Thank you, and Happy Fourth to all FR from me.
I refuse to log on to the NYT but I can guess that it says the native americans gave us our idea of a bicameral legislature, checks and balances, a Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Postal service.
Other than that, the Scots-Irish might have had a little to do with it.
That's too bad, because it's free, and the author is a guest. In brief, he wrote that our notion of limited, accountable government, individual liberty and disdain for the elite can be traced to the Iroquois confederation.
The article was better than I would have guesses. It basically says that some of the American ideal of equality and lack of respect for "elites" derives from the essentially libertarian societies of the Indian tribes of the northeast. Which is not utterly implausible.
Of course, to keep this happy attitude towards the Indians, you are forced to ignore a lot of warfare and torture, as well as the social systems found in many other areas of the Americas. The Iroquois and other NE tribes were also not nearly as egalitarian with regard to their women as the author states.
This is the article's URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04mann.html
With an unqualified .html suffix, I think you may not have to register. I would appreciate it, if you or someone else not registered with the NY Times try to read the remainder of the article, and please let me know the result as to whether it requires registration.