To understand how the Indians of North America developed their tribes into attaining certain political attributes, we have to observe the five steps of economic growth. An economic historian, Rostov, postulated five generalized stages of economic growth in his observance of history and its peoples. The steps range from traditional society, to a precondition for take-off, to a take-off, to a drive to maturity, to a stage of high mass consumption. These steps can then be converted into modern stages of economic growth. They would then be seen as adaptation, domestication, diversification, mechanization, and automation. Every Indian tribe that has lived in North America has acquired a political ideology through their socio-economic infrastructure.
The Eskimo lived in areas all the way from the coast of Alaska, through the Northwest Territories, to the Quebec coast and all through the Arctic including Baffin Island and Greenland. Due to these harsh and unforgiving climates, they diversified by adapting a communistic social attitude.
The Eskimo Indians had two kinds of property: communal and personal. They lack any kind of private property. The natural habitat from which the band was sustained - the rivers of fish, the caribou of the tundra, and the seals on the shores of the sea - were communal and belonged to everyone in the band. Personal property consisted of items created by the individual: weapons tools, jewelry, toys, etc. This property though, belonged not to the individual, but to the individual’s place in the Eskimo social structure. Each type of personal property was shared equally - no hunter would have two harpoons if another hunter lacked even one. This was one of the purest forms of communism. This infrastructure, however, did not end up with a dictator, as modern day communism always seems to.
The Sub-Arctic Indians were gifted with having everything they economically needed, and therefore adapted into a capitalistic social-economy. From the great resource of caribou, fish, birds, and trees, they divided their land into economic territories. Each family had certain ownership over land for trapping small fur-bearing mammals such as the beaver, marten, otter, and the lynx. There was no free passage by anyone to another family’s territory. Permission had to be obtained by the chief, plus reassurance that the visitor has good intentions. Although these economic territories were known to all inhabitants of the sub-arctic, there were brief battles between the Iroquois, Huron, and Algonquin. Also Sub-Arctic Indians near Quebec and Tadoussac acted as intermediaries between the newly arrived French and isolated Indian bands in the far north and west. French companies, as early as 1550, sent ships to Canada for the sole purpose of trading with the Indians. In 1611, Champlain wrote that the Indians “wanted to wait until several ships had arrived in order to get our wares more cheaply. Thus those people are mistaken who think that by coming first they can do better business; for these Indians are now too sharp.” In 1632, the Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune noticed hat “They trade with the French for capes, blankets, cloths, and shirts, there are many who use them” By 1670, all native crafts in the Sub-Arctic were replaced by European technology - axes, kettles, knifes, and iron arrowheads. This moved the Sub-Arctic Indians into a state of mechanization: where an axe would take the place of more than one man’s work. These Indians became so dependant on these tools, that they needed trade to sustain their new lifestyle of capitalism. In modern day terms, this would be referred to as laisse-faire capitalism. The Sub-Arctic Indians were a better example of this economic system than any country in this present day standard of living.
Authoritarian governments tend to rise from a period of mass frustration. The Aztecs are history’s best example of this, as they climbed the socio-economic ladder. In the twelfth century, the empire of Toltec of Tula collapsed. From this anarchy set in, as small clans stole whatever they could, to heighten their social status. The resulting rulers were the descendants of Tula, the Colhuacan. At the same time, the Aztec were without a home, in crowded Mexico, so they soon took refuge as serfs and mercenary soldiers in the Colhuacan kingdom. One day, a lonely Aztec scrub went to the honorable Colhuacan to receive a Toltec princess as the wife of his Aztec chief. In a debt of gratitude, the Aztec then sacrificed her in 1323 so she would become their war goddess. Colhuacan, not understanding the Aztec religion, banished them from his empire.
From there, the Aztec moved to the land around the great lakes that once surrounded Mexico City. Here they used their newly acquired skills of mechanization to develop the land. The swamps were drained, the islands were filled in and connected, and cultivated under the command of Chief Tenoch.
By 1428, the Aztec had begun their reign of terror. They pillaged and plundered their rivals to become the mightiest state in Mexico. Their leader burned the books of the conquered peoples and instituted a policy of war. This policy would give them the right to steal, and use captives for sacrifice. The eighth ruler in 1486, named Ahuitzotl - conquered as far southward as Guatemala and as far northward as the deserts, before his death in 1502. By this time, the Aztec machine had built aqueducts to carry water from the mainland to the island capital, massive causeways, and had engineered feats that would span the lakes. Later, the great Temple was built at the sacrifice of twenty thousand captives. Crafts and literature were also encouraged in newly established schools. Commercial ports were made, where competing societies could meet and trade.
