Opinion ID: 787593
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: History of the Region

Text: 12 Ownership of the islands is embedded in the history of the area and requires analysis of a series of Colonial era documents. They include treaties and royal proclamations as well as contemporaneous correspondence involving Indian nations, various colonies, Great Britain and France. The relevant documents also include the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and treaties and legislation enacted under both. 6 13
14 Disputes over the ownership of the region and the Islands date from the Seventeenth century. The French were the first Europeans to establish a presence in the Niagara region. In 1678, La Salle built a small settlement above the Falls near present-day Lewiston, New York, in the area of an unoccupied seasonal Seneca fishing village at the mouth of the Niagara River. At that time the French also constructed two fortifications — Fort Conty in 1680, and Fort Denonville around 1687 — at the mouth of the River, but both were short-lived. 15 During this period friction persisted between the French and English over control of the Great Lakes region and, in particular, the Niagara River. In 1689, King William's War broke out and the Iroquois sided with the British. The war took a heavy toll on the Iroquois and the Treaty of Peace of 1701 (the 1701 Treaty) provided that they would remain neutral in any future wars between the French and the British. Around the time of the treaty, the Iroquois (including the Senecas) surrendered[,] delivered up and forever quit claimed a vast tract of land, including the Niagara region, to the British. See Deed from the Five Nations to the King of their Beaver Hunting Ground (1701 Deed), reprinted in 4 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York 908, 909 (E.B. O'Callahan ed., 1854) [hereinafter NY Colonial Documents ]. 7 16 The 1701 Treaty had little lasting effect on Anglo-French relations and hostilities broke out again in 1702 in Queen Anne's War. The French were able to persuade the Iroquois to remain neutral, and, over British objection, the French asserted their presence in the Niagara region. By 1720, the French had established a permanent settlement at Lewiston and by 1727 had constructed Fort Niagara at the mouth of the Niagara River. The Fort served as a base for military expeditions and as a gateway to the upper Great Lakes region. It also prevented the westward penetration of British trade and permitted the French to interrupt trade between western Indians and British posts on Lake Ontario. The period after the construction of Fort Niagara witnessed the progressive deterioration of Anglo-French relations culminating in a decade of war during the 1750s which was formally ended by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. 17

18 During the course of the war, the British government became convinced that uniform, centralized policies governing relations with the Indians were required. In 1763 this need was addressed in a Royal Proclamation which, among other things, reserved to the Indians under Royal protection the land west of the Appalachian Mountains (including the Niagara region). Royal Proclamation of Oct. 7, 1763 [hereinafter Royal Proclamation], reprinted in Colonies to Nation 1763-1789: A Documentary History of the American Revolution 16, 18 (Jack P. Greene ed.1975) [hereinafter Colonies to Nation ]; Joint Stip. ¶ 45; see Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 549 (Map Appendix F). The Royal Proclamation enjoined individuals from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands above reserved, without our especial leave and license for that purpose first obtained. Joint Stip. ¶ 45.
