Opinion ID: 145311
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The OIN's Land

Text: The OIN is a federally recognized Indian Tribe that is directly descended from the Oneida Indian Nation (Oneida Nation). [3] The Oneida Nation's lands once encompassed some six million acres in what is now central New York State. In 1788, pursuant to the Treaty of Fort Schuyler between the Oneida Nation and the State of New York, the Nation ceded title to nearly all of its land to the State, retaining a reservation of only approximately 300,000 acres. Sherrill, 544 U.S. at 203, 125 S.Ct. 1478. In 1790, Congress passed the first Indian Trade and Intercourse Act. See Act of July 22, 1790, ch. 33, 1 Stat. 137 (Nonintercourse Act). The Nonintercourse Act, which remains substantially in force today, bars the sale of tribal land without federal government acquiescence. Sherrill, 544 U.S. at 204, 125 S.Ct. 1478. In spite of the provisions of the Act, towards the end of the 18th century and at the beginning of the 19th century, the Oneida Nation sold substantial portions of the remaining reservation land to New York State and to private parties without the federal supervision that the Act required. See id. at 205-06, 125 S.Ct. 1478; Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y., 337 F.3d at 147-48. See also United States v. Oneida Nation of N.Y., 201 Ct.Cl. 546, 477 F.2d 939, 940 (1973) (concluding that the federal government owed a fiduciary duty to protect members of the Oneida Nation in connection with their land dealings with New York State between 1795 and 1846). That land was subsequently sold to non-Indians in free-market transactions. See Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. v. City of Sherrill, N.Y., 145 F.Supp.2d at 234 n. 3. By 1838, the Oneida Nation had sold all but 5,000 acres of the reservation that had been created by the Treaty of Fort Schuyler. See Sherrill, 544 U.S. at 206, 125 S.Ct. 1478. By 1920, that number had dwindled to thirty-two acres. Id. at 207, 125 S.Ct. 1478. Beginning in 1970, descendants of members of the Oneida Nation pursued federal litigation against local governments in New York in an effort to assert that certain of New York State's purchases of reservation land during the late 18th and early 19th centuries had been in violation of the Nonintercourse Act, and therefore had not terminated the Oneidas' right to possess the land. See id. at 208-11, 125 S.Ct. 1478 (summarizing cases). In the 1990s, OIN tribe members also began to purchase, through open-market transactions, land that had once been a part of the Oneida Nation's reservation. See Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y., 337 F.3d at 144.