Opinion ID: 787593
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Post-Canandaigua Developments

Text: 45 As relations between the United States and Great Britain deteriorated in the early years of the Nineteenth Century, ownership of the Islands took on renewed strategic importance. See Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 495-96. In 1811, the New York legislature authorized Governor Daniel Tompkins to purchase the Islands from the Senecas. Joint Stip. ¶ 105. Governor Tompkins, however, was not sure that such a purchase was legally necessary. In an 1812 letter to Thomas Gosvenor, Chairman of New York's Committee on Indian Affairs, he recounted a conversation with certain Seneca Chiefs, who were then reluctant to sell the Islands to New York. He emphasized to them the questionable nature and the slenderness of their title under the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, by which the lands which they [were] reserved were specifically described by metes and bounds, which metes and bounds excluded the ... Islands. Id. ¶ 106. Tompkins was clearly referring to the reservation of land along the southern strip of the Niagara River as expressly excluding any islands located within the river. See 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, art. 3, 7 Stat. at 43. He further explained that the Islands belonged to New York because they were given by the Iroquois Nations to Sir William Johnson in the August 1764 Cession, and that if he ever had a valid title for those Islands they would have passed to his son, Sir John Johnson, upon his death, and finally to the people of this State upon John Johnson's attainder. Id. Any negotiated purchase, he had advised the Senecas, would be a manifestation of the State's friendship and liberality towards the Senecas, but was not required by law. Id. Tompkins believed that the Senecas' reluctance to sell the Islands was on account of the precarious State of our relations with [British] Canada, and that they sought to defer any negotiation relative to the sale of the Islands... to some period at which a treaty might be held by them on that subject without exciting the jealously [sic] and suspicion of the Canadian government. Id. 46 The Senecas remained neutral at the outset of the War of 1812, but when rumors of a British invasion of Grand Island—which the Senecas believed to be theirs—circulated, they allied themselves with the United States. Red Jacket, a Seneca Chief, explained their decision to Erastus Granger, the United States Indian agent for the Iroquois Nations, accordingly: Our property is taken possession of by the British and their Indian friends. It is necessary for us now to take up the business, defend our property and drive the enemy from it. If we sit still upon our seats ..., the British (according to the customs of you, white people) would hold it by conquest—and should you conquer the Canadas, you will claim it upon the same principles, as conquered from the British. 47 Buffalo Gazette, Aug. 4, 1812, quoted in Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 497. 48 The 1814 Treaty of Ghent, which concluded the War of 1812, established a Commission to determine the international boundary in the Niagara River basin as previously set forth in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. 14 Shortly thereafter, New York resumed its attempts to purchase the Islands from the Senecas, with Governor Tompkins still contending that [a]lthough it is questionable whether these Indians have any title to the lands, ... I am willing (with a view to avoid any collisions, and to perpetuate the good understanding which at present exists between them & the government) to pay ... for the relinquishment of their right to all the Islands. Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 497-98. On September 12, 1815, the purchase was consummated. The Senecas agreed to sell, grant, convey, and confirm to the people of New York, all the islands in the Niagara River between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario within the jurisdiction of the United States in exchange for $1,000 and a perpetual annuity of $500. Joint Stip. ¶ 108. It is undisputed that there was no federal commissioner present, and that if the Islands were the Senecas' to convey, the conveyance would have violated the Non-Intercourse Act. Id. ¶ 109. After the international boundary was settled in 1822, and the Islands confirmed to lie within the United States, New York authorized the partition of Grand Island into lots, which were sold at auction in 1825.