"A question: Have the Seneca and Cayuga lawyers and representatives been fighting the wrong Cayuga tribe? The one that is not the correct legal Cayuga Nation?

At the end of the Revolution, all the Cayuga were located on the Niagara Frontier as “one nation” or tribe under Chief of Chiefs and Sachem Fish Carrier. Later, a small group (100) under Chief Steel Trap returned to the Cayuga Lake region and declared they were the “Cayuga Nation.” They became the present New York state Cayuga.

The remaining 1,500 under Chief of Chiefs Fish Carrier had been given a reservation in Canada by the British in 1814 for fighting with them and became British citizens, resulting in two Cayuga (Cayuga tribes), the New York state Cayuga and the Canadian Cayuga.

Let’s review what historians and PhDs have recorded.

• Dr. Alexander von Gernet (expert witness at the 2000 trial), from his “2000 Opinion Report”: “The Cayuga in Canada were in fact the Cayuga Nation.”

• The 1926 International Arbitrary Tribunal states that only the Canadian Cayuga are the true “Cayuga Nation.”

• Dr. Warren Hickman states in his article, “A Cayuga Chronicle,” that the New York state Cayuga are not the “Cayuga Nation,” But the Canadian Cayuga are the “Cayuga Nation.”

Conclusion: The above “experts” prove that the New York state Cayuga are not the “Cayuga Nation.”"

Get the Story:
Harry Pettingill Jr.: New York tribe not the real Cayuga Nation (The Auburn Citizen 11/16)

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Editorial: BIA fails on Cayuga land-into-trust (6/22)
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