Before white settlers came to Onondaga Lake and the city of Syracuse grew along its shore, it was a sacred place for the Onondaga Nation.

The Onondaga Nation has protested for centuries that illegal land grabs shrunk their territory from a 2.5 million acre expanse in upstate New York to a relatively paltry patch of land south of Syracuse.

(Spencer Tulis/Finger Lakes Times via AP)A leadership dispute within the Cayuga Indian Nation took a stunning turn over the weekend when nation leader Clint Halftown sent bulldozers to demolish a working daycare center, store, schoolhouse and other buildings controlled by tribe members who oppose his authority. Halftown is the federally recognized leader of the roughly 500-member western New York tribe. After his opponents took control of several properties six years ago, the Cayuga Indian Nation sought to recover them through a state court lawsuit, but the state’s highest court ruled New York could not get involved in a sovereign nation’s leadership dispute. Marshals and the freezing of federal funds to the Cayuga Indian Nation until the issues have been resolved. The Cayuga Indian Nation is the latest New York tribe to be upset by factionalism.