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| Indians on Warpath |
| 2005-03-12 |
| The Onondaga Nation will claim ownership of a 40-mile-wide swath of land stretching from the Thousand Islands to Pennsylvania in a historic lawsuit it will file today against New York, Onondaga County and Syracuse. The Onondagas will ask a federal court to declare that New York illegally acquired the land in five treaties between 1788 and 1822, and they will ask for title to that land. The disputed territory includes roughly 4,000 square miles - including nearly all of Syracuse, plus Oswego, Fulton, Watertown, Cortland and Binghamton. About 875,000 people live in the claim area. Syracuse is the biggest U.S. city to be included in a Native American land claim, according to attorneys and historians familiar with such cases. While the lawsuit asks a judge to declare the entire area as Onondaga property, Chief Sid Hill stressed the nation will not sue individual property owners or evict anyone from their homes. The Onondagas - a nation of 1,500 members who live on about 11 square miles just south of Syracuse - are not seeking monetary damages in this action. The suit asks the court to declare that New York violated federal and state laws when it bought the Onondaga land, said Joseph Heath, the Onondagas' attorney. Hill said the Onondagas hope such a ruling would force New York officials to bargain with them on compensation for the illegal sales and to compel New York to better clean up environmental hazards in the claim area - especially Onondaga Lake. If those state negotiations fail, the Onondagas could return to court to ask a judge for damages... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #1 I don't know anything about Indian treaty law, so I can't comment on the merits of the Onandagas' case. That being said, I'm having a lot of trouble purging from my mind the image of Custer and his surviving troopers, on the hill surrounded on all sides by charging, screaming Indians led by a guy named "Chief Sid"! |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2005-03-12 6:11:37 PM |