The $30 million from the federal government wasn't a "freebie" given from the goodness of Uncle Sam's heart, 300miles. It was a settlement for NYS and the feds allowing the Senecas to be coerced into leasing the land where the city of Salamanca now is for just pennies a year for a hundred years. That settlement also allows the Senecas to recreate new lands into their reservations as long as it was in their traditional territory.Originally posted by 300miles
The Federal govt GAVE THE SENECAS $30 MILLION to buy land! Why is that any better that the millions invested in infrastructure for Bass Pro?
This is hardly a golly-gee good-for-everybody transaction. The Senecas have received assistance from our govt to make this all possible, and yes that included MONEY. Millions of it. And now they are playing financial magic tricks to make that 30 million go much farther that our govt ever intended.
In the late 1880s, Salamanca was a major railroad center with huge facilities right in the heart of town, but most of the land in question had been effectively stolen from the Senecas in the 1840s and 1850s with short term leases (10 or 20 year terms). In the early 1890s, NYS and/or the feds worked out 99-year leases for Seneca lands that even by the standards of the times paid only a pittance compared to what the land was worth, with no mechanicism for adjusting for inflation. That $30 million and the Seneca land act of 1990 were a cheap way for the feds to get out of a nasty situation that they created by failing to watch out for the Senecas' interests back in 1891, which they were bound by treaties and federal law to do.