Elouise P. Cobell

Elouise Pepion Cobell, also known as Yellow Bird Woman (November 5, 1945 – October 16, 2011) (Niitsítapi Blackfoot Confederacy), was a tribal elder and activist, banker, rancher, and lead plaintiff in the groundbreaking class-action suit Cobell v. Salazar (2009). This challenged the United States' mismanagement of trust funds belonging to more than 500,000 individual Native Americans. She pursued the suit from 1996, challenging the government to account for fees from resource leases.

In 2010, the government approved a $3.4 billion settlement for the trust case. Major portions of the settlement were to partially compensate individual account holders, and to buy back fractionated land interests, and restore land to reservations. It also provided for a $60 million scholarship fund for Native Americans and Alaskan Natives, named the Cobell Education Scholarship Fund in her honor. The settlement is the largest ever in a class action against the federal government.

Buy-back of lands has continued, restoring acreage to the tribes. As of November 2016, $40 million had been contributed to the scholarship fund by the government, from its purchase of lands. It has paid $900 million to buy back the equivalent of 1.7 million acres in fractionated land interests, restoring the land base of reservations to tribal control.

In November 2016, Cobell's work on behalf of Native Americans was honored by the award of a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama; her son Turk Cobell accepted the award on her behalf.