Elouise Cobell
and with one woman in particular, Elouise Pepion Cobell. What Cobell taught me, by example, was that heroes don’t start out to be heroes; they simply do whatever it takes to make things right, no matter what the cost! As one of her lawyers said, “When you lead a movement that seeks fundamental change, there always has to be someone who simply refuses to go to the back of the bus, and that person is Elouise Cobell.” The decision to file the lawsuit in 1996 was
James “Mad Dog” Kennerly (Blackfeet)
It was for the Mary Johnsons and the Mad Dog Kennerlys of Indian Country that Cobell fought so long and so hard. And it was by no small coincidence that the woman who was holding the U.S. govern- ment accountable, had a knack for numbers.
When I first read about the Cobell lawsuit in a 2002 article in Mother Jones magazine I was shocked and appalled by the federal gov- ernment’s gross mismanagement of the Indi- an Trust Funds. It was hard for me to wrap my brain around the fact that despite the newspa- per headlines of the noveau-riche Indians of Gaming, there was a much bigger story in 21st century America; Indians who were land-rich, were living dirt-poor, without running water and electricity. The U.S. government trustee who managed the leasing of Indian oil and gas, timber and grazing lands through the De- partment of Interior had never given Indians an accounting of their royalty payments. Not once over the course of a century! How was that possible? I was completely unaware of the lawsuit and I was ashamed of the neglect by my gov- ernment! This was the largest class-action lawsuit ever filed against the U.S. so why weren’t there front-page headlines all across America about this story? I wanted to know more, but as a non-Native who had never set foot on an Indian reservation and didn’t know any American Indians, I was at a loss. But I couldn’t get this story out from under my skin, and I couldn’t force myself to look the other way. So I took my passion and started on a journey. Eight years later I have formed friend- ships with Indians all across the country
28 AMERICAN INDIAN SUMMER 2013
shaped by many events throughout Cobell’s life. One of them was Ghost Ridge. On my first trip to the Blackfeet Reservation she took me to the sacred burial site. The historic state marker along Highway 89, south of the Two Medicine River tells the story: “The Starvation Winter of 1883–1884 took the lives of 500 Blackfeet Indians who had been camping in the vicinity of Old Agency. This tragic event was the result of an inadequate supply of government rations during the exceptionally hard winter.” The story passed down to Cobell by her fa-
ther every time they passed the site, however, was much bleaker: “There was an old agency where the Indian agent was housed to make sure the Indians didn’t get off the reservation,” Cobell recalled. “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 govern- ment, 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 govern- ment accountable for.” Born one of nine children on the Black-
feet Reservation on Nov. 5, 1945, Elouise Pepion was the great, great granddaughter of the revered Mountain Chief, the hereditary chief of the Blackfeet who refused to com-
PHOTO COURTESY OF FIRE IN THE BELLY PRODUCTIONS
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