American Indian Culture and Research Journal

As to our aboriginal or Indian population ... I know it seem to be agreed that they must gradually dwindle as time rolls on, and in a few generations more leave only a reminiscence, a blank. But I am not at all clear about that. As America ... develop, adapts, entwines, faithfully identifies its own - are we to see it cheerfully accepting using all the contributions of foreign lands from the whole outside globe - and then rejecting the only ones distinctively its own... ? -Walt Whitman, 1883 Increased general awareness of Iroquois precedents for democracy (and the continuing debate over them) has not kept a sizable number of people (some of them conservatives bearing household names) from dismissing the idea in a summary manner, often with no knowledge that a genuine debate has been engaged. During the last few years, with a mixture of consternation and awe, I have watched a number of very well-known conservative authors and pundits attempt to turn the idea I have researched into “canon fodder” in the SCP called “culture wars” over multicultural education. The idea of Iroquois influence (and the sharp debate over it) has spread much faster than the research and understanding of historical circumstances required to make sense of it.