Ray,
You bring up a great point about Native American influence on our form of government. Only recently did I become aware of the fact that aspects of our very own American democracy were modeled to some degree after Native American practices, such as the Iroquois League.
FYI..The following book was the source of my new understanding: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. Yes, the title may give the impression of being and extremist book, but don't be fooled. This is an amazing book about how our history textbooks present a watered down version of history, devoid of context, which is critical to truly understanding the evolution of our society. The point of this book is not to paint a good or bad picture of the US, rather to point out that our historical education would be much more rich and pertinent to everyday life if it encompassed the unwashed facts in their entirety.
I would truly recommend this book for everyone reading this post. I will admit that I did not particularly like history class in high school. In retrospect, I would attribute that partly to the problem that this book addresses. Our existing history education consists of dates and facts that have been stripped of their context, as well as references to events and actions that would shine a bad light on the intentions of our forbearers. Rather than view all of our past, good and bad, in its entirety in it's true context, our textbooks mold our history into this clean linear progression to today's society. Unfortunately, in doing so the writers of those textbooks rob our youth of true insight into where we've been and where we are going in this society.
OK...I'm off my stump. Again, this is worth a read. It's not an easy read, both because the of the depth of his analysis and the general subject matter. However, it is still a wonderful read.
