Return land on Onondaga Lake to the Onondaga Nation (Your Letters)

Syracuse.com Editorial Op-Ed

To the Editor: What a delight to read Steve Featherstone’s feature article about the long-overdue return of 1,000 acres in the Tully Valley to the Onondaga Nation. Hearing several of our Onondaga neighbors share what the historic land return means for them and their community was deeply moving (“Onondaga Nation plans a wild future for 1,000 acres of reclaimed land,” Nov. 22, 2024). All of Central New York should celebrate this small step toward justice and healing. We urge readers who haven’t done so to read the article or watch the powerful 3-minute video. The land return in Tully is an important step, which should spur our county leadership to fulfill the commitment they made in 2011 to return land to the Onondaga on the shore of the lake which bears their name. Onondaga Lake holds deep spiritual significance to the Onondaga people as the site where the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was founded over 1,000 years ago. This is also true of Onondaga Creek, which has its headwaters in the lands recently returned to Onondaga, and which flows through their territory. Discussions over a decade ago fizzled out because the county wanted to return the highly polluted area known as Murphy’s Island, a prospect which was unacceptable to the Onondaga Nation. In recent years, the Onondaga have suggested that Maple Bay, on the northwest corner of the lake, would be a more suitable area to be returned to them. It is long past time for this process to move forward to completion. Nearly everyone in our community, and across the US, has a general understanding that European settlers terribly mistreated the Indigenous Peoples of this land. That mistreatment included the theft of nearly all land and a concerted effort, over several centuries, to destroy Indigenous cultures and ways of life. Fortunately for all of us, while those efforts devastated Indigenous nations, they were unsuccessful in their ultimate goal. The Onondaga people have continued to live on their small remaining sovereign territory (less than half a percent of their original 4,000-square-mile homeland) as good neighbors, despite the injustices they have experienced. In 2005, when the Onondaga Nation filed their historic land rights action, they built on efforts of well over two centuries to reclaim and restore land which had been taken illegally from them. Sadly, in a series of unjust decisions, the federal court system again proved to be a place with no justice for Indigenous Peoples. The federal courts consistently ruled that the Onondaga and their fellow Haudenosaunee nations were correct that their land had been taken in violation of federal law and the US Constitution. However, they dismissed the cases anyway. As a grassroots educational and advocacy organization, we call on our fellow Central New Yorkers to encourage County Executive Ryan McMahon and their county legislators to take action on this important issue. We urge the county executive to re-engage in negotiations with the Onondaga Nation to return Maple Bay to their jurisdiction. This will be a simple act of justice and one which will enhance our community by re-enabling Onondaga stewardship over part of the lake. Despite significant efforts to clean up what was once the most polluted lake in the country, Onondaga Lake remains significantly impaired. We look forward to building on the return of land in the Tully Valley by celebrating the return of Maple Bay to the Onondaga Nation in 2025. Andy Mager | Syracuse Carol Baum | Syracuse Casey Cleary-Hammarstedt | Fayetteville Cindy Squillace | Syracuse Hilary-Anne Coppola | Fayetteville Jack Manno | Syracuse Sarah Howard | Syracuse On behalf of Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation

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