A key seems to be the 1751 letter from Benjamin Franklin to James Parker, in which he wrote:
It would be a strange thing if Six Nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such an union, and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears indissoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies, to whom it is more necessary and must be more advantageous, and who cannot be supposed to want an equal understanding of their interests.You might be interested in the following, also...
Native American Political Systems and the Evolution of Democracy: An Annotated Bibliography
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/NAPSnEoD.html
I'm no expert in all of this about the Iroquois, but what bugged me was the way the it seems to me that they had a federal system, but what bugged me was this part:
According to the leaflet's authors, "The American federal system derives not from Europe - whose nation's knew nothing of democracy - but Indian tribal organizations."There might be truth in the statement that our federal system is derived from the tribal nations not Europe, but obviously democracy was known by the Greeks. Still, the difference between a republic and a democracy is important. These are subtle propaganda techniques they are using.
This leaflet distributed to schoolchildren claimed Europeans knew nothing of democracy, a concept and word created by the ancient Greeks.
It's also rotten that mispunctuated pamphlets were distributed in our schools. Where can I get a scan or copy of one of these?
The Greeks not only were familiar with democracy, but European history is full of federal systems: the Delian league, the Achaean league, the Etruscan Confederation, the League of Latium, the Schmalkaldic League, the Hanseatic League, Switzerland, the United Provinces, etc.
The Framers, as is clear from the debates, did not draw on the primitive Iroquois alliance, but from the legal foundations of European history - they made constant references to the Swiss and Dutch federal systems in the Federalist and in the debates.
If the Framers were looking for tribal alliances, they could have looked at the clan federations of their own Scottish ancestors, or that of the Poles.