In her statement to the media released on December 8, Cobell noted “there is little doubt this is significantly less than the full amount to which individual Indians are entitled. This month’s settlement, although much higher than previous offers, is widely seen by Native Americans as being very low in relation to the land’s actual value. Eloise Cobell filed the class action suit in 1996 on behalf of Indian land owners to force the government to rectify both failings. The government did not, however, follow through on its obligations, either to fully account for the profits or to distribute them to land owners. Profits from mining, gas, ranching, timber, and other economic activities on the land would be collected by the government and disbursed proportionally to the Native land owners and their families. The Dawes Act of 1887 was intended to break up reservations into small individually owned parcels of land, which would be managed by the federal government. The settlement will compensate more than 300,000 Indian landholders in western states whose families have received inadequate or no payments on the grazing, oil, gas and recreational leases the federal government has held in trust, or administered on their behalf through “individual Indian money (IIM) accounts” for the past 122 years since the Dawes Act was approved by Congress. Salazar class-action suit was announced December 8th by Blackfeet Nation banker Eloise Cobell, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Attorney General Eric Holder. The $3.4 billion settlement of the Cobell v. After 13 years of litigation and 122 years of waiting, the United States government is finally paying Native Americans for profits earned on 54 million acres of Native land held “in trust” by the federal government since 1887.
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