Editing Madison County, New York (section)

==History==

{{unreferenced section|date=August 2021}}

[[Indigenous peoples]] had occupied areas around Oneida Lake for thousands of years. The historic [[Oneida Indian Nation]] is an [[Iroquoian]]-speaking people who emerged as a culture in this area about the fourteenth century and dominated the territory. They are one of the [[Iroquois|Five Nations]] who originally comprised the [[Iroquois Confederacy]] or ''[[Haudenosaunee]]''.

English colonists established counties in eastern present-day New York State in 1683; at the time, the territory of the present Madison County was considered part of [[Albany County, New York|Albany County]], with the city of Albany located on the [[Hudson River]]. This was an enormous [[county]], including the northern part of New York State around Albany as well as all of the present State of [[Vermont]] and, in theory, extending westward to the [[Pacific Ocean]]. It was claimed by the English but largely occupied by the Oneida, [[Onondaga people|Onondaga]], [[Seneca people|Seneca]], [[Cayuga people|Cayuga]] and [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]], who had the territory in the central Mohawk Valley, as well as [[Mahican]] near the Hudson River. On July 3, 1766, the English organized [[Cumberland County, New York|Cumberland County]], and on March 16, 1770, they organized [[Gloucester County, New York|Gloucester County]], both containing territory now included in the [[state of Vermont]].

[[File:Simeon DeWitt Twenty Townships c.1792.png|thumb|left|280px|The "Twenty Townships" west of the Unadilla River, conveyed by the Oneida Indians in 1788. Known as "Clinton's Purchase"]]

On March 12, 1772, what was left of Albany County was split into three parts, one remaining under the name [[Albany County, New York|Albany County]]. One of the other pieces, [[Tryon County, New York|Tryon County]], contained the western portion (and thus, since no western boundary was specified, theoretically still extended west to the Pacific). The eastern boundary of Tryon County was approximately five miles west of the present city of [[Schenectady, New York|Schenectady]], and the county included the western part of the [[Adirondack Mountains]] and the area west of the West Branch of the [[Delaware River]]. The area then designated as Tryon County includes 37 current counties of New York State. The county was named for [[William Tryon]], the colonial governor of New York.

In the years prior to the outbreak of revolution in 1776, tensions rose in the frontier areas upstate and most of the Loyalists in Tryon County fled to [[Canada]]. In 1784, following the peace treaty that ended the [[American Revolutionary War]], New York changed the name of Tryon County to [[Montgomery County, New York|Montgomery County]], in honor of the general, [[Richard Montgomery]], who had captured several places in Canada and died attempting to capture the city of [[Quebec]].

As allies of the Patriots, the Oneida Indian Nation was allocated land by the United States in the postwar settlement for a reservation near [[Oneida Lake]], in their traditional homeland. In the postwar treaty, the four Iroquois nations who had been allies of the British were forced to cede their lands; most of their peoples had already migrated to Canada to escape the worst of the fighting on the frontier after [[Sullivan Expedition|Sullivan's Raid]]. This expedition through Indian country had destroyed dwellings, crops and winter stores; many Iroquois who did not migrate died of starvation that winter.

But settlers were hungry for land, and in 1788 Governor Clinton's representatives persuaded the Oneida to cede some of their territory to the state for sale to European-American settlers. This was called the "Clinton Purchase", after Governor [[George Clinton (vice president)|George Clinton]]. The land comprised the southern portion of the Oneida reservation. It has also been called the [[Twenty Townships]], as these were the number organized after New York controlled the land.

As this sale was never ratified by the [[United States Senate]], it was declared unconstitutional in a ruling by the [[United States Supreme Court]] in the late twentieth century.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11191987853953255648&q=oneida&hl=en&as_sdt=4,60%7C|title=County Of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226 (1985)|access-date=August 9, 2017}}</ref> New York State had no legal authority after the Revolution and the formation of the United States to negotiate separately with [[American Indian tribes]].

In 1789, Montgomery County was reduced in size by the splitting off of [[Ontario County, New York|Ontario County]]. This was later divided to form the present [[Allegany County, New York|Allegany]], [[Cattaraugus County, New York|Cattaraugus]], [[Chautauqua County, New York|Chautauqua]], [[Erie County, New York|Erie]], [[Genesee County, New York|Genesee]], [[Livingston County, New York|Livingston]], [[Monroe County, New York|Monroe]], [[Niagara County, New York|Niagara]], [[Orleans County, New York|Orleans]], [[Steuben County, New York|Steuben]], [[Wyoming County, New York|Wyoming]], [[Yates County, New York|Yates]], and part of [[Schuyler County, New York|Schuyler]] and [[Wayne County, New York|Wayne]] counties.

In 1791, [[Herkimer County, New York|Herkimer]] and [[Tioga County, New York|Tioga]] counties were two of three counties split off from Montgomery County (the other being [[Otsego County, New York|Otsego County]]).

[[Chenango County, New York|Chenango County]] was formed in 1798 from parts of Tioga and Herkimer counties. Finally, Madison County was created from Chenango County in 1806.

About 1802, the Oneida agreed to allocate about 22,000 acres of their land to the [[Stockbridge Indians|Stockbridge]] and [[Munsee]] (Lenape), who were seeking refuge from anti-Native American conflicts by American settlers after the Revolution. Both were Christianized: the Stockbridge had migrated from western Massachusetts and the [[Lenape]] from New York and New Jersey. The two peoples were pressured to leave New York for Wisconsin in the 1820s, to make more land available for [[European-American]] settlement.

In the late twentieth century, the three recognized Oneida tribes: of Wisconsin, New York, and the Thames reserve in Canada, filed suit in a land claim against New York for its treaty and forced purchase of their ancestral lands after the [[American Revolutionary War]], seeking the return of thousands of acres. The [[Supreme Court of the United States]] has ruled the purchase was unconstitutional, as New York did not have the treaty ratified by the [[United States Senate]], and had no authority under the U.S. Constitution to deal directly with the Oneida, a right reserved to the federal government. In 2010 the state offered the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin more than 300 acres in [[Sullivan County, New York|Sullivan County]] in the [[Catskill Mountains]], with permission to construct a gambling casino, and two acres in Madison County, to settle their part of the suit. Several private and public interests oppose the deal, including other federally recognized tribes in [[New York (state)|New York]].