Eloise Cobell recounts long legal fight over U.S. mismanagement of Indian trust funds

Eloise Cobell, executive director of the Native American Community Development Corporation and lead plaintiff in the class action Cobell v. Kempthorne, told an audience at the University of Montana in Missoula that the federal government has never properly accounted for money from individual Indian trust accounts since allotment began in 1887.

"This is not about asset management. It's about money that the government has collected off of our resources," Cobell said, summarizing the thrust of the lawsuit and the plaintiffs' demand for an accounting and, if required, restitution.

Cobell framed the case as three discrete claims: first, to require the federal agencies to fix their accounting systems; second, to provide each individual account holder with an accounting of funds collected on their behalf; and third, to make adjustments to account balances if restitution is warranted. She said the suit, filed June 10, 1996, on behalf of more than 500,000 individual Indian account holders, has produced repeated court findings in the plaintiffs' favor but limited practical relief.

Why it matters: Cobell said courts have…