Cayuga nation
| Cayuga | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total population | ||||||
|
unknown |
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| Regions with significant populations | ||||||
|
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| Language(s) | ||||||
| English, Cayuga | ||||||
| Religion(s) | ||||||
| Christianity, others | ||||||
| Related ethnic groups | ||||||
| other Iroquoian peoples |
The Cayuga nation (Guyohkohnyo or the People of the Great Swamp) was one of the five original constituents of the Iroquois, a confederacy of Indians in New York. The Cayuga homeland lay in the Finger Lakes region between their league neighbors, the Onondaga and the Seneca. One current spelling of the Cayuga name for "Cayuga" is Gayogohó:no’. [1]
The Cayuga sided with the British during the American Revolution and, after many attacks on American colonists, the punitive Sullivan Expedition devastated the Cayuga homeland, destroying major Cayuga villages such as Cayuga Castle and Chonodote (Peachtown). Survivors fled to other Iroquois tribes or to Ontario, Canada where they were granted land by the British in recognition of their loyalty to the Crown.
On November 11, 1794, the (New York) Cayuga Nation (along with the other Haudenosaunee nations) signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States.
The Cayuga Nation today
Today, there are three Cayuga bands. The two largest, the Lower Cayuga and Upper Cayuga, still live in Ontario, both at Six Nations of the Grand River. Only a small number remain in the United States - the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York in Versailles, New York State.
The Cayuga Indian Nation of New York currently does not have a reservation of its own and its member live among those of the Seneca nation[2]. In 2005 the Cayuga purchased approximately 130 acres of land on the open market in Cayuga County, New York and Seneca County, New York. Shortly after the purchase of this land the Cayuga applied to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs to have it taken into trust [3]. The State of New York has opposed this application asserting that the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs lacks the authority to take the land into trust under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 [4].
Land claim
The Cayuga Indian Nation of New York commenced an action to reclaim land that allegedly was taken from it without the approval of the United States on November 19, 1980 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York. In 1981, the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma was added as a plaintiff in the claim. Ultimately a jury trial on damages was held from January 18, 2000 through February 17, 2000. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the Cayuga Indian Nation of New York and the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma finding current fair market value damages of $35 million and total fair rental value damages of $3.5 million. The jury gave the State a credit for the payments it had made to the Cayugas, of about $1.6 million, leaving the total damages at this stage at approximately $36.9 million. On October 2, 2001 the court issued a decision and order which awarded a prejudgment interest award of $211 million and a total award of $247.9 million. Both the plaintiffs and the defendants appealed this award and on June 28, 2005 the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rendered a decision that reversed the judgment of the trial court and entered a judgment in favor of the defendants. The Cayuga Indian Nation of New York sought review of this decision by the Supreme Court of the United States which was denied on May 15, 2006. The time for the Cayuga Indian Nation to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear the case has passed. As a result, the Cayuga Indian Nation land claim is officially over.
Modern population
The total number of Iroquois today is hard to establish. About 45,000 Iroquois lived in Canada in 1995. In the 2000 census, 80,822 people in the United States claimed Iroquois ethnicity, with 45,217 of them claiming only Iroquois background. However, tribal registrations in the United States in 1995 numbered about 30,000 in total.
| Location | Seneca | Cayuga | Onondaga | Tuscarora | Oneida | Mohawk | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ontario | 1 | ||||||
| Quebec | |||||||
| New York | 448 | 1596 | |||||
| Wisconsin | |||||||
| Oklahoma | 2 |
Source: Iroquois Population in 1995 by Doug George-Kanentiio [5].
1 Six Nations of the Grand River Territory.
2 Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma.
Notable Cayuga
- Gary Farmer, actor.
External links
| Iroquois Confederacy | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nations | Seneca · Cayuga · Onondaga · Oneida · Mohawk · Tuscarora |
 |
| Topics | Economy · Languages · Mythology · Great Law of Peace · The Great Peacemaker | |
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