SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A federal judge said Friday that New York state legally purchased about 6 million acres from the Oneida Indian Nation before 1789, rejecting a claim by the Indians that the state had duped them into selling their homeland for $16,500.
The ruling, involving a roughly 60-mile-wide stretch of private and public land between Watertown in northern New York and Binghamton near the Pennsylvania line, was handed down by U.S. District Judge Neil McCurn.
