the oldest example of a constitution on the American continent (Lutz 1998:2) It has been argued since the nineteenth century, when Lewis Henry Morgan wrote "It is worthy of remembrance that the Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of colonies similar to their own as early as 1775" (Payne 1996:605) that the Iroquois Confederation had a degree of influence over the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. To this day, scholars are locked in a heated debate over the accuracy of that claim.