Many Native American tribes or nations formed loose defensive confederations which held together briefly or for a long time. The Iroquois, a confederation of first five and then six Native American nations in the northeastern United States, however, formed what was an anomalous confederation that would form much of the basis for the American invention of government. This was a powerful confederation of sovereign nations held together by a constitution that based itself on the structure of the confederation and its decision-making apparatus rather than on the charisma or power of individuals. This would then become the model that the framers of the Consitution would turn to in designing a nation that was, in theory, a set of sovereign nations: the United States. Sometime between 1570 and 1600, Dekanawidah, a Huron living among the Seneca, worked out a treaty of alliance with Hiawatha, an Onandaga living among the Mohawk. This alliance would included three other nations, so that the Iroquois League at its foundation included the Seneca, the Mohawk, the Cayuga, the Oneida, and the Onondaga. In 1722, the League was joined by the Tuscarora. Originally occupying only northern New York, the League would expand by alliance and conquest to control an area from southern Canada to Kentucky north to south, and Eastern Pennsylvania to Ohio east to west. During the American Revolution, the League split apart; the Oneida and Tuscarora sided with the Americans, while the others allied themselves with Britain. The United States took revenge in 1779 which resulted in the Second Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) which officially disbanded the League.