Five years after Moctezuma became the new ruler, the Aztec’s fifty-two year religious calendar was coming to an end. This was a time of great fear for the Aztec, as they saw it as a moment when the gods could take away their gifts of life. Moctezuma’s only solution to his frightened peoples was to order his soldiers to search the city and bring back anyone having dreams about the fate of the empire. When the dreams that were brought back dissatisfied him, he murdered them all. Diaz del Castillo recalled his visit with the Aztec: “I remember that in the plaza where some the oratories stood, there were piles of human skulls so regularly arranged that one could count them, and I estimated that there were more that a hundred thousand.”
In 1519, Hernan Cortes landed near Vera Cruz with 508 soldiers, 16 horses, and 14 artillery weapons. His ranks were soon swelled by thousands of fleeing Indians, in the hopes that they would be free from their oppressive dictatorship. Cuauhtemoc succeeded Moctezuma after he died, and saw his empire crumbling, to escape being massacred by the Spanish. Cuauhtemoc surrendered on August 13, 1521.
Under Aztec authority, an individual could not participate in the state unless he was extremely gifted. Those who produced the land’s wealth were denied its rewards. When an Aztec could not participate in the empire because of age or illness, he will kill himself or ask a relative to kill him.
With an empire as huge as the Aztec, there was a high state of mass consumption. The only way their needs for food and sacrifice could be fulfilled, was by war. No one in North America has ever reached such a degree of militancy, as the Aztec did. Every man would be forced to bear arms and he who was permitted to die on the battlefield for Huitzilopochtli, was considered fortunate. Many dictatorships since then; Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Ho Chi Mihn, Mao Tse Tung, Mussolini, etc, have had a similar following. These leaders gained such an enormous following because they taught conservatism. They preached the glory of their ancestors’ values and triumphs. An Aztec song in English would be sung as: “There is nothing like death in war, nothing like the flowery death, so precious to Him who gives life, far off I see it, my heart yearns for it!” However, as many dictatorships, they soon come to an end. The Aztec empire was totally vanquished when the Spaniards took control of Mexico with the death of the last Aztec ruler in 1524.
A theocratic government usually stems from a culture rooted in domestication - in the case of the Natchez; they utilized soils of the present day Mississippi to establish their economy. Their primitive technology was shown when they obtained a glass bottle from the French; they believed it was very sacred and placed it in their temple. The wide variety of fruits, nuts, berries, corn and meat the people produced was distributed by the only person they could trust - their spiritual leader, the Great Sun. the French explorer, Charlevoix, in his exploits observed that the Great Sun had an unlimited power over his people. He could take away their life and livelihood, and also use them for whatever labour he required, with no payment. A Jesuit priest, Maturin Le Petit, stated that, “the French, who are often in need of hunters or of rowers for their long voyages, never apply to anyone but the Great [Sun]. He furnishes all the men [the French] wish, and receives payment, without giving any part to those unfortunate individuals, who are not permitted even to complain.” The Great Sun had the power to execute anyone he did not see fit to live.
When the Great Sun died, his wives, guards, and others close to him, were expected to follow him. They would swallow a tobacco mixture and then were strangled by a relative. The Natchez people saw this as a great privilege. Later the great Sun’s bones are exhumed and re-buried in the temple. On this second burial, other guards killed themselves as a sign of devotion.
Like the Jesuit missionaries and groups such as the puritans, the Great Sun wanted to spread his following over other nations. In 1542, de Soto, noticed that the Natchez people had domination over all surrounding neighbors. Those who violated any laws or traditions of the tribe would have been “cast upon lands unfruitful and entirely covered in water…but will be exposed entirely naked to the sharp bites of mosquitoes, that all nations will make war upon them… and have no nourishment but the flesh of crocodiles, spoiled fish and shell-fish.”
The Natchez were divided into social classes according to their theocracy. There was of course the Great Sun as supreme ruler, Little Sun who was also War Chief, the Suns, the Nobles, the honored People, and the Stinkards. The power of all the groups though, did not compare at all to that of the Great Sun. All children were to tattoo a mark across their face, to show they belonged to the Natchez.
