Hiawatha (also known as Ayenwatha or Ha-yo-went'-ha) who lived around 1550, was variously a leader of the Onondaga and Mohawk nations of Native Americans. Hiawatha was a follower of The Great Peacemaker, a prophet and shaman who was credited as the founder of the Iroquois confederacy, (referred to as Haudenosaunee by the people). If The Great Peacemaker was the man of ideas, Hiawatha was the politician who actually put the plan into practice. Hiawatha was a skilled and charismatic orator, and was instrumental in persuading the Iroquois peoples, the Senecas, Onondagas, Oneidas, Cayugas, and Mohawks, a group of Native North Americans who shared similar languages, to accept The Great Peacemaker's vision and band together to become the Five Nations of the Iroquois confederacy. (Later, in 1721, the Tuscarora nation joined the Iroquois confederacy, and they became the Six Nations).

A remarkable lawgiver, prophet and statesman, Hiawatha was a member of the Hotinonshonni who lived in the 16th century.

In an effort to halt the continual intertribal feuds and wars of the Iroquois tribes, he and his mentor, Dekanawida formed the League of the Longhouse. Also known as the Confederation of Five (later Six) Nations.

In his aim to establish a democratic political structure for his people, Hiawatha advocated special rights for women, who were empowered to choose the male delegates to the ruling council of the Nations.

Benjamin Franklin admired the Iroquois system, which he believed to be indissoluble, and used it as a model for the Articles of Confederation, adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777, and ratified by the states March 1, 1781

Sources

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia

Trachtenberg, Alan. Shades of Hiawatha: Staging Indians, Making Americans, 1880-1930. New York: Hill and Wang, 2004.