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Subject: Oneida Land Claim Brings Strife
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:01:29 EST
Oneida Land Claim Brings Strife
.c The Associated Press
By WILLIAM KATES
VERNON, N.Y. (AP) -- Paul Kobler's great-great-grandfather started farming
here shortly after the Civil War. For five generations, Kobler's kin have
poured money and their lives into making the land their home.
Today that heritage is threatened by the long-impoverished, now casino-rich
Oneida Indian Nation -- with the help of the federal government.
That the Oneidas lost their once vast territory illegally matters little to
Kobler and more than 20,000 other landowners who are suddenly part of a
29-year-old lawsuit seeking to reclaim ancestral homelands. They consider
themselves pawns in a battle among governments -- state, federal and tribal.
``I'm not giving up my land to no one. I'll do whatever it takes to keep it,''
says Kobler, echoing a defiance proclaimed by others across two counties just
east of Syracuse.
As the governments bicker, residents are left to imagine the worst. They have
seen in Salamanca, N.Y., what it means when the rent comes due on an ancient
tribal deal. When the Seneca Indian Nation repossessed that western New York
city, more than a dozen people were evicted and 2,500 others now lease the
land beneath their homes and businesses.
For their part, the Oneidas say they don't want to force people from their
homes but adding them to their moldering land claim was the only way to revive
it and force an unwilling New York state to negotiate in earnest toward
settlement, one that may eventually top $1 billion.
``The state can stop this anytime they want -- whenever they want to sit down
and get serious with negotiations,'' says Ray Halbritter, the Oneida Nation's
Harvard-educated leader.
State officials contend it's the Oneidas who are stalling, by attaching
peripheral demands for slot machines and alcohol sales at their casino and by
balking at charging sales tax to non-Indians who patronize their businesses.
The newly targeted landowners have little sympathy for either argument.
``They're telling me I'm guilty of something people did 200 years ago,'' says
Scott Peterman, a landowner who helped mobilize Upstate Citizens for Equality,
a fast-growing group whose meetings are attended by hundreds of vexed property
owners. ``I sympathize with the plight of the Oneidas, but I don't feel
responsible or guilty for what happened to them.''
The Oneidas once inhabited 6 million acres, stretching from northern
Pennsylvania to what became the Canadian border. In the Revolutionary War,
they were the only Iroquois tribe to side with colonists, providing aid in
critical battles against the British and helping feed George Washington's
troops at Valley Forge.
For this assistance, the fledgling U.S. government in 1794 granted the Oneidas
250,000 acres in present-day Madison and Oneida counties and the right to
govern themselves.
But over the next five decades, as New York's frontier was tamed and the Erie
Canal was dug, Oneida lands were gradually whittled away. By 1843, the tribe
had less than 800 acres and most Oneidas had moved to Wisconsin and Canada. By
the early 1990s, the Oneida Nation of New York had dwindled to a 32-acre
trailer park.
The Oneidas filed their first lawsuit to recover lost land in 1970. The U.S.
Supreme Court found in 1985 that most of the land was seized in questionable
transactions with the state and private individuals and ruled the Oneidas were
entitled to compensation for all 250,000 acres.
Nevertheless, the lawsuit languished as the state and tribe made demands and
counter-demands at the negotiating table.
Then, in 1993, the 1,000-member Oneida Nation opened Turning Stone, New York's
only legal casino, and was rapidly transformed into a powerful political and
economic force. Last year, 3 million people gambled at Turning Stone, making
it one of the state's top five tourist attractions.
Their non-Indian neighbors became alarmed as the Oneidas used new wealth to
buy up 7,000 acres, proclaimed the property tax-exempt and opened a chain of
tax-free gas stations that have put non-Indian merchants at a disadvantage.
But even critics acknowledge the Oneidas' beneficial impact. With 3,000
workers, the great majority of them non-Indians, they are the area's largest
employer. The tribe spends more than $30 million a year locally for supplies
and services and has contributed more than $1.5 million to local schools and
tourism programs.
``I really felt the Oneidas were making an effort to be good neighbors, but I
certainly don't think good neighbors sue each other,'' says Neil Angell, an
Oneida County legislator and fifth-generation dairy farmer.
It was not their choice, the Oneidas say.
The U.S. Justice Department intervened in the stalled negotiations last
December and told the Oneidas that to press on with their claim they had to
generate fresh litigation. Adding property owners was just the thing, federal
lawyers advised. A hearing on the amended lawsuit is scheduled for March 29 in
federal court.
``No one likes to be sued, and we knew that,'' Halbritter says. ``But the U.S.
government intervened because the state wasn't doing anything. There was no
movement toward a settlement over 14 years (since the Supreme Court ruling)
and two governors, and for 150 years before that.''
Neither side will discuss specifics. The Oneidas, however, recently
acknowledged that in 1991, before Turning Stone, they had sought $800 million
up front, annual payments of $70 million in perpetuity and 50,000 acres.
AP-NY-02-15-99 1300EST
Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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