Some Native peoples built towns, monuments and alliances on a large scale, long before Europeans arrived. Three examples, building on Native Cultures Across North America, show how much they achieved.
Key idea
Cahokia, near present-day St. Louis, was the largest city of the Mississippian culture (about 10,000 to 20,000 people around 1100). The Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners built great houses at Chaco Canyon and cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy joined five nations under a shared council and the Great Law of Peace.
Why it works
Farming made these societies possible. Maize, beans and squash grown in surplus fed people who could then build mounds, trade over long distances and govern large populations. Large towns and alliances needed leaders, rules and ways to settle disputes, so these peoples built political systems as well as buildings.
- Cahokia (about 900 to 1400, at its height about 1050 to 1350): more than 100 earthen mounds. Monks Mound, about 100 feet tall, is the largest earthen mound built in North America before Columbus. Trade brought copper and shells from far away. The city declined after about 1350, for reasons still studied, such as floods and strain on resources.
- Ancestral Puebloans: at Chaco Canyon (about 850 to 1150) they built multistory great houses joined by long roads. At Mesa Verde they built about 600 cliff dwellings, mostly between about 1190 and 1280; Cliff Palace has about 150 rooms. Drought and other pressures led people to move south by about 1300. Today's Pueblo peoples are their descendants.
- Haudenosaunee, "People of the Longhouse": the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca, joined by the Tuscarora about 1722 (the Six Nations). The Great Law of Peace, kept in memory and recorded with wampum belts, set up a Grand Council of chiefs from the nations.
Worked example: Dates that are debated
When was the Haudenosaunee Confederacy founded?
- The founding is preserved in oral tradition, not in written records.
- Some scholars point to an eclipse in the tradition and suggest about 1142; others suggest the mid-1400s.
- Haudenosaunee tradition places it centuries before Europeans arrived.
Answer: The date is debated: proposals range from about 1142 to the 1400s. Saying "by about 1500" is safe.
Worked example: Read a timeline
Put in order: Cahokia at its height, Cliff Palace being built, Columbus's first voyage.
- Cahokia: about 1100.
- Cliff Palace: about 1190 to 1280.
- Columbus: 1492.
Answer: Cahokia, Cliff Palace, Columbus.
Common mistake
A common assumption is that large towns and organized governments came to America only from Europe. Cahokia may have been as large as many European towns of its day, and the Haudenosaunee had a working confederacy with a council and rules for peace. Historians do debate one related claim: how much the Haudenosaunee influenced the U.S. Constitution. Congress praised that influence in a 1988 resolution; some historians argue it was large, others that the framers drew mostly on English and colonial models.