Cayuga people
Tuscarora Nation , other Iroquoian peoples |
The Cayuga (
History
Political relations between the Cayuga, the
Consequently, in 1779, General George Washington of the Continental Army appointed General John Sullivan and James Clinton to lead the Sullivan Expedition, a retaliatory military campaign designed to unseat the Iroquois Confederacy and prevent the nations from continuing to attack New York militias and the Continental Army.[3] The campaign mobilized 6200 troops and devastated the Cayuga and other Iroquois homelands, destroying 40-50 villages.[citation needed] Those destroyed included major Cayuga villages such as Cayuga Castle and Chonodote (Peachtown).[citation needed] The expedition, with attacks from the spring through the fall, also destroyed the crops and winter stores of the Iroquois, to drive them out of the land. Survivors fled to other Iroquois tribes, or to Upper Canada. Some were granted land there by the British in recognition of their loyalty to the Crown.[citation needed]
Following the end of the war, the Central New York Military Tract was established in order to grant land bounties to veterans. The tract originally included a Cayuga reservation surrounding the north end of Cayuga Lake, but the reservation was given up a few years later in a treaty with the state.[citation needed]
Some Seneca and Cayuga had left the area earlier even as
On November 11, 1794, the (New York) Cayuga Nation (along with the other Haudenosaunee nations) signed the Pickering Treaty with the United States, by which they ceded much of their lands in New York to the United States, forced to do so as allies of the defeated British. It was the second treaty the United States entered into. It recognized the rights of the Haudenosaunee as sovereign nations. The Pickering Treaty remains an operating legal document; the U.S. government continues to send the requisite gift of muslin fabric to the nations each year.
The state of New York made additional treaties with the tribes but failed to get them ratified by the Senate. As it lacked the constitutional authority to deal directly with the tribes, individual tribes have sued for land claims since the late 20th century, charging New York had no authority for their actions. The state rapidly arranged sales of more than 5 million acres (20,000 km2) of former Iroquois lands at inexpensive prices to encourage development in the state. It also granted some western lands to war veterans in lieu of pay.[citation needed] Speculators bought up as much land as they could and resold it to new settlers. Land-hungry Yankees from New England flooded into New York in waves of new settlement, as did some settlers from the Mohawk Valley. Immigrants also came from the British Isles and France after the war.[citation needed]
Recognized bands
There are three Cayuga bands. The two largest, the Lower Cayuga and Upper Cayuga, still live in
The Cayuga Nation of New York does not have a reservation. Members have lived among the Seneca Nation on their reservation.[4] Since the late 20th century, they have acquired some land in their former homeland by purchase.
Land claims
The Cayuga Nation of New York filed an action on November 19, 1980, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York to pursue legislative and monetary restitution for land taken from it by the State of New York during the 18th and 19th centuries. New York had entered into land sales and leases with the Cayuga Nation after the signing of the Treaty of Canandaigua after the American Revolutionary War. Its failure to get approval of the United States Senate meant the transactions were illegal, as the state had no constitutional authority to deal directly with Indian nations. The Treaty of Canandaigua holds that only the United States government may enter into legal discussions with the Haudenosaunee.
In 1981, the
Both the plaintiffs and the defendants appealed this award. On June 28, 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rendered a decision that reversed the judgment of the trial court. It ruled in favor of the defendants, based on the doctrine of laches. Essentially the court ruled that the plaintiffs had taken too long to present their case, when it might have been equitably settled earlier.
The Cayuga Indian Nation of New York sought review of this decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, which was denied on May 15, 2006. The time in which the Cayuga Indian Nation could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear the case has passed.
The Nation reclaimed its first land on July 17, 1996, by purchasing 14 acres (57,000 m2) in Seneca Falls, within their 64,000 acres (260 km2) land claim area. On August 2, 1997 a dedication was held where members of all the Iroquois Confederacy nations were present. This purchase began the return of the Cayuga People to their ancestral homelands. They planted a pine tree at this dedication as a symbol that the Cayuga People are still alive and wanting to return. The elder women of the Cayuga Nation broke the ground and planted the pine tree to welcome the return of their people to their home territory.
In December 2005, the S.H.A.R.E. (Strengthening Haudenosaunee-American Relations through Education) Farm (including a house) was signed over to the Cayuga nation by United States citizens who had purchased and developed the 70-acre (280,000 m2) farm in Aurora, New York. This is the first property which the Cayuga Nation has owned since after being forced to cede its lands after the Revolutionary War. It is the first time they have lived within the borders of their ancestral homeland in more than 200 years.[5] The Cayuga continue to debate having the Bureau of Indian Affairs take this land into trust for them. They have been developing projects featuring indigenous planting, cultivation of herbs and medicinal plants, wild plant collection and a seed saving program.[5]
Current population
In 1995 there were nearly 450 Cayuga members in New York. In the 21st century, there are about 4,892 combined members of the Cayuga-Seneca Nation in Oklahoma.[1]
The total number of Iroquois is difficult to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995, more than 39,000 in Ontario and the remainder in Quebec. Among the six nations and federally recognized units in the United States, total tribal enrollment in 1995 numbered about 30,000. In the 2000 US Census, 45,217 respondents identified solely as Iroquois (but this does not mean they were enrolled as members); and 80,822 as having Iroquois ancestry.
Location | Seneca | Cayuga | Onondaga | Tuscarora | Oneida | Mohawk | Combined | Totals |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ontario | 3,970 | 14,051 | 17,6031 | 39,624 | ||||
Quebec | 9,631 | 9,631 | ||||||
New York | 7581 | 448 | 1596 | 1200 | 1,109 | 5,632 | 17,566 | |
Wisconsin | 10,309 | 10,309 | ||||||
Oklahoma | 4,8922 | 4,892 | ||||||
Totals | 7581 | 448 | 1596 | 1200 | 15,338 | 29,314 | 22,495 | 82,022 |
1
Notable Cayuga
- George Edward Bomberry, Physician, first indigenous graduate of McGill University (M.D. C.M. 1875).
- Jenna Clause, actress [6]
- Gary Farmer, actor
- Annessa Hartman, American politician
- Ourehouare, tribal leader
- Robbie Robertson, Canadian musician and lead singer of The Band
References
Notes
- ^ a b "Pocket Pictorial." Archived April 6, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission. 2010: 33. (retrieved 10 Jan 2011)
- ^
Alvin M. Josephy Jr., ed. (1961). The American Heritage Book of Indians. American Heritage Publishing Co. p. 205. LCCN 61-14871.
- ^ Emerson Klees. Persons, Places, and Things around the Finger Lakes Region. Rochester, Finger Lakes Publishing, 1994. Page 10.
- ^ "The Six Nations of the Iroquois" Archived 2006-11-16 at the Wayback Machine, Herald American, 22 Jul 1990, accessed 10 Apr 2009
- ^ a b Hansen and Rossen (2007), "Building Bridges", in Past Meets Present, p. 128
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Indigenous Canadian Jenna Clause on her first big role in 'The Wilds'". YouTube.
Bibliography
- Hansen, B. and J. Rossen. "Building Bridges Through Public Anthropology in the Haudenosaunee Homeland", In Past Meets Present: Archaeologists with Museum Curators, Teachers, and Community Groups. Jameson, Jr., J and S. Baugher. 2007. Springer: New York.
External links
- Cayuga Nation (official website)
- Cayuga Nation
- Dr. Bob Spigelman, "How the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign Dispossessed the Cayuga", Sullivan-Clinton Campaign: Then and Now