Policy Analysis of the Oneida Land Claim Using Political Systems Theory and Institutionalism
The Oneida Land Claim is an issue that reaches far into our country’s history. In recognition of support the Oneidas gave to the colonial United States during the Revolutionary war, the Oneidas were granted approximately 270,000 acres of land by, most notably, the Treaty of Canandaigua in 1794 (Haggas 1999). These lands were reserved to be their property under the agreement that the United States would never disturb them or reclaim the property given in the treaty. In 1790 the United States Congress passed the Trade and Intercourse Act which stated that the purchase of Indian lands could not concluded without congressional consent (Haggas 1999). The Treaty of Canandaigua and the Trade and Intercourse Act remain effective today and are the basis of the Oneida Land Claim.
Between 1795 and 1846 the State of New York imposed 26 treaties without federal consent, taking away all but a fraction of the Oneidas ancestral homeland (Oneida Nation 1999). The last 32 acres were recovered in a suit filed by the federal government (U.S. vs. Boylan) in 1919 and was upheld in 1920 by the United States Court of Appeals (Oneida Nation 1999). The claim began in 1951 when the Oneida Nation filed a claim for the land that they lost to New York State with Indian Claims Commission. The Commission ruled that they should be compensated but it lacked authority to act on this ruling. Nineteen years later, in 1970, the Oneida nation again filed suit, this time in federal court to reclaim their lands (Oneida Nation 1999). Two lower federal courts ruled that they could not address their claims but the Supreme Court reversed these decisions in 1974 stating...
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...making process but it also falls short of answering how the policy is actually created. It is interesting to see the patterns of behavior evolve, especially the apparent pattern of New York State historically not obeying federal policy decisions with regard to Indian land claims.
Works Cited
Anderson, James E. 1984. Public Policy Making. New York: CBS.
Haggas, Stephen W. 1999. Questions and Answers Concerning the Indian Land Claim Actions. Oneida County Department of Law.
Halbritter, Ray. 1999. Letter to Neighbors in Madison and Oneida Counties. Oneida Nation.
Oneida Nation. 1999. Oneida Indian Nation Land Claims: A Time Line. Oneida Nation Publications. www.oneida-nation.net.
Oneida Nation. 1999. Land Claims Questions and Answers. Oneida Nation Publications. www.oneida-nation.net.
Syracuse Online. 1999. Indian Land Claims. www.syracuse.com.
“The decision of the Jackson administration to remove the Cherokee Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River in the 1830’s was [less] a reformulation of the national policy that had been in effect since the 1790’s [and more] a change in that policy.”
The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the
Unfortunately, this great relationship that was built between the natives and the colonists of mutual respect and gain was coming to a screeching halt. In the start of the 1830s, the United States government began to realize it’s newfound strength and stability. It was decided that the nation had new and growing needs and aspirations, one of these being the idea of “Manifest Destiny”. Its continuous growth in population began to require much more resources and ultimately, land. The government started off as simply bargaining and persuading the Indian tribes to push west from their homeland. The Indians began to disagree and peacefully object and fight back. The United States government then felt they had no other option but to use force. In Indian Removal Act was signed by Andrew Jackson on May 18, 1830. This ultimately resulted in the relocation of the Eastern tribes out west, even as far as to the edge of the Great Plains. A copy of this act is laid out for you in the book, Th...
Banks, D., Erodes, R. (2004). Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement. Ojibwa Warrior.
Thornton, Russell, Matthew C Snipp, and Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History Indians of the Southeast. Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1990.
The article analyses the effect of the Indian Removal Act, which was approved by Jackson, on various native tribes. “The Cherokee, on the other hand, were tricked into an illegitimate treaty. In 1833, a small faction agreed to sign a removal agreement: the Treaty of New Echota. The leaders of this group were not the recognized leaders of the Cherokee nation, and over 15,000 Cherokees -- led by Chief John Ross -- signed a petition in protest. The Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836.
The United States government's relationship with the Native American population has been a rocky one for over 250 years. One instance of this relationship would be what is infamously known as, the Trail of Tears, a phrase describing a journey in which the Native Americans took after giving up their land from forced removal. As a part of then-President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, this policy has been put into place to control the natives that were attempting to reside peacefully in their stolen homeland. In the viewpoint of the Choctaw and Cherokee natives, removal had almost ultimately altered the culture and the traditional lifestyle of these people.
