On this momentous occasion, let’s take a moment to review how our histories have intertwined.

The U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2 (The Supremacy Clause) identifies treaties as the supreme law of the land.

In 1794, President George Washington designed a treaty between the United States and the Haudenosaunee as an end to hostilities and to establish boundaries. On Nov. 11, 1794, the Treaty of Canandaigua was signed in the village of Canandaigua, N.Y.

Among the treaty’s numerous provisions, the Cayuga agreed to cede more than 3 million acres of their ancestral land in exchange for a permanent 64,015-acre reservation at the north end of Cayuga Lake.

After the signing of the treaty, New York State entered into land sales and leases with the Cayuga Nation, without the approval of the U.S. Congress. As New York did not have the authority to deal directly with the Nation, the transactions were illegally brokered. The Cayuga point to the 1794........

© Finger Lakes Times