19 After the British assumed de facto control over the Niagara region in 1759, a faction of Senecas hostile to the British joined a tribal insurrection commonly known as Pontiac's Rebellion. The conclusion of the Rebellion was marked by two peace treaties between the Senecas and the British in 1764. Joint Stip. ¶¶ 43-44, 46. Construction of these treaties is pivotal to the claims in this litigation. 20 The first of these treaties, reached in April, provided that the Senecas cede to His Maj'ty and his successor for ever, in full Right, a tract of four miles on either side of the Niagara River running from Lake Ontario in the North to approximately the falls (the northern strip), with the Senecas agreeing never to obstruct the passage of [the portage], or the free use of any part of the said Tract.... Preliminary Articles of Peace, Friendship and Alliance, entered into, between the English and the Senecas, art. 3 [hereinafter April 1764 Treaty], reprinted in 7 NY Colonial Documents, supra, at 621; see Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 550 (Map Appendix G). Included in the margin alongside this provision was the following language: Agreed to, provided the Tract be always appropriated to H.M.'s sole use.... April 1764 Treaty, art. 3, reprinted in 7 NY Colonial Documents, supra at 621; see also Joint Stip. ¶¶ 47-48. In addition, the treaty provided that the Senecas were to be left in the quiet and peaceable possession of all their Rights not comprised in the foregoing articles, ... [and] they shall be once more admitted into the Covenant chain of friendship with the English. April 1764 Treaty, art. 9. Notably, the Senecas' cession of land to the British did not encompass the portion of the Niagara river—the southern strip—in which most of the islands contested in this action were situated. See Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 550 (Map Appendix G). 21 While the preliminary April agreement was to be finalized at a multi-tribal peace conference at Niagara in July, concerns regarding the security of the Niagara portage remained even after the April agreement. Joint Stip. ¶ 50. Perhaps in light of these concerns, the British Superintendent for the Northern Indian District, Sir William Johnson, called for an expansion of the April Treaty to include the Lands from above your late Gift, to the Rapids at Lake Erie on both Side the Streights, in Breadth as the former, and to include all the Islands—in other words, the southern strip including the Islands. Id. ¶ 52. 22 The August Treaty reflected this expansion. It provided: 23 [I]n addition to the grant made by the [Senecas] to His Majesty ... in April,... the [Senecas] now, surrender up all the lands from the upper end of the former Grant (and of the same breadth) to the Rapids of Lake Erie, to His Majesty, for His sole use, and that of the Garrisons, but not as private property, it being near some of their hunting grounds; so that all that Tract, of the breadth before mentioned, from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, shall become vested in the Crown, in manner as before mentioned, excepting the Islands between the great Falls and the Rapids, which the [Senecas] bestow upon Sir Wm Johnson as a proof of their regard and of their knowledge of the trouble he has had with them from time to time. 24 The Treaty of Peace and Alliance (August 1764 Treaty), art. 5, reprinted in 7 NY Colonial Documents, supra, at 652-53 (emphasis added); see also Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 551 (Map Appendix H). Thus, while the August 1764 Treaty did indeed extend the Senecas' land cession to the Crown to include the southern strip, it also provided that William Johnson take title to the Islands. But when Johnson transmitted the Treaty to the Earl of Halifax, the Crown's representative, Johnson emphasized that he accepted the lands not personally but on behalf of the Crown: 25 I could not agreeable to the Custom of the Indians refuse their offer [of the islands], without giving great offence, and the great addition [that they] had made to what their Deputies had agreed to, last April, together with their other proposals induced me to accept them, that I might have it in my power, to make a humble offer of them to His Maj'ty for such uses as he may think proper, I must beg leave to entreat your Lord'p to present my most profound duty to His Maj'ty on this occasion and to assure him, that I should not presume to make this offer, but that I know these Islands will prove of importance within a little time & may be extremely useful at present. 26 ... 27 My sole motive, for accepting of the Islands, which they so earnestly pressed on me, was to have it in my power humbly to offer them to His Majesty. 28 Joint Stip. ¶ 54. There is no known response from the King to Johnson's communication regarding the Islands, and Johnson's will did not mention them. Id. ¶¶ 55-56. 29 Thus, by the August Treaty, the Senecas conveyed to the British a strip of land to be used for Royal, not private, purposes, extending four miles on each side of the Niagara River between Lakes Ontario and Erie, encompassing both the northern and southern strip. However, the Senecas insisted that the Islands would not be subject to this restriction and instead attempted to convey them personally to Johnson, who was cognizant of the Royal Proclamation's bar against unapproved private acquisitions of Indian land. At the same time, however, he was reluctant to offend the Seneca negotiators, and, consequently, he accepted the land with the intention of conveying it to the Crown. 8
30 By the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, a formal boundary was established to replace the 1763 Proclamation Line. See Deed Determining the Boundary Line between the Whites and Indians (1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix), reprinted in 8 NY Colonial Documents, supra, at 135, 136. Under this Treaty, the Indians ceded to the British all the land to the east of a line running roughly in a northeasterly direction from the juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Fort Stanwix (near present day Rome, New York). Id. at 136; see Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 552 (Map Appendix I). The Niagara region was to the west of this line and thus, under the Treaty, within Indian territory. In addition, the Indians appeared to condition the cession on the King's compl[iance] with our humble requests as ... expressed in the speech of the several Nations some two days earlier, id. at 135, which, the parties agree, was a statement during negotiations that none of the Provinces or their people shall attempt to invade [the land west of the 1768 boundary line] under color of any old deeds, or other pretences whatsoever for in many of these things we have been imposed upon, and therefore we disclaim them all. Joint Stip. ¶ 59.
