The Seneca, or Onödowága (meaning "People of the Great Hill"), traditionally lived in what is now New York between the Genesee River and Canandaigua Lake.

In the mid to late 18th century, a confederation of Iroquois Indian bands was pushed west from throughout the Northeast.

It included the Mingo (from the upper Ohio River), Susquehannock, Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Tuscarora, Onondaga and the Seneca of Sandusky (who had lived in New York at the outset of the American Revolution).

It noted their migration to Ohio in the mid-18th century: "The Seneca–Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma constitutes the descendants of those Mingoes who were living in Ohio in the 18th century ... About 1800 these Senecas of Sandusky were joined by a portion of the Cayugas who had sold their lands in New York ... Based upon the record in these proceedings, we believe that by the time of the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty, the Mingoes in Ohio were small, independent bands, no longer politically subservient to the Six Nations of New York ... [B]eginning shortly before 1750, the Mingoes themselves were asserting their independence from the Six Nations of New York ...

"In 1831, the Tribe sold their land in Ohio and accepted a reservation in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

[5] They were a prosperous people who, preparing to leave Ohio, loaded their considerable baggage (clothing, household goods, tools, seed) onto a steamboat to sail to St. Louis.

Upon their arrival in Indian Territory, the Iroquois band found their assigned lands overlapped those of the Cherokee.

During the American Civil War, the Indian Territory became a battleground as Confederate sympathizers dominated several tribes.

Many Seneca and Cayuga people who favored the Union fled to Kansas for safety, although the state was also subject to insurgent violence.

Today, the tribal roll numbers approximately 5,000 members, many of whom live throughout Ottawa and Delaware counties.

The current Seneca–Cayuga Nation is chartered as a Federal Corporation under the Act of June 26, 1936, by which Oklahoma encouraged the tribes to reorganize their governments.

[3] On May 15, 2014, the U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Miami Agency conducted a referendum election to change the Constitution and Bylaws at the request of the Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma Business Committee.

But the U.S. Indian Claims Commission in Strong v. United States (1973) ruled that ancestors of the Seneca–Cayuga were not a party to the treaties between the Cayuga Nation and New York.

The tribe applied to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the opportunity to purchase land in New York and have it taken into trust.

They wanted to be able to operate a gambling casino within proximity to New York's major population centers.

[8] Groups such as the Upstate Citizens for Equality in New York have opposed the revival of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois nations) land claims in the state.