Iroquois deserve monument, too

I am an American Indian – a Native American. My people were indigenous to America thousands of years ago – well before Moses and Jesus in the Middle East.

Thank you for printing my letter last June, concerning the erroneous display of the Ten Commandments monument on the City of Everett’s City Council and police station property.

The U.S. Supreme Court will have the final say on this contentious issue next year. Whichever way it decides on this issue, I believe Everett’s leaders should acknowledge in some way, perhaps with another monument, that the model for the U.S. Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781 (the precursor to the U.S. Constitution), was the constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy.

The Iroquois constitution banned the forced entry of private homes by a tribal government, protected freedom of political and religious expression and imposed impeachment of corrupt leaders.

It wasn’t until 1987 that the U.S. Senate finally passed a resolution stating that the U.S. Constitution had been modeled on American Indian democracy.

STEVEN NEWTON

Everett