How did New York State and others come to possess Onondaga lands if they were not acquired legally?
Between 1790 and 1822, the State of New York signed five so-called “treaties” with individual members of the Onondaga Nation, supposedly acquiring all of the Nation’s lands except for the 7,300-acre territory where the Nation resides today. The State later sold most of the land to others. None of these “treaties” was ever ratified or approved by the Onondaga Nation itself, by the Haudenosaunee, or by the United States government. As a result, none of these so-called “treaties” between the State of New York and the Onondaga Nation are valid. The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that under such circumstances title to the land continues to belong to the original Indian nation owner. This was decided in the case of County of Oneida, New York v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York State, 470 U.S. 226 (1985).
