A proposed settlement to the decades-old Mohawk land claim is on its way to final approval by Congress. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-Schuylerville) introduced a bill to ratify the agreement last week in the House of Representatives.
The deal would immediately return 3,500 acres of land to Akwesasne Mohawk territory. It would also give Mohawks the right to buy an additional 14,000 acres from willing sellers in northern St. Lawrence and Franklin counties.
Mohawk people would get free SUNY tuition. The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe would get up to 9 megawatts of low-cost power, and the New York Power Authority would pay the tribe $70 million over 35 years. That's because the NYPA-owned hydropower dam on the St. Lawrence River sits on Barnhart Island, which is part of the Mohawk land claim but will not be returned.
Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law approving the settlement last year, after St. Lawrence and Franklin counties and Mohawk tribal councils on the U.S. and Canadian sides of Akwesasne all agreed to the settlement.
In a press release, Stefanik called the agreement "a significant milestone."
The land claim was filed in 1982 and nearly petered out in 2013 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the Oneida Nation's land claim in central New York. But the Mohawks won a major court victory in 2022, when a judge ruled Mohawk people had lived in Akwesasne continuously since New York sold their land without Congressional approval in the 1790s.
The land claim deal has deeply divided the Akwesasne community, with traditionalist Mohawks arguing a settlement would forever extinguish the Mohawks' title to their original territory. Some protestors were arrested on Barnhart Island last year.
But in a press release, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe said "getting our land back has been a goal of ours and our ancestors," and that the settlement accomplishes that goal.