American and British Claims Arbitration, Tribunal. Claim no 6. ما CAYUGA INDIANS. Answer of the United States. AMERICAN AND BRITISH CAYUGA INDIANS. Answer of the United States. The United States considers that, before answering the memorial of His Britannic Majesty's Government in support of the claim entitled the "Cayuga Indians," it should make the following statement in order that there may be no misconception as to the nature and basis of this claim, or as to the issues which the United States agreed to arbitrate by including it in the schedule of claims annexed to the Special Agreement of August 18, 1910. By Article IX of the Treaty of Peace between the United States and Great Britain, signed at Ghent on the 24th day of December, 1814, the High Contracting Parties entered into a reciprocal covenant to restore, upon the fulfillment of certain conditions precedent, to certain tribes or nations of Indians, with which each party was then at war, the possessions, rights, or privileges, which such tribes or nations enjoyed or to which they were entitled in the year 1811. The memorial of His Britannic Majesty's Government states that certain Cayuga Indians, domiciled in Canada, were entitled to certain rights or possessions in the year 1811 under contracts or agreements of cession made between the State of New York and the Cayuga Nation, of which rights and possessions the Cayuga Indians, domiciled in Canada, were then unlawfully deprived, and to which neither they nor their posterity have been restored. It is further contended that the United States obligated itself by the provisions of Article IX of the Treaty of Ghent to restore to these Indians their alleged rights or possessions, that it has failed so to restore them, and that it is liable under the treaty to respond in damages for such failure. The claim asserted in the memorial of His Britannic Majesty's Government is, therefore, founded first, upon the contracts or agreements of cession, which are the basis for the contention that these Indians were entitled to certain rights or possessions in 1811, and, second, upon 1 3 3X5 6 0 |