Elouise Pepion Cobell, Yellow Bird Woman

Born: 1945

Died: 2011

Country of Birth: USA

Nationality: usa

Ethnicity: Native American - Blackfoot

Great Falls Business College Business & Accounting; Montana State University

""Although we have reached a settlement totaling more than $3.4 billion, there is little doubt this is significantly less than the full accounting to which individual Indians are entitled. Yes, we could prolong our struggle and fight longer, and perhaps one day we would know, down to the penny, how much individual Indians are owed. Perhaps we could even litigate long enough to increase the settlement amount. But we are compelled to settle now by the sobering realization that our class grows smaller each year, each month and every day, as our elders die and are forever prevented from receiving their just compensation." (Wikipedia); She joked “about having made the leap from ‘dumb Indian’ to ‘genius’ in one lifetime.” (womenshistory.org); In discussing the incident at Ghost Ridge she stated, "“They would not allow Indian people to hunt or carry arms because they wanted them to be dependent on the Indian agent. And so people just hung around and waited for their rations. The rations were diverted, black-marketed, and the women and children and men had to stay confined without any means to hunt. As a result, 500 Blackfeet Indians starved to death. And the government just dug big, open-pit graves and threw them in and covered it up. “And I drive this road every single day, and some days I feel really, really tired of fighting this lawsuit against the United States government, and all I have to do is look up to the west and see Ghost Ridge, and remember all the people that starved to death for injustice. And so then it becomes their fight; it becomes the fight of the people of Ghost Ridge that we are trying to hold the United States government accountable for.” (americanindianmagazine.org); "This is a bittersweet victory, at best, but it will mean a great deal to the tens of thousands of impoverished Indians entitled to share in its financial fruits, as well as to the Indian youth whose dreams for a better life — including the possibility of one day attending college — can now be realized." (npr.org); “Maybe I was born with my great-grandfather Mountain Chief’s genes, and wanted to fight for justice. And it never left my mind that you have to stand up for what’s right.” (hcn.org); "

— Elouise Pepion Cobell, Yellow Bird Woman

Field of Study: Tribal Activist

Institution/Corporation: Native American Bank; Blackfeet Tribe

Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degree: Montana State University (2002), Dartmouth College (2011), University of Mexico (2002); Member: Board Member First Interstate Bank, Trustee National Museum of the American Indian, Trustee for the Nature Conservancy of Montana, Elvis Presley Montana Fan Club, Intertribal Monitoring Association

Awards: 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom; 1997 MacArthur Genius Award; 2002 Women Who Make a Difference Award, International Women's Forum; 2004 Jay Silverheels Achievement Award, National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development; 2005 Cultural Freedom Fellowship, Lannan Foundation; 2007 Impact Award, AARP; 2007 named 1 of Rural Heroes, National rural Assembly; 2011 Montana Trial Lawyers Association's Citizens Award; 2018 National Native American Hall of Fame; 2000 honored with Warrior Status, Blackfoot Nation; 2015 November 5 was declared Elouise Cobell Day by Montana Governor Steve Bullock; 2023 it was announced she would be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2024

Achievements: a tribal elder and activist, banker, rancher, and lead plaintiff in the groundbreaking class-action suit Cobell v. Salazar (suit was originally Cobell v Babbitt who was Secretary of the Interior at the time but name changed with every change of Secretary from Babbitt to Norton to Kempthorne & finally Salazar) which challenged the United States' mismanagement of trust funds belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans; pursued the suit from 1996, challenging the government to account for fees from resource leases; 2010, the government approved a $3.4 billion settlement for the trust case; 1987 founded the Blackfeet National Bank (now Native American Bank headquartered in Denver, CO), the first national bank located on an Indian reservation and owned by a Native American tribe; after twenty other tribes joined the bank to form the Native American Bank, she became Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, its non-profit affiliate; was active in local agriculture & environmental issues; fought for government accountability & for Native American's right to have control of their own financial futures