The claim is said to be based on treaties two centuries old has been dealt what may be a fatal blow by a federal appeals court. It is told that a three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the tribe had long ago abandoned its fishing rights as it repeatedly ceded territory to an expanding United States and was gradually forced west to Kansas and then Oklahoma.
Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray said that all Ohioans are on even footing when it comes to Lake Erie fishing and other uses. He also said that if the Ottawa tribe had prevailed, it would have had superior rights over everyone else so that people would have to pay them to fish, which would have been a real nightmare.
Circuit Judge Alan E. Norris states that there are numerous treaties at issue here, but essentially, under the Treaty of Greenville [of 1795], the United States acquired Indian lands south of the treaty’s east-west line and relinquished its claims to the Indian lands north of the line.
The tribe’s Columbus attorney, Richard Rogovin said that the tribes did not leave any place voluntarily. They were booted out. He rejected suggestions that the case was a pretext to bringing an Indian casino to Ohio. It is told that the case does not deal with the Ottawa tribe’s threat to separately lay claim to North Bass Island in Lake Erie, litigation it planned after resolving the fishing case.
