Elouise Cobell

Conquest Leaves a Sour Taste

December 8, 2012

. Who’d a thunk it? Five hundred and twenty years of military assault, ethnic cleansing, physical and cultural genocide, theft, lies, deception, dishonor, broken treaties – oh, you can’t even count the number of broken treaties – broken trusts and misappropriation of funds, and nothing seems to work quite right. Things are – how do [...]

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Conspiracies

October 4, 2012

. I was talking with my class the other day about the methodology of fully-developed conspiracy theories and my general skepticism toward them. The undeveloped conspiracy theory works off a form of radical skepticism. How do you know we really landed on the moon? Have you been witness to any of the reality of the [...]

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In Memory of Elouise Cobell

October 18, 2011

. This blog began in late 2008 to recount my yearlong nationwide travels through Indian Country with documentary photographer Julia Dean. Those travels themselves were inspired by my publication earlier that year of “Aboriginal Sin,” in Tikkun. The article (scroll down for an image link on the right) presented an overview of the historic assault [...]

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Cobell v. Salazar Heads for Settlement after 14 Years

December 3, 2010

This email arrived from Elouise Cobell late yesterday afternoon. As I stated in my last Ask Elouise letter of November 22, 2010, the Senate passed the Cobell Settlement as part of the Claims Resolution Act of 2010. Since that time, I and our Representatives have been advocating for the successful passage of our settlement to [...]

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The End of the Indian Wars: 120 Years and Counting

November 24, 2010

I first wrote about Cobell v. Salazar in Tikkun in March, 2008, when that Individual Trust Fund lawsuit was already 12 years old. Lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell‘s pursuit of an accounting and settlement of land use fees collect in trust by the Department of the Interior since 1887 had met nothing but delay and obstruction [...]

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The Conquest of Native America… Continues

May 28, 2010

One of the favorite argumentative gambits of conservatives and those otherwise unsympathetic to the making of present amends for past national crimes, is just that point – it’s in the past. It’s over. Let it go. And let me tell you something: I didn’t commit any crime. Leaving aside the validity of that argument, which [...]

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Honest Injun

May 11, 2010

Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr It can be difficult to assess progress in the movement to recover from the history and consequences of indigenous culturcide. Great symbolic and conceptual achievements are growing. In the former category is the Australian apology to its aboriginal population. In the latter is the 2007 U.N. Declaration on [...]

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Cobell (Individual Indian Money Trust Fund) Settlement News

February 25, 2010

Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff and driving force behind the now fourteen-year-old Individual Indian Money Trust Fund suit has been issuing periodic reports since news of a settlement of the case back in December. I wrote about it in The Nature of Things. Although the “Ask Elouise” letters, sent to those on the litigation listserv [...]

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The Nature of Things

December 14, 2009

Cobell v. Salazar, the thirteen-year Individual Indian Money Trust Fund litigation, was settled on Friday for $3.4 billion. I have taken some time to sort through reports and my own reaction. The New York Times provided background: The Interior Department now manages about 56 million acres of Indian trust land scattered across the country, with [...]

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Good News in the Individual Indian Money Trust Fund Case

July 24, 2009

Heartening news from the Individual Indian Money Trust Fund litigation listserv of today’s appellate decision: Today’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the Indian Trust case makes clear that the government’s duty to account continues and that the government “cannot simply throw up its hands and stop the accounting,” [...]

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“Rough Justice”

May 11, 2009

This released from the Indian Trust ListServ today: WASHINGTON, May 11 — A federal appeals court was told today that it should offer 500,000 Native Americans some form of “rough justice” as a result of the federal government’s acknowledged mismanagement of their trust accounts. Attorney Dennis M. Gingold, who represents the Indians in a 13-year-old [...]

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Important News of the Trust Fund Litigations

April 29, 2009

The email below went out on Monday from Elouise Cobell, lead plaintiff in Cobell vs Salazar: On Monday, May 11, the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia will hold an important hearing on our case. We will be challenging the Aug. 7 ruling of U.S. District Court Judge James Robertson. He has held [...]

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The Individual Money Trust Fund Litigation: Cobell v. Salazar

February 13, 2009

Today’s statement from Elouise Cobell, via the IndianTrust mailing list: BROWNING, Mont., Feb. 13 — Elousie Cobell, the lead plaintiff in the 13-year-old class action lawsuit over the federal government’s mismanagement of Individual Indian Trust accounts, said today she was pleased that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has stated the Obama administration will try to settle [...]

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