Native nations have always been fiercely protective of their sovereignty—the right to govern themselves and manage their own affairs. Often this was manifested in seemingly small acts like issuing their own automobile license plates or hunting licenses. Few Native nations have been more protective than the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (the Six Nations sometimes called the Iroquois). Today, for instance, the Haudenosaunee travel internationally on their own passports. As Seneca activist and scholar John Mohawk said, “If you want to be sovereign, you have to act sovereign.”

When the United States entered World War I, the Haudenosaunee were not subject to the draft because they were not yet U.S. citizens. Some of the Six Nations responded by declaring war on Germany because some of their citizens were detained in Germany at the advent of war. When the United States entered World War II after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Haudenosaunee, though U.S. citizens since 1924 (Indian Citizenship Act), refused to be drafted because they were a separate sovereign nation. The impasse was resolved when the Six Nations agreed to declare war on the Axis Powers. The declaration of war was read on the steps of the Capitol on June 13, 1942.

Today, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy stands alongside Iceland as one of the two oldest representative democracies in the world.