Exemplar of Liberty: Native America and the Evolution of Democracy, by Donald A. Grinde and Bruce E. Johansen, is a thoroughly researched book that expands on the suggestive papers presented by Grinde and Johansen at the April 1992 Organization of American Historians meeting in Chicago. In a discussion of both the papers and the book, I will concentrate on the book, because it offers broader arguments. Let me begin by giving an opinion about the existing controversy, about who said what and what should be said about American Indians legacy of freedom and liberty for all Americans. While we cannot prove that good old John Locke had a copy of the Iroquois constitution at his elbow when he wrote the second essay on civil government, some of us who study ethnohistory might take the position that his ideas are exceedingly familiar. One recalls the historic fact that Sir Isaac Newton and Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz discovered calculus at about the same time but independently of each other; therefore, it is not impossible that Hiawatha and Deganaweda on one side and John Locke on the other discovered and commented on representative institutions of government, and that all three made substantial contributions to our democratic institutions of government. It is true, I believe, that the Iroquois executive, the great war chief, had a role similar to that of the American president in spite of the fact that the Indians and the early Americans had different lifestyles. It is also true, I am convinced, that North American Indian tribes respected the individual (possibly excepting the Tlingit, who had a form of slavery, and certain other tribes that mistreated women) and loved freedom. Further, I have found that there were checks and balances and elements of a parliamentary form of government among many Indians, particularly the confederated tribes of the East Coast.

One of the joys of my life in teaching and writing about American Indian history has been the friendships I have had with Indian men and women. Linda Murray (Pima), a student, has taught me a lot about how much a circle of Indian friends and students can mean. Kenneth Eaglespeaker, a young Blackfoot Indian and one of the best dancers among any of the students I have had, once told me, after I had spoken about ”contributions” Indians had made, “We Indians were just doing our thing and did not plan to make special contributions to any white society.’’ How right he was! Johnny Flynn (Potowattomi) showed me how student activists could take on two formidable foes: the University of California, Santa Barbara Archeology Department, which was destroying age-old Indian middens (village refuse deposits) on Santa Cruz Island; and the mighty Chevron Oil Company, which was destroying Indian burial sites along the northern Santa Barbara coastline. And then there was Grandfather, Chumash Indian medicine man and spiritual leader of Redwind, an Indian commune north of San Luis Obispo. Grandfather taught me a lot about Indian humor and good luck charms that really worked. I am indebted also to Archie Fire, a Sioux medicine man (who put me in a sweat that was heated only for children because I was merely a “professor,”), as well as to Indian leaders such Dennis Banks and Oren Lyons, who have provided an education about the burden of dealing with authoritative agencies in the United States government.