In February 1870, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) responded to a land claim inquiry sent by lead Conestoga land claimant Peter Doxtater to President Ulysses S. Grant. In their response the BIA officials stated "it does not appear... that any such lands [Conestoga Indian Lands] are in existence" and that they had "no recordance here of the Conestogas ever possessing any land in Lancaster County Pennsylvania".

While their response is clearly inaccurate (we were, of course, in possession of land in Lancaster County, Pennyslvania), the fact that our people were on the record as seeking the return of our lands from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1870 is significant. It demonstrates that our people exhausted every avenue in an attempt to return our treaty land. On the local, state, inter-state, and federal level, the 1845 land claimants sought the return of our sacred lands, which have long since been incorporated into private land ownership.