WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Justice Department today filed a motion requesting authorization to file an amended complaint in order to sue the State of New York in a case that alleges that the state illegally obtained land that belongs to the Oneida Nation.

The case began with a private lawsuit filed in 1974 by the Oneida Indian Nation of New York and the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin against the counties of Oneida and Madison, New York. The Justice Department first sought intervention in March of this year when it filed a claim against Madison and Oneida counties.

The complaint, filed with the U.S. District Court in Syracuse, seeks judicial resolution of claims that twenty-six land sales by the Oneidas to New York State, occurring from 1795 to 1846, violated a federal law which requires that all sales of tribally-owned lands be approved by Congress. The questioned sales involved approximately 250,000 acres of land located in Oneida and Madison counties. On June 3, 1998, the court allowed the Justice Department to intervene in the case.

The Oneida Indian Nation of New York, the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin and the Oneida of the Thames also are filing motions to amend their complaints to include the State of New York as well as other named defendants.

The 1974 complaint and the initial complaint filed by the Justice Department last March, only named Oneida and Madison Counties as defendants, which own a minimal amount of land in the disputed area. The amended complaint names as defendants the State of New York, as well as the two counties, and asks the Court to certify that those defendants can represent all of the approximately 20,000 landowners within the area as a defendant class.

The complaint also seeks damages for the benefit of the Tribes, and asserts that the State of New York should be held jointly liable for any damages that the court may find to be owing to the Tribes. In addition, the complaint asks the court to award other relief that the court may deem just and proper.

"The Oneida have an historical and federally protected right to this land," said Lois Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department's Environment Division. "The complaint alleges that New York State violated these rights when it purchased the land without Congressional approval in the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. It is time to right this wrong and compensate those who have been injured."

According to the complaint, between 1795 and 1846, New York State entered into twenty-six agreements with representatives of the Oneida Indian Nation. Through these agreements, lands reserved to the Oneida in the federal Treaty of Canandaigua of 1794 were conveyed to the State of New York. These transactions were without the consent of the United States Congress and therefore violated a 1790 federal statute that prohibits the transfer of land from Indian tribes without Congressional consent.

Similar Indian land claims in other states have been resolved through negotiation. In those claims, the tribes, the state, and the federal government have reached agreements that have compensated tribes and eliminated questions about the land title of present-day owners. In some of these settlements, tribes bought land from willing sellers to create or expand a reservation.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no time limitation applies to this type of Indian land claim.

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