Elouise Cobell, activist, dies at 65

HELENA, Mont. -- Elouise Cobell took personally the death of each American Indian who never saw a dime in the U.S. government's $3.4 billion settlement in a long battle over mismanaged land royalties, viewing each passing as another person who would never know justice.

Now she is among those who won't witness the final outcome after dedicating more than 15 years of her life to seeing through the largest government class-action settlement in U.S. history.

Cowbell died Sunday at a Great Falls hospital of complications from cancer at age 65. The Blackfeet woman from Browning, Mont., was the driving force that guided the lawsuit through seemingly endless court proceedings and political bickering on Capitol Hill.

Even though she was successful at overcoming those obstacles -- a judge approved the $3.4 billion settlement earlier this year -- the deal faces still another legal hurdle.

Several potential members of the class-action lawsuit have filed appeals in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, promising to stretch the case into at least next year.

Dennis Gingold, the attorney Cobell had worked with since the lawsuit was filed in 1996, said individual Indians have lost their greatest champion. But he hopes her death will unite people and get the settlement money to the estimated 500,000 beneficiaries before too many more die.

"Over the years, many elders and many sick class members have died. Elouise had been very concerned about that. That is why she agreed to the settlement," Gingold said. "Unfortunately, the settlement is two years old, and class members continue to die. When we told the court that time is of the essence, it was not hyperbole." Thousands of potential beneficiaries across the nation died during the 14-year legal battle and subsequent negotiations in Congress that took an additional year. To Cobell, each death stung.

SEE PHOTOSRecent notable deaths

"We've lost three people in the last week here in the Blackfeet [Reservation in northwestern Montana] who were beneficiaries to this settlement, and it hurts," Cobell told The Associated Press in November after the Senate temporarily blocked the deal.

Former Senate Indian Affairs Committee chairman Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said there would have been no settlement without Cobell and her sheer force of will.

"It's a cruel irony that the woman who led the charge here all of those years, does not live now to see the benefits," Dorgan said. "Despite that, I know she had to feel a great sense of accomplishment with what she did." The claims of those who died have been taken up by their heirs -- as it will be with Cobell's -- and she took comfort in that, she said in an earlier interview.

Cobell, a great-granddaughter of the prominent leader Mountain Chief, grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation as Yellow Bird Woman.

Among her many notable accomplishments, Cobell was the Blackfeet Nation's treasurer for 13 years and in 1987 helped found the first bank owned by a tribe in the United States, now the Native American Bank.

But she is best known as the lead plaintiff in the trust case that spanned three presidential administrations. She won a $300,000 "genius grant" from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1997 and used most of the money to help fund the lawsuit.