31 Shortly after the Revolutionary War started, the Continental Congress began drafting the Articles of Confederation, which were completed and submitted to the Colonies for ratification in 1777. The Articles were drafted against the backdrop of the ongoing war with the British and hostile Indian Nations (which included the Senecas), and a major controversy between the so-called landed states—those claiming Western lands pursuant to their colonial charters or, in the case of New York, pursuant to past dealings with the Six Nations—and the so-called landless states—those without such claims. Oneida Indian Nation v. New York, 860 F.2d 1145, 1152 (2d Cir.1988) ( Oneida II ). 32 An aim of the new confederal government was to limit the territory of the landed states to their traditional borders near the East Coast and secure for itself the lands to their west. Ultimately, a compromise was reached in which the landed states ceded western lands to the United States, often in exchange for the recognition of favorable traditional boundaries to the east. Id. As part of this compromise, New York ceded claims to all lands west of a meridian drawn south from the western tip of Lake Ontario, which left the Niagara region well within New York's western boundary. Joint Stip. ¶¶ 64-65; see, e.g., Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 552 (Map Appendix I) (demonstrating that the westernmost point of Lake Ontario lies well to the west of the Niagara region). 33 The Articles of Confederation reflected a mistrust of centralized government. Article II, for example, provided that [e]ach State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled. U.S.C.A. Art. of Confed. art. II. In ceding their claims to western lands, the landed states secured two important benefits: first, the guarantee that no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States, id. art. IX, cl. 2; and second, the provision that in exercising its sole and exclusive right and power of ... regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, the United States could not infringe[] or violate[] the legislative right of any State within its own limits, id. art. IX, cl. 4 (the Legislative Rights Proviso). 9 34 The 1783 Treaty of Paris concluded hostilities and set the international boundary with Canada (then governed by Britain), in part, along the middle of the Niagara River between Lakes Erie and Ontario. See Treaty of Paris, art. 2, 8 Stat. 80, 81 (1783). Notwithstanding the Treaty of Paris, until 1796 the British retained possession of Fort Niagara, on the United States side of the River at Lake Ontario. Joint Stip. ¶ 69. The Treaty did not specifically mention the Islands. 35

36 The Treaty of Paris did not address continuing hostilities with Indian nations, which proved a source of ongoing friction. See generally Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 474-76. Accordingly, Congress decided to acquire from the Iroquois land in the Northwest Territory (present-day Ohio), not only as a buffer but also to be able to sell to pay war debts. Joint Stip. ¶ 71. Congress empowered treaty commissioners to confer, treat, agree and conclude with the Indians, of and concerning the establishment of peace ..., extinguishing their claims and settling boundaries between them and the citizens of the United States. Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 476 (internal quotation marks omitted). Among the lands the government sought to acquire, no mention was made of the Niagara region or the Islands. 37 Around the same time, but prior to the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, New York, believing that it was authorized to do so by the Legislative Rights Proviso, sought to conclude a peace treaty with the Iroquois. 10 Specifically, New York asked the Iroquois to cede the lands in the vicinity of Niagara and Oswego, but the Iroquois Nations' negotiator responded that [t]his already belongs to [y]ou by the Treaty with Great Britain. Speech of Joseph Brant to the Mohawks, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas (1787) [hereinafter Brant Speech], reprinted in Proceedings of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs 61 (Franklin B. Hough ed. 1861). Ultimately, no agreement was reached. 38 The 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix established a western boundary for Iroquois Nations land claims, reserving for the United States all lands located to the west of the boundary. See 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, art. III, 7 Stat. 15, 15-16 ([T]he Six Nations shall and do yield to the United States, all claims to the country west of the said boundary....). In addition to securing for the United States the Northwest Territory, the Treaty also secured the Niagara region and a competent district around Fort Oswego to the United States, despite the fact that the commissioners had not been instructed by Congress to acquire it. Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 479. 39 The area around the Niagara region purportedly secured by the Treaty was roughly coterminous with that acquired by the British in the August 1764 Treaty. See id. at 553 (Map Appendix J). Congress received and recommended approval of the Treaty, and ordered it published. It did so, however, along with language proposed by a New York delegate to the Congress, Melancton Smith, declaring that no purchases, which have been or hereafter may be made from the Indians, at any treaties held or to be held with them, of their right to soil within the limits of any state, can, ought, or shall be considered as interfering with the right of any such state to the jurisdiction or soil. 29 Jour. Continental Cong. 806 (Oct. 4, 1785). Indeed, when the Senecas expressed concern to the New York State Commissioners of Indian Affairs in 1787 that the United States might travel through their Country and disturb our Wives and Children in traveling to the Niagara region, the New York State Senate resolved, in part, that the Governor be requested to ... inform [the Senecas] that the land ceded at the treaty of Fort [Stanwix] in 1784, to the United States, ( except those they mention in the vicinity of Oswego and Niagara ) are not deemed to be comprehended within the jurisdiction of this State. J. of the Sen. of the State of N.Y. 75, 80 (1787) (emphasis added).
