Buffalo Law Review Volume 8 Number 1 Article 2 10-1-1958 Governmental Power and New York Indian Lands—A Reassessment of a Persistent Problem of Federal-State Relations Gerald Gunther Columbia University, School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview Part of the Constitutional Law Commons Recommended Citation Gerald Gunther, Governmental Power and New York Indian Lands—A Reassessment of a Persistent Problem of Federal-State Relations, 8 Buff. L. Rev. 1 (1958). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol8/iss1/2 This Leading Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Buffalo Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ University at Buffalo School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. GOVERNMENTAL POWER AND NEW YORK INDIAN LANDS-A REASSESSMENT OF A PERSISTENT PROBLEM OF FEDERAL-STATE RELATIONS* By GERALD GUNTHER** t] 'tNDIANSON THE Warpath Here"'-so, in a headline more likely to amuse .1 than to terrorize, a New York City tabloid recently characterized a federal court action by the Tuscarora Indians to invalidate, for lack of federal consent, the New York Power Authority's appropriation of reservation lands for construction of the Niagara River Power Project.2 Through reports such as these, many learned for the first time that Indian tribes indeed still reside in New York-remnants of the once mighty Iroquois Confederacy, some 7,000 strong, on seven reservations of over 85,000 acres.3 More significantly, the recent flurry of claims relating to New York Indians indicates that the problem of delineating federal and state authority over reservation lands, long a source of confusion and dispute, has not lost its capacity to generate controversy.