Less than 18 months after apologizing for New York’s treatment of Indigenous children, the governor has gone to federal court over Seneca-owned property in Buffalo and on Grand Island. Seneca leaders call the move a threat to tribal sovereignty.
By EEW Magazine Online Editors
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul delivers a formal apology for the state’s role in operating the Thomas Indian School on May 20, 2025, outside the William Seneca Administration Building in Irving, N.Y. Her administration filed federal lawsuits Friday challenging protections for Seneca-owned land. (Libby March/The Buffalo News via AP)
When Gov. Kathy Hochul traveled to the Seneca Nation’s Cattaraugus Territory in May 2025 to apologize for New York’s role in running the Thomas Indian School, the leader who received her apology had a family stake in it. Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca’s father attended the state-run boarding school, where Native children were separated from their families and cut off from their language and culture. Some 2,500 Native children were sent there before it closed in 1957.
Hochul called the school “a site of sanctioned ethnic cleansing.” Ahead of the trip, she said the visit would “mark a new day in our relations.”
Nearly 18 months later, in the final days of his term, Seneca says he learned through news reports that Hochul’s administration was suing to overturn federal protections for his Nation’s land. The state filed two lawsuits Friday in federal court in Western New York, asking judges to overturn U.S. Department of the Interior decisions that placed Seneca-owned property in Buffalo and on Grand Island in restricted-fee status. The filings came in the middle of Native American Heritage Month.
Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca holds the framed proclamation of New York’s formal apology for its role in operating the Thomas Indian School on May 20, 2025, outside the William Seneca Administration Building in Irving, N.Y. Seneca’s father attended the school. (Libby March/The Buffalo News via AP)
At the center of the dispute is restricted-fee status. The Nation owns restricted-fee land, which cannot be sold or transferred without federal approval, and the designation shields it from much state and local taxation and regulation. Buffalo officials dispute how far that shield reaches.
A win for New York could expand state and local authority over taxes and development on the contested parcels, including wetlands and sewers on Grand Island. The lawsuits do not challenge the Seneca Nation’s federal recognition as a sovereign nation.
Seneca called the filings “the same disrespectful, anti-Seneca treatment” the Nation has come to expect from Hochul and past governors, and the governor’s “latest attempt to extinguish us.” He pointed to the timing himself, calling Native American Heritage Month “a time to respect and honor our ancestors and our culture.”
The governor’s office says the cases are about the law. Spokesperson Ryan Whalen said Hochul “respects the principles of tribal sovereignty” and is committed to a productive relationship with the Nation. He added that the state has an obligation to protect Western New Yorkers. The state believes Interior wrongly qualified the parcels for protected status, he said, and is “confident the courts will agree.”
In Buffalo, the state is challenging a 2023 decision covering 5 Miami Street and 124 Chicago Street in the Old First Ward, where the Nation is building a roughly $10 million Seneca One Stop with a gas station, convenience store and Nativa Cannabis dispensary. Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan sued in October, arguing the project must clear city permits and environmental review. A state judge has twice declined to halt construction, according to The Buffalo News.
Nicole Hill, left, and Aryien Stevens of the Gëjöhgwa’ dancers perform before New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s formal apology to the Seneca Nation for New York State’s role in operating the Thomas Indiana School, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, outside the William Seneca Administration Building in Irving, N.Y. (Libby Marcy/The Buffalo News via AP)
On Grand Island, the dispute covers 207 vacant acres between Long and Bedell roads. Developers William and Michael Huntress transferred the land to the Nation for $1 in December 2025, calling the Seneca “the rightful owners of Grand Island.” Interior approved restricted-fee status in February, and the town sued in June to reverse it.
The state argues that neither site meets the funding rules of the Seneca Nation Settlement Act of 1990, which let the Nation acquire land with settlement money and hold it in restricted fee. It says the Grand Island land came as a donation and that the authority used to acquire it expired years ago. The Nation says its acquisitions followed federal law.
The lawsuits arrive in a relationship already strained. In May, on the anniversary of the apology, Seneca told state leaders in Albany that the Nation had heard many good words from the governor and “haven’t seen any action.” He asked the state to fund Seneca-language immersion schools and a search of the former school grounds for unmarked graves. Hochul’s office said it remained committed to reconciliation.
The apology and the lawsuits turn on different questions, one about how New York treated Native children and the other about whether specific parcels satisfy a 1990 statute. For Seneca leaders, both come down to land the Nation calls restored homeland and the base of its economic future.
That fight now passes to Tina Abrams, a longtime council member whom Seneca citizens elected Nov. 3 as the first woman to lead the Nation’s elected government, established in 1848. Seneca women won the right to vote and hold office in Nation elections in the mid-1960s, according to the Nation’s archives manager, Rebecca Bowen. Abrams will also lead the Nation’s first all-female executive branch.
In her victory statement, Abrams said Seneca voters chose a president who can lead “with strength, honesty, vision and conviction.” Ross John, an incoming council member, told The New York Times she would be no “wallflower” and would look for common ground with Hochul.
Abrams takes the oath Tuesday as two federal lawsuits threaten the protected status of land her predecessor worked to restore. She will inherit both the legal fight and a relationship with a governor who, less than 18 months ago, promised the Seneca Nation a new day.
