The case of the mismanaged American Indian trust funds is Dickensian both in length - now 11 years before the courts - and inequity. On Wednesday, Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Interior Department had "unreasonably delayed" its accounting for billions of dollars owed to American Indian landholders and that the agency "cannot remedy the breach."
There is, of course, no full remedy - not for the historical wrongs or the cynical and shabby accounting or the years of frustration. And as Robertson and others before him have noted, a meticulously accurate tally of what the American Indians are owed is almost certainly impossible. Yet that does not mean that a reasonable compromise cannot be reached or that the government should abandon efforts to find one.
In 1996, Elouise Cobell, a Blackfoot Indian, filed a lawsuit claiming that the government had mismanaged billions of dollars in oil, timber and other royalties held in trust for some half-million Indians. The Indians were given land allotments between the end of the 19th century and 1934, a time when it was government policy to try to do away with tribal entities and reserv
ations. The government held title to the land, and these accounts were meant to collect and disburse the revenues.
The simple question is this: Can the government account for the money it held in trust? Judge Robertson's judgment: "It is now clear that completion of the required accounting is an impossible task." This, as he points out, is an "irreparable breach of fiduciary duty," a breach that, in our opinion, is all the more galling because these individual trust accounts have come over time to look like a form of paternalistic fraud.
Even with meticulous oversight, monitoring them accurately would have been a tough assignment. But the government's failure is not simply sloppy bookkeeping. It is willful neglect, including the active destruction of records and the failure to comply with court orders.
As Robertson notes, the fact that the government cannot provide a full accounting for what may be billions of dollars "does not mean that a just resolution is hopeless." He has scheduled a new hearing to try and find a remedy. We hope it will indeed mark the beginning of the end of this case and the beginning of real equity for the holders of these accounts.

This article discusses the great injustices the American government has thrust upon the American Indian. As stated in this article the government has taken control of property that the Indian’s were supposed to own but that the government declared they were owned by the state. The American government actually had the job of removing tribal entities and reservations, which aside from being un-American is a horrible travesty. The thought of just removing Native Americans from their land just to release it to whites is unthinkable; the premise that all men are created equal is what we hopefully base our country on and to allow the government to take these actions is wrong. Along with taking the land from these people the government has refused to give retribution from their seizures. This article identifies with our discussions during class, mainly from Zinn’s writing in chapter 1. Zinn discusses the desire for the Arewak to come up and welcome Columbus and his crew and only to be met with hatred and pain. When the Europeans arrived and saw the gold worn upon the Arewak’s they made up the plan to receive the gold no matter how much it hurt these native people. Columbus was under contract with his native land to return with something which would have made his journey worth while. With this bearing on Columbus’s mind he made the choice to manipulate and eventually enslave the Indians for this gold he so desperately desired. These two articles have many similarities, our government today and throughout the recent past has been removing Indians off their lands, forcing them to move from their land place to place and never just allowing them to settle, even today reservations are small and scattered because it’s not like they were here first. Columbus also took land, but unfortunately that was not all, he took fathers, mothers and children into captivity and forced them into servitude. This fact is often overlooked because it was a “necessity” to get to where we are today. Through our countless relocation and eradication of the Indian people America has been able to claim vast amounts of land which are unarguably some of the most fertile and well placed on the planet. Europe was able to use these slaves to extend their hold on a world power. With all the slaves acquired Europe could have a large amount of cheap labor while not having resources devoted the slaves. Fortunately in one sense, the Indians were able to somewhat defend themselves which unfortunately led to there eradication. If the Indians had submitted to what the Europeans desired they may have just been able to survive, granted they would have lost their land but it seems it was lost anyway.
I am not surprised by this article, I always knew that the American government used its power unethically and has removed many Indians from their land. My education when I was younger did not entirely show the severity of the situation. I was taught that Columbus was a great man and that everyone was treated equal throughout society, but as I aged I realized this is just a sugar coated theory that our government may try to portray but not nearly enforce.