Basic Call to Consciousness

Legal History of the Haudenosaunee

Continued from last week.

The United States entered into solemn treaties with the Haudenosaunee, and each time has ignored virtually each and every provision of the treaties which guarantee our rights as a separate nation. Only the sections of the treaties which refer to land cessions, sections which were fraudulently obtained, have validity in the eye of the United States courts or governments.

The mechanism for the colonization of the Haudenosaunee territory is found, in legal fiction, the United States Constitution. That document purports to give Congress power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states, and with Indian Tribes.” Contrary to every principle of international law, Congress has expanded that section to an assertion of “plenary” power, a doctrine which asserts absolute authority over our territories. This assertion has been repeatedly urged upon our people, although we have never agreed to that relationship, and we have never been conquered in warfare. The Haudenosaunee are vassals to no people-we are a free nation, and we have never surrendered our rights as free people.

From the beginning of its existence, the United States has conducted a reign of terror in the Haudenosaunee territory. Colonial agents entered our country between 1784 and 1842 and returned to Washington with treaties for cessions of land fraudulently obtained with persons not authorized to make land transfers, The Haudenosaunee council, which is the only legitimate body authorized to conduct land transactions, never signed any agreements surrendering the territories.

The United States occupied the lands under threats of war, although there were no acts which justified war measures. When the Haudenosaunee gathered evidence to prove that the treaties were fraudulent and therefore illegal under any interpretation of law, the United States courts countered by inventing the Political Question Doctrine. This doctrine basically asserts that Congress cannot commit fraud and that the courts cannot question Congress’ political judgement, although United States courts find congressional acts in other areas of the law to be unconstitutional regularly.

Because the Haudenosaunee refused to sell the land, the United States simply refused to recognize our government. Instead, they recognized those colonized individuals who would agree to sell the land and whose loyalties lie with Washington. In 1848, the United States simply recognized an “elective system” on the Seneca Nation lands, creating a colonial government on the largest of our remaining territories in what is called by the colonizers “New York State.”

There followed a long list of moves by the United States to exterminate the Haudenosaunee. There were treaties, such as the Treaty of 1797, which recognized the sale by individuals of the territory of the Kanienkehaka, an area of nine million acres of land exchanged for the sum of one thousand dollars. There were attempts from 1821 to 1842 to remove the Haudenosaunee from the territories called by the colonists “New York” to other areas now called Wisconsin and Kansas. These efforts resulted in the displacement of some of our people to those areas. In 1851, there was an attempt to evict the Seneca people from their lands at Tonawanda.

In 1886, there was an attempt to divide the Haudenosaunee lands into severalty under the Dawes Act, an attempt that was not entirely successful. In 1924, the United States passes a Citizenship Act which attempted to give United States citizenship to all Native people. The Haudenosaunee strongly rejected the concept that we could ever be United States citizens. But the feudal laws of the colonizers have been relentless.