Tomorrow is more than a celebration with barbecues, picnics, parades, and fireworks. Yes, it is about winning our independence from Great Britain, and thus our freedom, but it is much, much more than that. It is about a government based upon the principals of, "We the People." Sadly where this idea first came from, and the Forgotten Founders who nurtured it, are ignored by the vast majority of Americans.A little know fact about The Declaration of Independence is that Benjamin Franklin, often called the "Sage of the 1787 Philadelphia Convention," had befriended members of the Iroquois(Haudenosaunee) four years earlier. Many of the ideals on which this American Republic was founded can be traced directly back to the Iroquois Confederacy, or League of Five Nations, and their governing principles of peace and individual freedom.The League of Five Nations, was made up of five individual bands: the Cayugus, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas. The "Gayaneshagowa," or “Great Binding Law," was a constitution which gave voice to such democratic ideas and doctrines as; initiative, recall, referendum, and equal suffrage.When Ben Franklin and the members of the Philadelphia Convention looked for examples of effective government and human liberty upon which to model a Constitution to unite the thirteen colonies, they found it here, in this New World -- not in Greece, usually considered to be the "Cradle of Modern Civilization."One of the framers of the Constitution, John Rutledge of South Carolina, chair of the drafting committee, read portions of The Great Binding Law to members of the committee. He then asked them to consider a philosophy coming directly from American soil.The Iroquois Consitiution or Great Binding Law provided the type of central government that was worthy of copying. It provided a blueprint for use in adopting many of the Iroquois most important beliefs into our own Declaration of Independence.The Great Binding Law is, in fact, America's oldest constitution and its council fire has never been covered since it was first kindled in 1390. By the time the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Iroquois had practiced their own democratic form of government for hundreds of years. The Iroquois reputation for diplomacy and eloquence revealed they had evolved a sophisticated political system founded on reason, not on war.Faithkeeper Oren Lyons, an Onondaga, states, "The Great Binding Law includes freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right of women to participate in government. Separation of power in government and checks and balances within government are traceable to our Iroquois Constitution."The Peacemaker legend is central to Iroquoian history and to their belief in a fair and just form of government. It is, in fact, their Bible, Declaration of Independence, and Constitution all rolled up into one.The tale describes a people who were mired in years and years of violent bloody feuds. The Iroquois lived in a state of perpetual war throughout their homelands in what is now New York State. Even though the tribes were the closest of relatives, they were merciless in their battles against one another.The people lived in a state of fear so overwhelming that they refused to leave their villages, which were surrounded by wooden stockades, without armed guards at their sides. Crops were often left to rot in the fields because of frequent raids, and ambushes in the nearby forests prevented the men from hunting, resulting in widespread starvation. Many Iroquois abandoned their homes, and fled morth of Lake Ontario,seeking refuge.In one of these bands of refugees, a very special child was born near the Bay of Quinte in the vicinity of Kingston in southeastern Ontario, Canada .. The Iroquois came to know him as "Dekanawidah" (two river currents flowing together) The Peacemaker t