The U.S. Government last month settled one of its largest class action lawsuits in history. President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder agreed to settle a claim Indian Tribes brought against the United States in 1996. The claim accused the United States Government of mismanaging the trust funds of over 300,000 American Indians.
The U.S. Government assigned American Indians land with a program that dates back to the 1880s. Long since assigning the land to American Indians, the U.S. Government now manages 56 million acres of Indian Trust land.
The system is simple enough: the Department of Interior leases the land in trust for the purpose of natural resource extraction (such as oil or timber), and subsequently distributes that revenue to various Indian Tribes.
After the case came in front of a federal appellate court 10 times, it will finally be settled for $3.4 billion. Indian tribes point to accounting irregularities and claim they were owed drastically more than the government paid out. Are you owed more than you are paid?
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