Robert Yellowtail

Who was Robert Yellowtail?

Robert Summers "Robbie" Yellowtail was a leader of the Crow Nation. Described as a "20th Century Warrior", Yellowtail was the first Native American to hold the post of Agency Superintendent at a reservation.

Yellowtail was born in Lodge Grass, Montana in 1889. When he was 13 years old he went to the Sherman Institute, in Riverside, California, graduating in 1907. He then attended the Extension Law School in Los Angeles, transferring to the correspondence law course of the University of Chicago, where he gained his law degree. He was immediately enlisted by Crow chief Plenty Coups to defend the Crow Indian Reservation against a bill sponsored by Montana Senator Thomas J. Walsh that sought to open the reservation to homesteading. The bill was defeated after seven years of work in Washington by Yellowtail. In 1920 he helped to draft the "Crow Allotment Act" that protected Crow lands, and was instrumental in obtaining voting rights for Native Americans in 1924. In 1934 Yellowtail became the Superintendent of the Crow Indian Reservation, the first superintendent to administer his own tribe. Yellowtail held the office until 1945.