The federal government commits another $2 billion to buy up small shares of scattered properties from their current owners. The settlement provides $1.4 billion to be shared among the plaintiffs (yielding just $1000 per plaintiff). In early December 2009, the government offered and the plaintiffs accepted a settlement in this 13-year-old case. The Native American plaintiffs expressed disappointment at the verdict, which holds the government accountable for only a fraction of the amount descendants claim to be owed, and have not yet said whether they will appeal.
Individual indian monies trial#
In 1996 banker Elouise Cobell filed a class action lawsuit charging the government mismanaged more than $100 billion in oil, timber, grazing and other royalties on land owned by some 500,000 individual Indian beneficiaries.Īfter a trial in June 2008, Judge James Robertson ordered that the government is responsible for about $455 million of missing Native American money. Department of the Interior or its appointed representatives. Salazar class action lawsuit resulted in a settlement for Native American plaintiffs.Īccording to accounts from whistle-blowers, money belonging to individual Indians was pilfered, skimmed, redirected, or thrown in with general government funds by the U.S. government took control of Native Americans’ property rights in 1887, Indians were assured they would receive all the income from their land.
government to ensure Native Americans were paid for the income on land held in trust for them. FCNL lobbied Congress to approve the settlement in Cobell’s lawsuit against the U.S. Elouise Cobell has posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her advocacy for Native American self-determination and financial independence.
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