Annually, on Independence Day, the News Tribune Opinion page publishes the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, which was put together by Thomas Jefferson and his fellow patriots and which was adopted by the Continental Congress.
An accompanying editorial describes how these men established a nation with liberties, freedoms and rights enjoyed to this day, rights that generations have fought for and perished to preserve and to uphold, rights that too many of us take for granted. The newspaper calls the Declaration a bold statement from a devoted citizenry committed to government's sole role of protecting our inalienable rights, "that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The newspaper says this document not only was relevant in our world today but also is the bible by which our country survives. The Declaration not only is worth reading and re-reading, according to the newspaper, it's worth studying and citing by any American from any generation.
The page is very interesting and very patriotic-sounding.
However, from my thinking and viewpoint, it leaves out a very important part of our country's history, a part that also can be studied and cited by American citizens.
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Few write about the role American Indians played in building our government. Past American-Indian civilizations (including the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs) and the Iroquois Confederacy influenced our form of democratic government. For unbroken centuries, the Iroquois Confederacy was a government based upon the consent of the governed. There is evidence the U.S. government is patterned after the six nations of the Iroquois and that Benjamin Franklin, when he drafted our Federation of States, copied the Iroquois confederacy. The Iroquois League set the example of women's suffrage, the initiative referendum, recall, universal social security, freedom of religion and representative government.
Thomas Jefferson, also the author of our first Bill of Rights, freely acknowledged his debt to Indian teachers and instructors.
Other American Indian history facts include that the eagle was the emblem of the six nations of Iroquois before it became a symbol for the United States. President Washington said if the Indians had been our enemies instead of our friends the Revolutionary War would not have ended in American independence. The Oneida and Tuscarora Indians fed Washington's army at Valley Forge and probably saved their lives.
We truly may state our form of government is American.
Rodney M. King of Cloquet is a retired medical social worker for the Fond du Lac Reservation with a longtime passion for history.
