WASHINGTON, D.C. (YBH.COM) – In 1996, Elouise Cobell, the chief accountant for, and member of, the Blackfeet tribe of Montana, became lead plaintiff in a class action suit against the United States Department of the Interior, alleging mismanagement of trust funds collected for use of tribal lands. Like the other 300,000 Native American participants in the trust fund, she had an Individual Indian Money account which was often in the negative despite lucrative land lease deals.
Lead Plaintiff Elouise Cobell
Today, a 3 billion dollar agreement ends the 1996 case against the Interior Department alleging the swindling of hundreds of thousands of Indians out of royalties for leasing their lands to mining, timber and energy interests. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar stated “It is a historic day for the United States of America.” The estimated $8 million in legal costs to press the suit were paid for by charitable organizations donating to the Indian Monies Trust Correction and Recovery Project.
The new agreement provides that more than $1.4 billion will be distributed to Native Americans west of the Mississippi with royalty claims. $2 billion more is set aside to buy back and consolidate tribal lands lost and illegally sold off in the past 100 or more years. Over the years, the legal wrangling has been over whether the Interior Department had any duty at all to provide a fair accounting. A D.C. District Appeals court ruled last summer that in fact it did. That ruling led to the current settlement.
Cobell said at a press conference, “we are compelled to settle now by the sobering realization that our class [the number of plaintiffs] grows smaller each year, each month, and every day as our elders die and are forever prevented from receiving their just compensation,”
The ball is now in Congress’s court. They must still actually allocate the money.
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Laura spent years as a Hollywood story analyst, did a big 180, and is now an entrepreneur focused on web marketing and analytics. She's also a mom of one.Laura Glendinning article archive.
