A case that was not about one nation
The Cobell litigation was not an Apache case. Its lead plaintiff, Elouise Cobell, was a member of the Blackfeet Nation in Montana, and the people it covered came from many nations across the country. It matters on this site because Apache individuals were among those who held Individual Indian Money accounts, and because the case changed how the federal government accounts for trust funds. The broader history of trust management is covered in a separate article on the trust fund; this one stays with the lawsuit and its outcome.
What the lawsuit was about
Individual Indian Money, or IIM, accounts hold income from land that the federal government keeps in trust for individual Native owners. That income comes from leases for grazing, timber, farming, minerals, oil and gas, and similar uses. Many of these lands trace back to the Dawes Act allotment of reservations in the late nineteenth century. Over generations, inheritance split single allotments into tiny shares owned by dozens or hundreds of heirs, which made the accounting more complicated.
The Interior Department collected and distributed the money. The plaintiffs argued that it had kept poor records, could not fully account for what it had collected, and had not paid owners what they were due. In 1996 Cobell and other plaintiffs filed a class action in federal court in Washington. The case was named for the Interior Secretary of the day, so it appears in the record as Cobell v. Babbitt, then under later secretaries’ names, and finally Cobell v. Salazar.
The federal district judge handling the case repeatedly found that the government had failed to meet its trust duties, and the dispute dragged on for well over a decade through appeals and orders about what an adequate accounting would involve. A full historical accounting of every account proved difficult, in part because records were missing or incomplete.
The 2009 settlement
In December 2009 the parties announced a settlement. Congress approved it in the Claims Resolution Act of 2010, the court gave its approval in 2011, and payments began after appeals ended, around the end of 2012. The widely reported total was about 3.4 billion dollars, made up of three parts:
- About 1.5 billion dollars for two groups of account holders. A “historical accounting class” received a flat payment of 1,000 dollars per person, and a larger “trust administration class” received payments calculated from the account’s history.
- About 1.9 billion dollars for a Land Buy-Back Program, which offered to buy small, fractionated land interests from willing sellers and return the land to tribal ownership.
- Up to 60 million dollars for a scholarship fund for Native students.
Elouise Cobell died in 2011, before the payments were made.
What it meant for Apache account holders
Whether an Apache person was affected depended on whether they, or an ancestor, held an IIM account, and that depended on the land history of each reservation. Some reservations were allotted extensively and others far less, so the experience of the San Carlos Apache, the White Mountain Apache, the Mescalero Apache and the Jicarilla Apache differed. Individuals who qualified could receive payments. The buy-back program also gave nations an opportunity to consolidate ownership of parcels that had become too fractured to use, though how any nation took part is a matter for that nation’s own land office.
The settlement concerned individual accounts. Tribal governments’ own trust funds, which hold money for the nation as a whole, were generally addressed through separate claims and negotiations, and the Indian Claims Commission had dealt with an earlier generation of tribal claims over land. The scholarship fund, for its part, was intended to support Native students, including those attending Apache tribal colleges and schools, though available support changes over time.
Reactions and limits
Responses to the settlement were mixed. Supporters pointed to the size of the payment and to the land buy-back as real, practical results. Critics argued that the amounts were small compared with what some account holders believed they were owed, that a full accounting was never completed, and that signing on meant giving up further claims. Objections were raised in court before the settlement was approved.
The case also raised a wider question that remains debated: how a government acting as trustee should be held to account when it manages money for another party. It strengthened the argument that Apache land rights and the income from that land are only as secure as the systems that record them.
This article is a general explanation, not legal or financial advice. Deadlines for claims have long since passed, and current trust account questions should go to the Interior Department’s trust office and to the relevant nation’s own official website or land office.