The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity

by David Graeber

Wendat leaders to agree to a prohibition of alcoholic beverages, and published an edict to that effect – crucially, the governor notes, backed up by threat of punishment. Father Lallemant, again, records the story. For him, this was an epochal event: ‘From the beginning of the world to the coming of the French, the Savages have never known what it was so solemnly to forbid anything to their people, under any penalty, however slight. They are free people, each of whom considers himself of as much consequence as the others; and they submit to their chiefs only in so far as it pleases them.’24 Equality here is a direct extension of freedom; indeed, is its expression. It also has almost nothing in common with the more familiar (Eurasian) notion of ‘equality before the law’, which is ultimately equality before the sovereign – that is, once again, equality in common subjugation. Americans, by contrast, were equal insofar as they were equally free to obey or disobey orders as they saw fit.