Elouise Cobell - The Native American who sued the US Government.

Elouise Cobell, the Blackfeet woman who led a 15-year legal fight to force the U.S. government to account for more than a century of mismanaged Indian land royalties has died.

Elouise (aka Little Bird Woman), was a great granddaughter of the famous leader Mountain Chief.

When she was a child she would often hear stories of how the US government had shortchanged Native Americans with accounts for royalties from their land that was leased for resource development or farming.

It was while she was the Treasurer of the Blackfeet Tribe, she discovered many irregularities in the management of funds held in trust by the United States for the tribe and for individual Indians. 

She became particualrly incensed when she discovered just how much money the government had squandered that belonged people who were living in dire poverty on the Blackfeet reservation in northwestern Montana.

She realized the amount mismanaged since the 1880s could be hundreds of billions of dollars and with four other Native Americans she decided to sue the US government.

Over the next 14 years, there were more than 3,600 court filings, 220 days of trial, 80 published court decisions and 10 appeals.

Finally in 2010 the Obama administration offered a settlement of $3.4 billion.

Under the settlement, $1.4 billion would go to individual Indian account holders. Some $2 billion would be used by the government to buy up fractionated Indian lands from individual owners willing to sell, and then turn those lands over to tribes. Another $60 million would be used for a scholarship fund for young Indians.

"Maybe one of these days, they won't even think about me.

They'll just keep going and say, this is because I did it.

I never started this case with any intentions of being a hero.

I just wanted this case to give justice to people that didn't have it."

Truth to Power: Elouise Cobell

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Another view of the Cobell Settlement

This is just the tip of the iceberg

It's the government finally owning up to just one of their many mistakes...

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Indian Trust Settlement