The Great Law of Peace, carried for centuries in memory and wampum rather than ink, bound five warring nations of the northeastern woodlands into one confederacy governed by a council of fifty chiefs who decide by consensus. The Peacemaker and Hiawatha founded it — the date is debated. Clan mothers choose the chiefs and can remove them. The Tuscarora joined in 1722, making Six Nations. The Haudenosaunee became a major military and diplomatic force before the American Revolution split it. Congress formally acknowledged the Confederacy's influence on American ideas of liberty in 1988. It endures today as a living government.
The oldest living constitution in North America was never written down. The Haudenosaunee Great Law of Peace, memorized and recited from belts of wampum beads, bound five warring nations into a single council — and gave clan mothers the power to choose its chiefs and to strip any who failed their people. It has governed this way for centuries, and it still meets today.