Before there was a Parker, before there was a Tonawanda Seneca Reservation, before there was a United States of America, there was the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — one of the most sophisticated political structures ever developed in North America, and one whose influence on the American experiment in democratic governance has been debated by scholars for generations.

The Haudenosaunee, known in English by the French-derived name Iroquois, united five nations — the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, and Seneca — under a constitution known as the Great Law of Peace.

The Great Law was an oral document of considerable complexity, governing the relationship between the five nations, establishing procedures for making collective decisions, creating mechanisms for resolving disputes, and articulating principles of governance that emphasized consensus and the consent of the governed.

Scholars have long debated the extent to which the Haudenosaunee model of confederated governance influenced the American founders as they designed the Constitution.