Excerpts from: "Indian Givers" by Jack Weatherford
Ch. 7 "Liberty, Anarchism, and the Noble Savage"
--------------------------------------------------
"The most consistent theme in descriptions penned about the new world was
the amazement at the Indians' personal liberty, in particular their freedom
from rulers and from social classes based on ownership of property. For the
first time the French and the British became aware of the possibility of
living in social harmony and prosperity without the rule of a king...
... One of the Hurons explained to Lahontan, "We are born free and united
brothers, each as much a great lord as the other, while you are the slaves
of one sole man. I am the master of my body, I dispose of myself, I do what
I wish, I am the first and the last of my Nation... subject only to the
great Spirit"...
... Impresarios brought over Indians in droves to tour the European capitals
and entertain at parties with their tales of liberty and freedom...
... This contrast between the liberty of the Indians and the virtual
enslavement of Europeans became a life-long concern for Rousseau and
eventually led to publication of... 'Discourse on the Origins of
Inequality'...
... During this era the thinkers of Europe forged the ideas that became
known as the European Enlightenment, and much of its light came from the
torch of Indian Liberty that still burned brightly in th ebrief interregnum
between their first contact with the Europeans and their decimation by the
Europeans... the 'Noble Savage,' the man of liberty living in the 'natural
state'...
... The greatest political radical to follow the example of the Indians was
probably Thamas Paine...
... After arriving in America he developed a sharp interest in the Indians,
who seemed to be living in the natural state so alien to the urban and
supposedly civilised life he encountered around himself. When the American
Revolution started, Paine served as secretary to the commissioners sent to
negotiate with the Iroquois... Through this and subsequent encounters with
the Indians, Paine sought to learn their language, and throughout the
remainder of his political and writing career he used the Indians as models
of how society might be organised.
In his writings, Paine castigated Britain for her abusive treatment of
the Indians, and he became the first American to call for the abolition of
slavery... 'Common Sense'... the first call for American independence.
Subsequently he became the first to propose the name 'United States of
America' for the emerging nation...
... then turned his attention to the role of religion by writing the book
that gave its name to the whole Enlightenment, 'The Age of Reason'...
... By the time Paine died, the Indians had been permanently enshrined in
European thought as exemplars of liberty... Alexis de Toqueville... in...
'Democracy in America', repeatedly uses phrases such as 'equal and free'. He
said that the ancient European republics never showed more love of
independence than did the Indians of North America...
... Egalitarian democracy and liberty as we know them today owe little to
Europe. They are not Greco-Roman derivatives somehow revived by the French
in the eighteenth century. They entered modern western thought as American
Indian notions translated into European language and culture...
... American anglophiles occasionally point to the signing of the Magna
Carta... as the start of civil liberties and democracy in the English
speaking world. This document however, merely moved slightly away from
monarchy and toward oligarchy by increasing the power of the aristocracy...
In the same tradition, the election of the pope by a college of cardinals
did not make the Vatican into a democratic institution...
... When Americans try to trace their democratic heritage back through the
writings of French and English political thinkers of the Enlightenment, they
often forget that these peoples' thoughts were heavily shaped by the
democratic traditions and the state of nature of the American Indians, and
even though the picture grew romanticised and distorted, the writers were
only... distorting something that really did exist...
... The modern notions of democracy based on egalitarian principles and a
federated government of overlapping powers arose from the unique blend of
European and Indian political ideas and institutions along the Atlantic
coast between 1607 and 1776. Modern democracy as we know it today is as much
the legacy of the American Indians, particularly the Iroquois and the
Algonquinans, as it is of British settlers, of French political theory, or
of all the failed efforts of the Greeks and Romans."
on 9/25/01 8:36 AM, John Beasley at beasley@austarnet.com.au wrote:
> Hi Rick, Roger,
>
> I'm not trying to avoid your challenge to my post about the Iroquois
> involvement in the writing of the US Constitution. It's just that I am
> trying to get a copy of the book I believe will give me the details. You
> could be right, but I will wait until I can get some extra information
> before I respond.
>
> John B
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