|
Land Claim
News Haudenosaunee Land Claim
|
||
| Page 4 Haudenosaunee Land Claim
|
Fall 1999
|
|
| rationales to justify the
theft of land. The time has come to rectify this appalling situation.
Does the solemn word of the United States, as expressly written in our
treaties, mean nothing? Are the promises made by President George
Washington and other federal officials to the Haudenosaunee to be
violated?
In 1799, President George Washington wrote a prayer for the United States that was distributed by the National Society for the Daughters of the Revolution at the 1999 New York State Fair. In that prayer, Washington asked God, "that thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain brotherly affection and love for one another . . . to dispose all to do justice, to love mercy and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristic of the Divine author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be happy nation." If the obligations, laws and treaties of the past are ignored, how can we expect the word of the governments to have any meaning in the future? Each administration in Albany has stalled on this matter, leaving it for the next. The Haudenosaunee have taken their case to Congress many times over the last two centuries, but to no resolve. Since the 1970s we have had to resort to the courts and these courts have ruled in our favor. The question of our right to make a claim has been resolved. We still own the land. Since the 1980's every new land transaction within the claim area has stipulated that these lands might be subject to a land claim action. No one should be surprised by the claims. However, there has been much misinformation disseminated in the media and on the Internet regarding the claim. Unfortunately some politicians have made statements and promises that are not consistent with with American law. |
Everything
You Need to Know About the Land Claims
The following information includes answers to common questions about our claim for land. We hope that these answers will set the record straight and yet, we realize that some of the answers will not please everyone. It is important that we have the facts straight as we move toward a resolution of this long-standing injustice. 1) What is the Legal Basis for the Land Claim? The Haudenosaunee, including the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and Tuscarora Nations, still own much of their original land in what is now New York State. The courts have already recognized that fact. The lands in question belong to the Haudenosaunee, and have been legally recognized by federal treaties (Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1784 and Canandaigua Treaty of 1794). The United States has an obligation to protect our rights to the lands defined by these treaties. In Oneida Indian Nation of New York State, v. County of Oneida, New York, decided Jan. 21, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Indian Nations could still make a claim for lands that were lost through a violation of the federal Trade and Intercourse Act. The court decided there was no statute of limitations on certain claims and that an Indian Nation could be entitled to land and compensation for losses. This means that the New York State "treaties" to supposedly purchase land from the Indian Nations knowingly violated federal laws, and therefore, those old agreements are void. This means that the Indian Nations still own title to the land. The current land claims are meant to rectify this historical dilemma. The nations of the Haudenosaunee are sovereign and have a permanent right to their nationhood, and self - |
|
