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NEW YORK (AP) A
federal appeals court rejected arguments that the Oneida Tribe of
Indians of New York no longer exists, saying in a split decision
Monday that tribe members do not have to pay taxes on some properties
in the city of Sherrill.
The 2nd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals made the ruling in a case that highlighted a
dispute over whether Indians can be forced to pay taxes on properties
that are sprinkled through an area that includes non-Indian properties.
The appeals court
noted, in a 2-1 vote, that the Bureau of Indian Affairs recognizes at
least 32 acres of land in Madison County and that the relationship
between the federal government and the Oneidas has never been
terminated or abandoned by the tribe. It said the federal government
never approved the alienation of the land at issue.
Telephone messages
left with lawyers for both sides were not immediately returned.
As the appeals
court noted, the case was the latest in a series of legal disputes
over the last 150 years.
The disputes
involve direct descendants of the original Oneida Indian Nation, one
of six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, one of the most powerful
Indian tribes in the northeastern United States at the time of the
American Revolution.
The Oneidas once
lived on about 6 million acres in central New York state that
stretched from the Pennsylvania border to the St. Lawrence River and
from the shores of Lake Ontario to the western foothills of the
Adirondack Mountains, the court said.
The 1794 Treaty of
Canandaigua recognized that the Oneida reservation covered
approximately 300,000 acres, including land in Sherrill and in
Madison County.
During the 1800s,
much of the reservation was sold to non-members of the tribe, and
some published accounts suggest that the number of Oneida Indians in
the state shrank to fewer than 200 and less than 100 acres of Indian
land remained unsold.
Some of the land
gained considerable value after the Oneidas, who had for years
struggled financially, opened the Turning Stone Casino Resort in
Verona, east of Syracuse, in 1993.
Afterward, members
of the tribe began repurchasing parcels, including a gasoline
station, a convenience store and a textile plant in Sherrill.
In February 2000,
the tribe sued the city after Sherrill began eviction proceedings
because taxes went unpaid on the property. The lawsuit sought a
declaration from the courts that the tribe did not have to pay taxes
on land that was part of its lands.
On June 4, 2001, a
lower court judge ruled that the city of Sherrill could not tax or
evict the Oneidas from land city lawyers had argued was given up by
the Indians in the 1838 Treaty of Buffalo Creek.
In a related case
involving 13 parcels of land in Madison County, the appeals court
sent the dispute back to the lower court, saying more information
needed to be gathered before a final ruling could be made.
In a dissent, 2nd
Circuit Judge Ellsworth A. Van Graafeiland listed several published
accounts stating that the Oneida Indians no longer have a
reservation, including a 1901 annual report from the Department of
the Interior.
During oral
arguments more than a year ago, Van Graafeiland suggested that the
tribe just wanted to ''build another casino and not pay any taxes.''
''You don't have
to pay any taxes,'' the judge said, ''but you can get all the benefits.''
---- Source: Boston.com
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