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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2001

"Perseverance. Fortitude.

The Cayuga Indians are a tiny, poverty-stricken, widely scattered tribe that lost its ancestral home in western New York more than 200 years ago.

Most of the Cayugas' 64,000 acres of land (in what are now the counties of Cayuga and Seneca) were ceded to the State of New York in a decidedly shady deal known as the Cayuga Ferry Treaty in July 1795. Another three square miles, the last of the tribe's land, was ceded in 1807.

Although the Cayugas were paid a small sum for the land, there were problems. The deal was illegal. It did not have the required approval of the federal government. George Washington, who was president at the time of the initial transfer, expressed unease with what the state was doing, but the federal government did not intervene. . ."

Get the Story:
Bob Herbert: Justice, 200 Years Later (The New York Times 11/26)

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Dispute continues over land claims (8/6)
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