Definition of League of Five Nations?

Answer 1

For purposes of war and diplomacy, an Iroquoian confederation- including the Seneca, Onondaga, Mohawk, Oneida, and Cayuga tribes- formed the League of Five Nations, which remained powerful well into the eighteenth century.

Answer 2

"In the early years of the 1500's, long before Europeans walked on North American soil, five nations, today called the Iroquois League, formed an alliance. The League consisted of the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca Nations. Collectively the group called themselves the "People of the Longhouse." In the 1700's the League was joined by another nation, the Tuscarora, and the Confederation was renamed, the Six Nations.

Governance of the Confederation was based on a constitution. According to Iroquois tradition, The Confederation was founded by Deganawidah, a spiritual leader. He accomplished what no one before him could, and that was to persuade the initial five nations to stop all intertribal warfare and to form a coalition. Hiawatha, Deganawidah's spokesman, traveled among the five tribes preaching unification. Under his influence, the tribes eventually formed a strong alliance that lasted until the American Revolution.

Some historians feel that the Constitution of the Five Nations served as a model for the United States Constitution. The document was written to not only to maintain peace and freedom for all nations, but to guarantee rights to individual tribal members. The complete Constitution can be read in its entirety. What follows is a poetic rendering by John Bierhorst." (http://voiceseducation.org/node/122)