40 Although the Continental Congress accepted New York's cession of western land claims in 1782 and acknowledged its western border, a dispute remained between Massachusetts and New York as to their competing claims (and rights of preemption over Indian lands) within that border. 11 See Joint Stip. ¶¶ 79-82. The 1786 Hartford Compact settled this dispute, granting Massachusetts the right of preemption, in relevant part, over Indian lands located more than one mile to the east of the Niagara River, while New York retained both sovereignty and the right of preemption over the lands to the west of that boundary, including the River and the Islands. 12 Id. ¶¶ 81-82; see Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 554 (Map Appendix K).
41 The new Constitution did away with the Legislative Rights Proviso in the Articles of Confederation, at least with respect to Indian relations, and, through the Indian Commerce Clause, gave the federal government sole power over Indian affairs. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Congress soon passed the Non-Intercourse Act, which, in its 1802 iteration, barred conveyances of Indian land without Congressional approval. See supra note 3.
42 The Senecas were dissatisfied with the boundary drawn in 1784 at Fort Stanwix. 13 Also, hostilities between the United States and the western (non-Iroquois) Indians continued intermittently after the Revolutionary War, complicating the United States' expansion westward into the territories acquired in the 1784 Treaty. By 1793, Secretary of War Henry Knox proposed, as a means of securing peace, to permit treaty commissioners to cede land acquired in 1784—a proposal which President Washington's cabinet concluded to be permissible provided that no grants to individuals nor reservations to states be thereby infringed. 25 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 258-59 (John Catanzariti ed.1992). No agreement was reached, and the military struggle with the western Indians continued. 43 In 1794, as a consequence of concerns that the Senecas might join ranks with the hostile western Indians, the United States once again sought a permanent peace with the Iroquois Nations. See Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 486. Initially, the Senecas pressed the United States to relinquish its land along the Niagara River. Id. at 488. The United States' negotiator, Timothy Pickering, replied that he would freely give [the land] up if the United States were permitted to cut[] a road ... [with] taverns to accommodate travellers, but the Senecas rejected this compromise, as well as one that would have permitted the United States to retain three or four mile-square tracts on the river bank to be used as `convenient stages' in return for $500 annually. Id. 44 Ultimately, the land that the United States acknowledge[d] ... to be the property of the Seneka nation under the Treaty of Canandaigua encompassed a substantial part of what is now western New York, including the southern Niagara strip. Treaty of Canandaigua, Nov. 11, 1794, art. III, 7 Stat. 44; Joint Stip. ¶ 91. Specifically, the Senecas' western boundary under the Treaty ran along the river Niagara to Lake Erie, but the Treaty did not mention the River's islands. Treaty of Canandaigua, art. III, 7 Stat. at 44; see Seneca II, 206 F.Supp.2d at 555-56 (Map Appendices L and M). Whether the phrase along the river includes the Islands is the critical issue in this litigation. See infra Part VI.B.1.
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.