Forgotten Founders

Drew Erkelens
Period 5/6 Green
January 13th 2010
Irquois Essay

Forgotten Founders

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." If this is true, than why would Bruce E. Johansen a reporter of the Seattle Times write the story Forgotten Founders? The story was written to state the truth, tell what was untold about the Irquois and recognize that they played a key role in the evolution of American democracy.

People have been questioning the American indians influence on our intellectual traditions for the past thirty years espessially but I don't get why hey even need to question it. I agree with the writer and understand now that we have been mislead, and should listen to the people that were actually there to see if the Irquois really did impact America . Like the girl he interviewed whos source was her grandma. I think her grandma is a reliable source because her grandma was probably told by her grandma and her grandma told by her grandma, and so on until it goes back to when the Irquois existed. When reading I saw that it said we couldn't of survived in America without the indian help,which I think is true. Other books and articles only focus on the bad qualities of the indians but as it said in the book "Indians and Europeans were more often at peace than at war. Besides helping us survive, the Irquois also helped increase the imaginations of the revolutions architects which later made our society,shaping the ideas of Benjamin Franklin,that lead to the American Revolution,being superiors to to British Parliament,but most of all,we learned a great deal of our way of life from them.

American indians have only been studied by few historians and those who have studied them,they only did it briefly.Mostly the research and written history that is done is written like it was a function idealy of white culture therefore making the ideas and information lack some details. The indians recognition is largely forgotten and even when it is recognized,it is recognized in a bad manner.As Hallowell said in response to De Voto's assertation,"Since most history has been written by he conquerers, the influence of the primitive people upon American civilization has seldom been the subject of dispassionate consideration."

Benjamin Franklin once said, "A pair of good ears will drain a thousand tongues." This quote to me means that you can say what you want and what you believe is to be true,but someone who actually heard what went on or saw it is much more powerful.So therefore what you say isn't always the truth. The indians way of life is probably much different than what you may have been told. Their government relied on public opinion,there was no force,no prisons,no officers to control obedience,and no punishment. I think that the idea of indians has been way overlooked and agree that they have been steryotyped, but I do not agree with their way of government. Without set laws and rules everything would get out of hand. No punishments when the citizens to wrong, no police officers to make the citizens obey the rules, and no prisons to protect the rest of the good community of indians from the other disobedient ones. Without a stable government and only the peoples opinions what would happen if their was an attack? What if there was a shortage? All these questions wouldnt have to come up if they had thought out their government better.

In conclusion, I somewhat agree with the Indians side and somewhat with the other side. There are both good and bad qualities to each and I think if you could read the whole book you would learn even more about the Irquois. If we still lived in the Irquois way of life I don't think we would be able to function as a country and it eventually fall apart. This section of the book told me a lot and changed how I think of the American Indians and also not to believe every thing told to me unless I know it is a reliable source coming from someone who was actually there.