Victory in Mohawk Land Claim

On July 8, 2013, Judge Kahn of the federal court in Albany, New York, upheld the Mohawk claim to approximately 2,000 acres taken by the State of New York in a series of transactions in 1824 and 1825 that violated the federal Trade and Intercourse Act.  The court also upheld the Mohawk claim that Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation unlawfully acquired a right of way for construction of a power line across the Akwesasne Mohawk Reservation in 1948.  The court rejected arguments that these claims should be dismissed because the Mohawks waited too long to bring these claims and they are disruptive of the expectations of the non-Indian landowners.  This is the first case since the Supreme Court’s decision in City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation to have survived a motion to dismiss on the basis of the equitable defense established in that case.  The court rejected the argument that Sherrill forecloses any possibility of an Indian nation succeeding on an ancient land claim, noting that such a conclusion would “ascribe to a broader and disturbingly anti-democratic meaning to the recent line of cases–that remedial causes of action specifically preserved by Congress may be vitiated in the courts by the categorical application of an equitable defense.”  The court stressed the fact that because the Mohawks had never left their homeland, and today constitute the majority of landowners in this area, the claim does not disrupt the expectations of the non-Indian owners, a key factor in the Sherrill analysis.  The decision brings the Mohawks one step closer to achieving a fair and just resolution of their land claims.  Berkey Williams LLP represents the Plaintiff Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs in the case.