How to tell the origin story of sociocracy?

Early Quakers in the colonies had deep and respectful interactions with Native Americans. There is, for example, a well-documented visit in 1761 by John Woolman with Indians in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. He sat in council with them day and night, giving and receiving messages usually through an interpreter but sometimes not.

For me, the suggestion is valid that Quakers interacted with and therefore learned Indigenous council practice. However, I do not know of Friends speaking in rounds, either in the modern era or in the past. The prevailing practice is to speak as led, and in a meeting for business, to speak when recognized by the clerk. Finally, our discipline is to speak only once to an issue, a measure that preserves a degree of equivalence, although that constraint is often stretched.

Regretably, Quakers also had less respectful interactions with Native Americans. For instance, in the 19th and 20th centuries, they were among the leading advocates and developers of the Indian boarding schools that removed native children from their homes with the intent to assimilate them into the dominant white society. “Kill the Indian and save the man,” was a common slogan of the time. The documentary, Dawnland, presents this history. Quakers today are seeking to repair the harms of this period.

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