McSloy: 'Send lawyers, guns and money' -- Sovereignty's hit the fan

[The Straight Story]

(Where is MSM on Indian Affairs?)

McSloy: 'Send lawyers, guns and money' -- Sovereignty's hit the fan

Posted: June 17, 2005
by: Steven Paul McSloy / Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP
The late, great Warren Zevon, probably the only rock star ever to write a song about Indian gaming (1995's ''Seminole Bingo''), more famously wrote ''Lawyers, Guns and Money,'' a jaunty tale of a ne'er-do-well in need of the aforementioned, as ''the s**t has hit the fan.''

In an ironic twist the cynical Zevon would surely have appreciated, it is now - in light of the Supreme Court's recent City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of N.Y. decision against the Oneida Nation - non-Indian politicians who are crying out for lawyers, guns and money as they seek to repossess Indian lands, assert criminal jurisdiction over them and collect taxes on them. It is now Indian sovereignty that has hit the fan.

For those unfamiliar with the Supreme Court's 8 - 1 outrage against the Oneida people, what happened is that the Oneida Nation, twice a victor in the same Supreme Court in their land claim, had, in the 35 years since the case was filed, sought to peacefully reacquire their lands on the open market. They bought back, from willing sellers in arms'-length exchanges, land within the boundaries of the reservation guaranteed to them in 1794 by George Washington himself.

Since the Supreme Court had clearly held that land transactions made without federal approval since that 1794 treaty were void and of no effect, the Oneidas naturally asserted sovereignty over the land they had reacquired. The federal court for the northern district of New York, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Solicitor General of the United States all agreed this is what the treaty and the law required.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411090

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