James Clark Strong (May 26, 1826–1915) was a breveted

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

general and prominent New York attorney in the post-war period. An advocate for Native Americans, he litigated '' That Portion of the Cayuga Indians Residing in Canada v. State'' (N.Y. 1885)That Portion of the Cayuga Indians Residing in Can. v. State, 1 N.E. 770 (N.Y. 1885); People ex rel. That Portion of the Cayuga Nation of Indians Residing in Can. v. Bd. of Comm'rs of the Land-Office, 1 N.E. 764 (N.Y. 1885). and '' Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy'' (U.S. 1896) on behalf of the Cayuga and

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People and language * Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname * Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America ** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people Places Extrat ...

, respectively, two of the earliest litigations of aboriginal title in New York.

Early life

Strong was born on May 26, 1826 in

Phelps, New York Phelps is a town in Ontario County, New York, United States. The population was 6,637 at the 2020 census. The Town of Phelps contains a village called Phelps. Both are north of Geneva. History The town was part of the Phelps and Gorham Purchas ...

. Strong resided in the

Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...

from 1847 to 1856. Strong fought on the Union side during the

, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Strong was badly wounded, developing a permanent limp. After the war, Strong was breveted to the rank of

brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

. As the commanding officer of the 38th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Strong ordered the mustering of the unit out of service on June 22, 1863 in East New York, Brooklyn.

Career

A lifelong Democrat before the war, Strong became a prominent member of the Republican Party after the war.''Gen. James C. Strong'', N.Y. Times, Oct. 3, 1872, at 12. Strong was a supporter of

Ulysses Grant Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant ; April 27, 1822July 23, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States from 1869 to 1877. As Commanding General, he led the Union Ar ...

, and thus an opponent of Horace Greeley. In a well-published letter, Strong urged his fellow veterans to support Grant's re-election in the

1872 United States presidential election The 1872 United States presidential election was the 22nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1872. Despite a split in the Republican Party, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democratic-endorsed Liberal R ...

.''War Democrats for Grant: Stirring Letter of James C. Strong, of Buffalo'', N.Y. Times, Nov. 4, 1872, at 1.

Legal career

After the war, Strong joined the law firm of his brother John C. Strong in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

. In 1879, he went into partnership with Henry W. Brendel and continued until 1891 when the firm was mutually dissolved. According to historian Laurence M. Hauptman, "Strong was a prominent lawyer and civic-minded resident of Buffalo."Laurence M. Hauptman, Seneca Nation of Indians v. Christy: ''A Background Story'', 46 947, 950–51 (1998). Strong omits any discussion of his law practice in his autobiography, jumping from his return to Buffalo on June 30, 1866—to "resume[] the duties of civic life"—to the fall of 1892 when he "went abroad and lectured through England on the North American Indian," on the same page. As Strong concluded in his 1893 book,

The Red-men are fast passing away. The beautiful land of their nativity will soon known them no more. It is beyond our power to undo the wrongs inflicted upon them by our ancestors; but we can, and ought to be just—even generous—towards the few who are still with us. Let us hasten to remove from our national escutcheon its one foul blot—the stigma of inhumanity and injustice towards the proud but hapless Indian.

Cayuga claim

Strong represented the

Cayuga people The Cayuga (Cayuga: Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ, "People of the Great Swamp") are one of the five original constituents of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), a confederacy of Native Americans in New York. The Cayuga homeland lies in the Finger Lakes regi ...

residing in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

in a claim against New York state for a proportion of treaty annuities, which had not been paid since the 1809. With interest, the Cayuga's claim was valued at $400,000 to $500,000. The state Board of Claims rejected the claim, and Strong's petition for mandamus relief in the courts—which reached the New York Court of Appeals in 1885—was rejected on the grounds that the Canadian Cayugas were not a party to the treaty.

Seneca claim

Strong represented the

Seneca Nation of Indians The Seneca Nation of Indians is a federally recognized Seneca tribe based in western New York. They are one of three federally recognized Seneca entities in the United States, the others being the Tonawanda Band of Seneca (also in western New Y ...

in an ejectment suit against Harrison Christy, one of the successors in title to the

Phelps and Gorham Purchase The Phelps and Gorham Purchase was the purchase in 1788 of of land in what is now western New York State from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for $1,000,000 ( £300,000), to be paid in three annual installments, and the pre-emptive right to th ...

, challenging the conveyance in violation of the

Nonintercourse Act The Nonintercourse Act (also known as the Indian Intercourse Act or the Indian Nonintercourse Act) is the collective name given to six statutes passed by the Congress in 1790, 1793, 1796, 1799, 1802, and 1834 to set Amerindian boundaries of re ...

. The New York Court of Appeals rejected the claim, holding that the federal government had implicitly ratified the conveyances, that the states rather than the federal government had the power to extinguish aboriginal title, that the New York statute of limitations barred the action, and that the Nonintercourse Act did not apply to lands within the territory of a state. The U.S. Supreme Court cited the statute of limitations holding as an

adequate and independent state ground The adequate and independent state ground doctrine is a doctrine of United States law governing the power of the U.S. Supreme Court to review judgments entered by state courts. Introduction It is part of the basic framework of the American l ...

and dismissed the writ of error.

Personal life

Strong married Emily K. Strong, and they had three children: Jean D. Strong, Edward Clark Strong, and Stuart Efner Strong. Strong moved to Los Gatos, California in January 1896.Strong, 1910, at 99. Strong's 1910 autobiography was published in Los Gatos.

Publications

*James Clark Strong,
Wah-kee-nah and Her People
' (G.P. Putnam 1893). *James Clark Strong,
Biographical Sketch of James Clark Strong
' (1910).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strong, James Clark Aboriginal title in New York New York (state) lawyers Union Army colonels 1826 births 1915 deaths People from Phelps, New York Military personnel from Buffalo, New York New York (state) Republicans People from Los Gatos, California Lawyers from Buffalo, New York 19th-century American lawyers