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~ "Yellow Bird Woman"-'The Great Indigenous American Warrior' ~ (8906 hits)



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~ "Yellow Bird Woman"-'The Great Indigenous American Warrior' ~
By
Gregory V. Boulware, Esq.


"100 Years" of broken promises by the U.S. Government and one fearless woman who made them pay!

In 1987, Ms. Cobell helped found "Blackfeet National Bank," the first American bank owned by a 'Tribe,' which is now "Native American Bank," based in Denver. She served as director of "The Native American Community Development Corporation," the bank’s nonprofit affiliate. She was also former trustee of "The National Museum of the American Indian."

“I never started this case with any intentions of being a hero,” Ms. Cobell said.

Over 100 years ago, the U.S. Government broke up Indian Reservations and allotted millions of acres of land to 300,000 Native Americans. The government promised to manage their land, establishing the Indian Trust Fund to disburse revenues generated by mining, oil, gas, and timber leases.

The federal government was supposed to manage the Indian Trust...what it really managed was to cheat Indian families out of billions of dollars.

In 1996, Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet Warrior, filed the largest class action lawsuit ever filed against the Federal Government. This is the story of how she prevailed and made history.

The Montana Trial Lawyers Association gave Ms. Cobell its annual Citizens Award. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said he was co-sponsoring legislation to award Ms. Cobell the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor Congress can bestow on a civilian.

"After the settlement was reached in 2009, I just wanted this case to give justice to people that didn’t have it. We are compelled to settle by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each day as our elders die and are forever prevented from receiving just compensation,” she said.

Ms. Cobell, along With her husband, Alvin, operated a farm on the "BlackFeet Reservation," raising cattle and crops. Besides her husband, she is survived by a son, 'Turk'; a brother, 'Dale Pepion'; three sisters, 'Julene Kennerly,' 'Joy Ketah' and 'Karen Powell'; and two grandchildren.

This "BlackFeet Warrior" was Born Elouise Pepion on Nov. 5, 1945. She was one of eight children of 'Polite' and 'Catherine Pepion.' She graduated from Great Falls Business College and later attended Montana State University.

Ms. Cobell grew up on the reservation hearing stories about how the government had shortchanged Indians, many of them living in poverty. This did not particularly sit well with the young warrior, so she began researching the issue after graduating from business school and later becoming treasurer of "the BlackFeet Nation." In the years after filing the lawsuit, she was a major fund-raiser in support of the case. She also contributed part of the $310,000 she received as a “Genius Grant” in 1997 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

In the end, Ms. Cobell believed that the plaintiffs were owed more.

Ms. Cobell was born on November 5, 1945; whose Indian name was "Yellow Bird Woman" and who was a great-granddaughter of a renowned tribal leader, "Mountain Chief," was the lead plaintiff in "Cobell v. Salazar." Elouise was a heroine to American Indians for leading a 15-year legal battle that ended with the federal government’s agreeing to pay $3.4 billion in compensation for mismanagement of Indian trust funds since the late 1800s.

The case, the name of which changed over the years as successive interior secretaries took office (the current secretary is Ken Salazar), was filed in 1996. It was settled in December 2009 and received a federal judge’s final approval on June 20 of this year after President Obama signed legislation passed by Congress. The lawsuit spanned three presidencies, engendered seven trials and went before a federal appeals court 10 times. The plaintiffs contended that the government had mismanaged trust funds over the years through administrative errors, diversion of money to other programs and even outright theft. They argued that they were owed tens of billions of dollars. The government took the position that it owed them little or nothing.

Under the settlement, the government will pay $1.4 billion to compensate Indians for their claims of historical accounting irregularities; each member of the class will receive a check for $1,000. The remaining $2 billion will go into a fund to be distributed to Indians based on how much land they own.

When the settlement was announced, Mr. (President) Obama hailed it as an “important step towards a sincere reconciliation between the federal government and American Indians, many of whom," he said, "considered the protracted lawsuit a “stain” on the our nation."

The dispute arose from a system dating to 1887, when Congress divided many tribal lands into parcels that were assigned to individual Indians. The government retained the authority to issue leases on the land for mining, livestock grazing, timber harvesting, and drilling for oil and gas. The government then distributed to the Indians revenue raised by those leases.

The Montana Trial Lawyers Association gave Ms. Cobell its annual Citizens Award. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said he was co-sponsoring legislation to award Ms. Cobell the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor Congress can bestow on a civilian.

Elouise Cobell died October 16 2011, in Great Falls, Mont. She was 65 and lived on the Blackfeet reservation near Browning, Mont.

The cause was cancer, said Bill McAllister, a spokesman for the plaintiffs in what was one of the largest and most complicated class-action lawsuits ever brought against the United States. More than 300,000 members of many tribes will receive payments under the settlement.

This federal case kinda reminds us of "The Case Against The United States For Not Awarding Reparations To Its' "P.O.W.'s/Black American Slaves," (and/or "Yellow Bird Woman" descendents) doesn't it?


Til Next Time...



'G'
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Research/Credits & Acknowledgements:

"100 Years" (The Movie)
https://www.100yearsthemovie.com/

Elouise Cobell, 65, Dies; Sued U.S. Over Indian Trust Funds
By
DENNIS HEVESIOCT. 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/eloui...

Yahoo Search and Discovery Data
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The Bio:
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Posted By: Gregory V. Boulware, Esq.
Sunday, March 18th 2018 at 6:13PM
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