Aboriginal title in New York

Iroquois lands circa 1720
A map showing the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, the Morris Reserve, and the Holland Purchase

Aboriginal title in New York refers to treaties, purchases, laws and litigation associated with land titles of aboriginal peoples of New York, in particular, to dispossession of those lands by actions of European Americans. The European purchase of lands from indigenous populations dates back to the legendary Dutch purchase of Manhattan in 1626, "the most famous land transaction of all."[1] More than any other state, New York disregarded the Confederation Congress Proclamation of 1783 and the follow-on Nonintercourse Acts, purchasing the majority of the state directly from the Iroquois nations without federal involvement or ratification.[2]

New York is the source of several landmark decisions concerning aboriginal title including Oneida I (1974), "first of the modern-day [Native American land] claim cases to be filed in federal court,"[3] and Oneida II (1985), "the first native land claim case won on the basis of the Nonintercourse Act."[4] New York was the site of nearly all remaining Native American possessory land claims when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Cayuga Nation of N.Y. v. Pataki (2005) that the equitable doctrine of laches (duty of "timeliness") bars all tribal land claims sounding in ejectment or trespass, for both tribal plaintiffs and the federal government as plaintiff-intervenor.[5] Since the ruling, no tribal plaintiff has overcome the laches defense in a land claim in the Second Circuit.[6]

There are currently 10 Native reservations in New York: Allegany Reservation, Cattaraugus Reservation, Oil Springs Reservation, Oneida Reservation, Onondaga Reservation, Poospatuck Reservation, St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, Shinnecock Reservation, Tonawanda Reservation, and Tuscarora Reservation.

  1. ^ Banner, 2005, at 75.
  2. ^ Gunther, 1958, at 3--7.
  3. ^ Vecsey & Starna, 1988, at 144.
  4. ^ Vecsey & Starna, 1988, at 145.
  5. ^ Kathryn E. Fort, The New Laches: Creating Title where None Existed, 16 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 357 (2009); Patrick W. Wandres, Native Land Claims, Sherrill and the Impending Legacy of the Doctrine of Laches, 31 Native Am. L. Rev. 131 (2006).
  6. ^ Oneida Nation of N.Y. v. County of Oneida, 617 F.3d 114 (2d Cir. 2010); Onondaga Nation v. New York, 2010 WL 3806492 (N.D.N.Y. 2010); Shinnecock Nation v. New York, 2006 WL 3501099 (E.D.N.Y. 2006).