
A student from Covington Catholic High School stands in front of Native American Vietnam veteran Nathan Phillips in Washington, U.S., in this still image from a January 18, 2019 video by Kaya Taitano. Kaya Taitano/Social Media/via REUTERS
I do not want to romanticize the past. The numerous tribal wars which occurred for thousands of years before European settlers arrived in the “New World” have been well documented. Yet despite these conflicts, the overall legacy of our nation’s indigenous people reveals a remarkable story of human migration, survival, and the spread of civilizations. In fact, the very roots of American democracy began not with Washington, Jefferson and Madison, but with the Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy. In the parlance of his age, Benjamin Franklin said in 1751:
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.
This is what those MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) hat wearing high school students from Kentucky failed to grasp when they clashed with a group of Native American demonstrators at our nation’s capital. If only they knew that the very steps they were standing on were erected to honor a political philosophy that came from the ancestors of the Native American marchers.

To learn more about Native American contributions, visit Remembering Lewis Henry Morgan, an exhibit on display in the Local History & Genealogy Division of the Central Library of Rochester through March 30, 2019. A Rochestarian, Lewis was a pioneer in Native American studies. A path-breaking ethnography that was a model for future anthropologists, The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee or Iroquois (1851) presented the complexity of Iroquois society and the kinship system with unprecedented nuance. [Photo: David Kramer, 1/23/19]
If only the students knew that Native Americans have served militarily in this country in every conflict since the Revolutionary War, perhaps then they would have a little more respect. Although there are questions about the exact story behind the drummer Nathan Phillip’s military record, whether he served in Vietnam or not, the fact remains that many Indians did. They fought and died in the jungles of North Vietnam, just as they fought and died in the battlefields of Germany, and the killing farms of Gettysburg.
![Plaque describing the contributions and sacrifices of Native Americans during the Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veteran Memorial of Greater Rochester in Highland Park. [Photo: David Kramer, 1/24/19]](https://i0.wp.com/talkerofthetown.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Indians.jpg?resize=622%2C367&ssl=1)
Plaque describing the contributions and sacrifices of Native Americans during the Vietnam War, Vietnam Veterans Memorial of Greater Rochester, Highland Park. [Photo: David Kramer, 1/24/19]
NOTE: On 2/2/19, the Democrat and Chronicle published George’s Guest Essay on the topic from another perspective.
SEE ALSO Living the Native American way of being at Haudenosaunee Days at the RMSC

Dekanawida and Hiawatha, the Rochester Museum and Science Center. Haudenosaunee Days at the RMSC from Living the Native American way of being at Haudenosaunee Days at the RMSC
Charlotte High’s unparalleled and almost lost murals

Ruth Dan Yup´ik, indigenous Alaskan and student at the University of Rochester 11/05/16. From Iakaonne´tha ne oneka

Seth Green Trail on east side of the Genesee River from The birth of American democracy and the enduring political wisdom of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.
Casconchiagon and the Rochester Connection

Maplewood Park, from Casconchiagon and the Rochester Connection
Sneak preview of our 2018 Rochester Contemporary 6 X 6 submission
Trailblazers: Reflections from the Ancient Indian Trails of Western and Central New York

Modern day footprints cover the same trails that our ancestors did 10-15,000 years ago. From Trailblazers: Reflections from the Ancient Indian Trails of Western and Central New York