The Cherokee Indians, the most cooperative and accommodating to the political institutions of the united states, suffered the worst fate of all Native Americans when voluntarily or forcibly moved west. In 1827 the Cherokees attempted to claim themselves as an independent nation within the state of Georgia. When the legislature of the state extended jurisdiction over this ‘nation,’ the Cherokees sought legal actions, not subject to Georgia laws and petitioned the United States Supreme Court. The case became known as Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia in 1831. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall denied their claim as a republic within Georgia, he then deemed the Cherokee as a ‘domestic dependent nation’. One year later through the case of Worcester vs. Georgia, the Cherokee’s were granted federal protection from the molestation by the state of Georgia. Through the Indian Removal act in 1830 President Andrew Jackson appropriated planning and funding for the removal of Native Americans, Marshall’s rulings delayed this for the Cherokee Nation, and infuriated President Jackson. Marshall’s decision had little effect on Jackson and ignoring this action the president was anxious to see him enforce it.
Cherokee Indians “Memorial of Protest of the Cherokee Nation, June 22, 1836” in The Cherokee Removal: A Brief History with Documents, ed. Theda Perdue and Michael D. Green (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005), 87
Andrew Jackson, who was the 7th President of the United States, signed the Indian Removal Act in May 28th, 1832 and this policy granted Andrew Jackson the right to forcibly move the Native Americans to land west of the Mississippi. Even though “it is presumed that any explanation of Jackson’s purposes is an attempt to justify the mass killing of innocent people…” (Remini, 45) some would say his childhood affected him; seeing and hearing Indians Attacking places near his home. Or how he was the second President to make it into the business without an education. Some people thought that with gold being found in Georgia, this led many new white settlers looking to buy land from the Cherokee Indians. Although a lot could be said about Andrew Jackson’s Removal Policy one thing is for certain, the way the Policy was carried out was a horror. If you could just imagine this with your heart and soul how the policy was carried out, then you could see how terribly the Indians were treated. All because they occupied the land they were given in a treaty. The policy affected many people, some in good ways; some in bad. Obviously the only people this policy affected in a good way were the white settlers looking to buy the Indians land. The Chickasaw Indians were the only Tribe to not have land in the New Territory even though they were promised it. They sold their land for $500,000 to the United States Government, and when they showed up and had no land they decided to lease land from Choctaws. The purchase of the land from the other tribe created a trust fund that gave the Chickasaw Indians up to $75,000 a year, and then enabled them to have a cash economy and not rely on the natural environment (Kidwell). The unfortunate situation in this enti...
LaDuke, Winona. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1999. Print.
As the West of the Appalachian Mountains became known as the “Indian Land” proclaimed by the King of England in 1763, as properly known as the Proclamation Line of 1763, the U. S. government believed it to be part of their land after their gain of independence from Britain. The reason for this happening was due to the fact that the Indians lost to the French in the French and Indian war which was also known as the brutal Seven Years’ War from 1754-1763. As a result, The U.S. took advantage of the situation and insisted on acquiring the land of the Indians in the West through three different policies (Chris ...
Twenty-five million acres of land east of the Mississippi that had been occupied by Indians became available due to the Indian Removal Act. The State of Georgia had a particularly contentious relationship with the Cherokee Indians occupying land within their state. The State of Georgia pushed the Federal government to remove the Cherokee Indians from their state because they wanted the land due to the recent discovery of gold and the desire to expand co...
Immigrants took land illegally and crimes against Indians went unpunished. The Indians signed more treaties giving up most of their lands to the United States. With foreign tribesmen coming and settlers being angered a conference was conducted at Fort Greenville with Tecumseh as “principal speaker”. Settlers now occupied these lands, but the Indians did not want to give up their lands feeling that it was given to them by the master of life. Tecumseh agreed that the Greenville treaty line and other established boundaries and it should stand so the border could be used as a defense against further American
2. “Cherokee Culture and History.” Native Americans: Cherokee History and Culture. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014. .