In 1729, the Natchez were finally fed up with the constant arrival of European settlers with the diseases and destruction of their environment, so they unleashed an attack on the French. They massacred about two hundred whites with an assault on a trading post. Two years later, the French and the Choctaw conquered the Natchez. They killed most of them and took four hundred captives; including the Great Sun. they were later sold into slavery in Santa Domingo. The only surviving relic of the Natchez culture is the name of a city beside the Mississippi river.
A democracy is a stage of natural economic progression. In the case of the Iroquois, they diversified into a democracy because it was the best thing to stop the wars between surrounding nations. The Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca formed the Hodesaunee, or the league of five nations. (Later six when the Tuscarora entered in 1722). This was all inspired by a prophet, Deganawidah, in 1570. He put an end to warfare between the five tribes with the establishment of “The Great Peace”. Deganawidah’s councilor, Hiawatha, was said to be seen paddling his white canoe from tribe to tribe, encouraging peace.
The league did not deal with internal problems but rather, external matters of war and peace. It had a verbal constitution that would not involve taxes, or need a mediator to enforce it. The leaders of this constitution, the Council of Sachems, could not interfere with the affairs of individual tribes, but cared more about the whole. This is what Prime Minister Trudeau tried to do for Canada, by acknowledging the provinces, but looking more at the whole country. One of the problems with the council, like any democracy, was the way the votes were divided. There were fifty sachem titles in the Council (like eats in the House of Commons), but they were not based on population. The most populated, the Seneca, only had eight sachems. The Onondaga had fourteen, the Cayuga had ten, and the Mohawk and Oneida had nine sachems each. Before every vote, the sachems of each tribe would meet and discuss matters. In some way, it was a true democracy because every vote in the council had to be unanimous. The candidate for each sachem was firmly chosen. The males held the sachem power to make the decisions, but the woman gave them the power. The headwoman gathered all the women and discussed choice for sachem. She got approval from the moieties, and the sachem was then chosen. If he failed to perform his task, the headwoman gave him three warnings and then a new sachem was chosen. This way, the male and female roles were separate but important for each other. This league impressed the white settlers so much; historians believe that was one of the causes for the American and French revolutions.
The woman owned all property and goods - the longhouse, the garden plots, and the tools used to cultivate. The women maintained the peace within the longhouse and if their husbands died in war or were divorced, the woman would take care of the children. There was a high degree of technology within the league. In the seventeenth century, the Iroquois practiced methods of dream psychotherapy that are being found to work today. Two hundred years later, in Vienna, Freud found his discoveries to be remarkably similar. “The Iroquois recognized the existence of an unconscious, the force of unconscious desires, how the unconscious mind attempts to repress unpleasant thought, how these unpleasant thought often emerge in dreams, and how the frustration of unconscious desires may cause mental and physical (psychosomatic) illness.” This great sense of understanding of the mind in no doubt forwarded the confederacy and helps explain the existence of the Iroquois today.
The Iroquois also did not have a command and conquer outlook. They had no distinct class of soldiers. The men did not work in the fields or in the homes in case of attack; the care would not be diverted from the food or longhouse. They were not land-seekers or frontier thinkers. They knew they lacked power to govern more than a certain population. They did not have a war machine. They fought with psychological weapons. They would sneak like foxes, fight like lions, and disappear like birds. They did not plunder the enemy. Parentless children were adopted for the Iroquois man and sons lost. They fought with weapons of torture, ambush, massacre, and disturbing howls at night. The Iroquois did not search for the frontier or to conquer anyone, they simply searched to better their people and their heritage. This is why I think this democracy has lasted so long, even today.
In conclusion, native history is just coming into play in classrooms today, but it has never been acknowledged that native tribes had politics just as alive as we do today. The Eskimo had a better form of communism than Stalin. The sub-arctic were just as capitalist as the United States. The Aztec had just as brutal of a dictatorship as Hitler did. The Natchez accomplished more than the Jesuit missionaries did with their form of theocracy. And even the Iroquois had a better working democracy than we ever could today. Indian accomplishments cannot be excluded with their heritage. Their political feats are great accomplishments in history. Why not study Moctezuma instead of Hitler? Can anyone prove that the Indians of North America did not have various forms of politics?
