The Force Behind Lawsuit

Andrew Metz
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Browning, Mont. -- In Blackfeet Indian tradition, defending tribal integrity and resisting the onslaught of enemies runs through the generations of the Mountain Chief clan as sure as the glacial rivers run above this reservation town.

Mountain Chiefs and their descendants are Blackfeet royalty, and in her own way, Elouise Cobell, great-great-granddaughter of the patriarch, is continuing this family tradition, etching a modern chapter in tribal lore with her offensive to force the U.S. government to confront its mismanagement of Indian land and assets.

"Maybe a little bit of him trickled down to me," said Cobell, whose 7-year-old class-action lawsuit has positioned American Indians to reap billions of dollars and generated momentum to reform the federal trust that presides over millions of acres allotted to Indians in the 19th century.

"I won't ever give up on this."

A rancher by birth, a banker by determination, Cobell, 57, stands among the most influential figures to come out of Indian Country in recent years.

One of nine children from a modest ranching family, she became the Blackfeet Nation's treasurer when she was 30 and had only a few years of commercial college and university under her belt.

She was soon hooked on straightening out her people's desperate finances.

In 1987 - married, and a mother living on the ranch where she grew up - she founded the first tribal-owned bank, while at the same time becoming increasingly active in efforts to force the government to reform the way it handles the royalties from agriculture, mining and oil refineries on Indian land.

She received the John D. MacArthur Foundation's highly prestigious "genius award" fellowship, shortly after initiating the lawsuit in 1996 and, since then, has almost single-handedly raised the $9 million it has taken to fuel it.

"She is just as determined or principled as anyone I have met in this town, said Bill McAllister, a former reporter at The Washington Post and The Denver Post who now serves as her media liaison.

"She has persevered all these years when a lesser person would have given up and walked away," he said.

Still, some Indian leaders and government critics say her uncompromising posture has alienated people, that she has raised unreasonable expectations for a windfall and that, in the end, her case may erode tribal autonomy.

Cobell, however, responds to the criticism with the same simple certainty that has sustained her fight these past seven years.

"It is our money," she said on a recent afternoon.

"It is money that they collected and so that is what we want back."

Standing at the eastern edge of the reservation, cracked plains ground stretching out around her, she insists, "I don't feel I am a radical person.

"Holding people accountable. That's not radical. That's just making them do the right thing."

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Special thanks to Cindy Moonglow McWilliams, Co-Editor for this report.

March Reports

Last updated on March 17, 2005