Elouise P. Cobell

Who was Elouise P. Cobell?

Elouise Pepion Cobell, Yellow Bird Woman was a Niitsítapi elder and activist, banker, rancher, a Native American leader, and lead plaintiff in the groundbreaking litigation Cobell v. Salazar, which challenged the United States' mismanagement of trust funds belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans. In 2010 the government approved a $3.4 billion settlement for the trust case, including funds to partially compensate individual account holders, buy back lands and restore them to the Native American tribes, as well as a 60 million dollar scholarship fund. The settlement is the largest ever in a class action against the federal government.