On October 22, 2011, thousands of people gathered to mourn and pray for a lost Blackfeet warrior. She had been the lead plaintiff in Cobell vs. Salazar; a 1996 class-action lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Department of Interior (DOI) condemning the mismanagement of Individual Indian Money accounts (IIMs). She had dedicated her life to bringing justice to her fellow Indians by revealing over a century–long abuse of the IIMs by the U.S. government. Despite her limited assets, she fought relentlessly against a multi-million-dollar army of lawyers and dozens of experts working for the United States. In 2009, after spending thirteen years in court pursuing a fight considered by many to be impossible, she accepted a 3.4 billion-dollar settlement on behalf of half a million American Indians—the largest settlement in U.S. history. Her name was Elouise Pepion Cobell, or the Yellow Bird Woman.

The Root of the Problem: General Allotment Act of 1887

In 1887, the United States Congress passed the General Allotment Act (a.k.a. the Dawes Act). Seeking to assimilate Native Americans into U.S. citizens by breaking up tribal structures, the bill mandated that Indian Country was to be divided into individual allotments, and all the remaining tribal land declared as “surplus” would be opened up for white settlers and enterprises. Because the government saw Indians as “incompetent” to manage their own lands and financial affairs, allotments were held “in trust” by the DOI. These trust lands were then leased, for instance, for grazing and mineral extraction, and revenues from the leases were supposed to be paid regularly as steady income to the individual landowners into trust accounts (the IIMs). In 1934, the allotment policy was forever abandoned. But the disastrous outcomes remained: Native Americans lost two-thirds of their tribal land base (nearly 100 million acers in all), and the federal government failed to fulfill its trust responsibilities, plunging Indian Country into even deeper despair.

Cobell: “I Went From a ‘Dumb Indian’ to ‘Genius’ in One Lifetime”

Born on a Blackfeet reservation in Montana in 1945, Elouise Cobell grew up on a small family ranch without electricity or running water. Trying to understand the surrounding poverty, Cobell began to ask for accounting of her trust monies from the BIA when she was only 18 years old. While working as Treasurer of the Blackfeet Tribe, Cobell frequently came across irregularities in the IIM accounts, yet her inquiries were dismissed several times by the BIA and DOI, and she was even called “incapable” of understanding such matters. In 1996 she had seen enough, and along with four other plaintiffs, filed a lawsuit demanding full accounting of all IIMs. Although it soon became apparent that sufficient records of the trusts had not been kept, the case went through nine appeals—each time ruled in favor of Cobell’s side. Once a district court even issued a statement saying that “it would be difficult to find a more historically mismanaged federal program than the IIM trust.” Cobell’s ability to expose government corruption was acknowledged by the MacArthur Foundation in 1997 as she was awarded with a $310,000 grant nicknamed “the genius grant.”

A True Warrior

In 2011, Cobell lost her battle against cancer, but the impact she had on Native America continues. Some of her other achievements included founding the first Native American bank, creating financial literacy programs for Native children, initiating the first tribal land trust program to protect crucial grizzly bear habitat, and being honored as a warrior by her tribe. Moreover, Cobell v. Salazar set the precedent for tribal trust cases that are still ongoing. In 2016, Cobell was posthumously awarded the highest civilian honor in the United States, as her son accepted on her behalf the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Elouise Cobell was not just a plaintiff in a historic lawsuit. She was a true warrior.

References:

Berger, Bethany R. “Elouise Cobell.” Cobell Scholarship, 2015. http://cobellscholar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/cobell_chapter.pdf

Capriccioso, Rob. “Elouise Cobell, 65, Walks On.” Indian Country Today, October 17, 2011. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/elouise-cobell-65-walks-on/

“Elouise Pepion Cobell: Banker-Warrior.” Women’s History Matters, September 23, 2014. http://montanawomenshistory.org/elouise-pepion-cobell-banker-warrior/

Gingold, Dennis M. & Pearl, M. Alexander. “Tribute To Elouise Cobell.” Public Land and Resources Law Review, 2012. http://cobellscholar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/In-Memoriam_A-Tribute-to-Elouise-Cobell.pdf

Hevesi, Dennis. “Elouise Cobell, 65, Dies; Sued U.S. Over Indian Trust Funds.” The New York Times, October 17, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/elouise-cobell-65-dies-sued-us-over-indian-trust-funds.html

Lee, Tanya H. “’Elouise Cobell Is My Hero’: Awarded Posthumous Presidential Medal of Honor.” Indian Country Today, November 23, 2016. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/native-news/elouise-cobell-is-my-hero-awarded-posthumous-presidential-medal-of-freedom/

“The Dawes Act of 1887.” YouTube, January 23, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45HATCWo2PQ