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Iroquois Great Council System
The Great Council of Peace was the core political institution of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, based on the Great Law of Peace, a consensus-based co…
Timeline
- c. 1450–1600Onondaga Lake · OnondagaSeneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawk formed the Haudenosaunee Confederacy under the Great Law of Peace; the Great Council sat at Onondaga, with the council fire and wampum belts symbolizing the covenant.
- c. 1640–1650Iroquois Confederacy · Iroquois ConfederacyThe Great Council coordinated fur trade and territorial disputes between the nations and Dutch New Netherland and New England colonies, deciding war and peace by consensus and sending envoys to cross-cultural treaty negotiations.
- c. 1722Onondaga Great Council · OnondagaThe Confederacy formally admitted the Tuscarora as the sixth nation, extending the Great Council system to six-nation deliberation while preserving hereditary clan chiefs and the power of female clan elders to nominate chiefs.
Sources
- The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization — Daniel K. Richter (1992)
- The Great Law and the Longhouse: A Political History of the Iroquois Confederacy — William N. Fenton (1998)