European-American agents, appointed by the state, sold off more than 2,000 acres of tribal land between 1801 and 1911 without approval by the federal government. Tribal leaders say that the land sales and takings violated the Indian Non-Intercourse Act. This is the collective name of six statutes passed from 1790 to 1834, which said that only the federal government had the right to deal directly with Indian nations and had to approve all land sales for them. The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation (STN) has filed suits for restoration of about 2100 acres. Much of the land in question is in Kent, on the eastern side of the Housatonic River from the current reservation. About half the campus of the private Kent School is on the disputed land. Another major portion is owned by the Preston Mountain Club, a private fishing club. The Schaghticoke filed land rights suits in 1985, 1998 and 2000, the last two under the name and leadership of the STN. By 2010, the cases were consolidated; the defendants were the federal government, the Connecticut Light & Power Company, and the Kent School. In 1993, the federal government had proposed a land swap to Connecticut, offering 25 acres of federal land in exchange for 49.7 acres of the reservation, as part of a major restoration of the Appalachian Trail and securing control of it. The STN objected to the state's making the exchange for a lesser amount of land, threatening to close access to the Trail through the reservation. In October 2010 a federal court granted the defendants' request to dismiss the case, based on the argument of "collateral estoppel." The judge held that, as the BIA had determined in 2005 that STN did not meet the criteria for federal recognition as a tribe, it could not establish a "prima facie" case for land rights. As it was not a tribe, the state could not have violated the Non-Intercourse Act with the land deals. Because another federal court had upheld the BIA’s reversal of the STN’s federal acknowledgment (see below), the defendants had argued that the STN could not proceed with its land case. But, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation has appealed in federal court, arguing that a tribe does not have to be federally acknowledged in order to bring land claim lawsuits under the 1790 Non-Intercourse Act. At the end of November 2012, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals set February 25, 2013 as the deadline for the parties to submit their briefs in the land claims case.