Elouise Pepion Cobell, or Yellow Bird Woman (1945 – 2011) was a member of the Blackfoot Indian Tribe, helped found the first Native American bank ever, the Blackfeet National Bank, became Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation. She also led the largest class-action lawsuit against the United States government. It accused the government of mismanagement of trust funds belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans. In 2010, the largest settlement in a class action lawsuit against the federal government was given, though as Cobell said “there is little doubt this is significantly less than the full accounting to which individual Indians are entitled….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.” She died the year after the settlement was agreed to, after a short battle with cancer.
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