[alloysteel]

The State of New York screws over its Indian tribes once again. As the successor government to the British colonial rule, this falls back directly on the state. Claims based on the royal land grants to the Indian tribes, many of which date from the 17th and 18th centuries, are recognized in US courts.

Compare with the dealings the Iroquois Confederation (Six Nations) has had with the State of New York, which predated even the Revolution.

[t_skoz]

The State of NY (mostly) honors Haudenosaunee (Iroquois or Six Nations) treaties to this day. Well, sometimes they screw around and make the Oneida close down the NYS Thruway, or make the Onondoga stage a protest on Rt 81, but the US Government and NY State mostly abide by the treaties.

Click below for more info on these treaties:

http://www.oneida-nation.net/TREATY1.HTML - Treaty Of Canandaigua (intro)

http://www.oneida-nation.net/TREATY-KO.html - Treaty of Canandaigua

ALSO CHECK: http://canandaigua-treaty.org/Treaty_Committee_Index.html - The Canandaigua Treaty page

[Young Scholar]

If (and that's a big if) there really was a violation of a treaty here, and it is decided that the Indians deserve compensation, it would still be rediculous for them to get any significant amount of this land. First of all, this land has been owned and improved by private owners for generations, meaning the original wrongers and the original wronged are long dead. Secondly, the reason this land has anything close to the value it does is because of the economic development of the area (as a result of the new residents of this property and the surrounding area). Without this growth, the land wouldn't be worth much more than coastline in some abandoned part of Maine.

Therefore, reasonable compensation should be based on the value of the land at the time of the allegedly illegal seizure of the land, not its present value. And there is absolutely no reason the current owners of the land should lose anything (two wrongs don't make a right) for this.

Still, it is always questionable when 300-year-old claims are brought up like this. Sure, taking it from the Indians in the first place was probably wrong, but every people group in the history of the world has had property taken from it at some point in its history, and there's a certain point at which these claims are no longer reasonable. Generally, I believe that at a minimum, there should need to be proof of clear loss to an individual for him to get compensation, and for an individual to be forced to pay, the plaintiff should have to prove that the defendent personally benefitted from the illegal action (otherwise compensation should come from the state). And even in these cases, I would consider the suit dubious.