Aboriginal title in New York

Aboriginal title in New York has been the source of many disputes regarding the status of aboriginal title in the United States. The European purchase of lands from indigenous populations dates back to the legendary Dutch purchase of Manhattan in 1626, "the most famous land transaction of all." More than any other state, New York disregarded the Confederation Congress Proclamation of 1783 and the Nonintercourse Acts of 1790, 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834, purchasing the majority of the state directly from the Iroquois nations without federal involvement or ratification.

New York is the source of several landmark decisions concerning aboriginal title including Oneida I (1974), "first of the modern-day [Native American land] claim cases to be filed in federal court," and Oneida II (1985), "the first Indian land claim case won on the basis of the Nonintercourse Act." New York was the site of nearly all remaining Native American possessory land claims when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held in Cayuga Indian Nation of N.Y. v. Pataki (2005) that the equitable doctrine of laches bars all tribal land claims sounding in ejectment or trespass, for both tribal plaintiffs and the federal government as plaintiff-intervenor. Since the ruling, no tribal plaintiff has overcome the laches defense in a land claim in the Second Circuit.

There are currently 10 Indian reservations in New York: Allegany Indian Reservation, Cattaraugus Reservation, Oil Springs Reservation, Oneida Reservation, Onondaga Reservation, Poospatuck Reservation, St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, Shinnecock Reservation, Tonawanda Reservation, and Tuscarora Reservation.

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