Here & Now

Chairman Tehassi Hill on the Oneida Nation Buying Back Land

Frederica Freyberg:
A lawsuit against the federal government over 500 acres of land pits the Village of Hobart near Green Bay against the Oneida Nation. Hobart is within the Oneida reservation and the tribe purchased 500 acres there, moving it to trust status and to sovereign land not subject to local taxes. The Oneida buyback is part of the nation’s push to recover its original acreage, nearly all of it lost when non-tribal people were allowed to purchase reservation land. The Oneida have now recovered nearly two-thirds of its 65,000 acres of reservation land near Green Bay. The Village of Hobart is suing over the loss of its property tax revenue. Its administrator declined to join us. Oneida Nation chairman Tehassi Hill is here. Thanks so much for being here.

Tehassi Hill:
Thank you, Frederica.

Frederica Freyberg:
So the U.S. Department of Interior is on your side in this, but how long and difficult has this dispute with the Village of Hobart been?

Tehassi Hill:
Yeah, it’s been going on for more than a decade, as we acquire our reservation land back in fee status and go through the process under the Bureau of Indian Affairs to have land put into trust. The process calls for input from local governments as well and so they go through that process and Hobart has elected several times, elected to appeal the process of putting land in trust and we believe that their arguments have no merit.

Frederica Freyberg:
How has the Oneida Nation been able to buy back its land in other places without such kind of longstanding and litigious difficulty?

Tehassi Hill:
We’ve been doing this for a long time and so we’ve been able to work with other municipalities in the area to come to agreement about the — how payment, I guess, for services rendered to tribal trust land and fee land is to come about, so if there is ambulance care, police service and other services that the municipality or the counties provide to tribal land in the agreement, we work out the balancing act of what we provide and what they provide and come to a meaningful understanding and a payment for that particular services rendered.

Frederica Freyberg:
The Oneida at one point lost nearly all of its treaty-granted lands. How was the tribe able to reverse that?

Tehassi Hill:
Well, it really stems back to the Indian Reorganization Act. So in — under that, we were able to establish a governance system that the federal government recognized more readily and then also, other federal regulations during the 1970s, and so being able to acquire land back on our reservation and be able to have the ability to put land to trust stems back to the 1970s in that reversal of federal Indian policy.

Frederica Freyberg:
Describe why it is important to preserve your sovereign lands.

Tehassi Hill:
This is all that we have left. So Indian tribes across this country have ceded millions of acres of land to the birth of the United States, and in doing so, reserved what we have left. And so many of the tribes across the country are, like us, have a relatively small land base left from our original holdings and so it is all that much more important to us, because this is our homeland. This is where we raise our families, where we do business, where we grow our food and so every inch is important to us being able to maintain that control over what is left of our lands.

Frederica Freyberg:
How much has it cost to have to buy back your lands?

Tehassi Hill:
Oh, easily hundreds of millions of dollars. Easily. Twenty years ago, you might have been able to buy an acre of land for $5,000. And with the land prices now in this area, anywhere from $15,000 up to $40,000 an acre. So as time goes on, obviously the price continues to rise.

Frederica Freyberg:
And yet, it’s a cost that you must make.

Tehassi Hill:
That is — that is correct. Our people have really dedicated resources annually in our tribal budget to face this land demand need for our community. Not only does it provide economic development, but it provides lands that are suitable for housing as well and educational programs and services, all this program and services that we provide, a lot of it depends on the land.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your message to potentially non-tribal people who might think it’s unfair to move your reacquired land to federal trust status and not have it be subject to local taxes?

Tehassi Hill:
Well, I guess I would look at it as kind of the opposite. That this reservation was established by treaty with the United States and treaties are supreme law of the land. And so essentially, our reservation here was on loan or rented to non-tribal people for decades now and so they were able to use its resources, whether they’re natural resources or to build a home for their families and the such, to use this land for a period of time, and nobody’s forcing them to sell their land to us as properties become available and someone is — has reached the end of their life that they want to spend in this particular neck of the woods, then they decide to sell their land. And as it becomes available, Oneida chooses to purchase it most of the time. And so that’s one thing. We’re not forcing anyone out. We’re just acquiring land as it becomes available again.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. We need to leave it there. Chairman Hill, thanks very much for your time on this.

Tehassi Hill:
You’re welcome.