Robert Yellowtail
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Robert Summers Yellowtail (August 4, 1889 – June 20, 1988) was a
leader Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...
of the
Crow Tribe The Crow, whose Endonym and exonym, autonym is Apsáalooke (), are Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a List of federally recognized tribes in the United St ...
. Described as a "20th-century warrior", Yellowtail was the first Native American to hold the post of Agency Superintendent at a reservation.


Early life and education

Yellowtail was born in
Lodge Grass, Montana Lodge Grass () is a town in Big Horn County, Montana, United States. The population was 441 at the 2020 census. It is at the confluence of Lodge Grass Creek and the Little Bighorn River, on the Crow Indian Reservation. Source and derivation o ...
in 1889. Throughout his life, Yellowtail went by three Crow names. He was referred to as Bíawakshish, or "Summer", then Shoopáaheesh, or "Four War Deeds", and finally Axíchish, or "The Wet", which was shared with another war chief who was in the same clan as Yellowtail. Separated from his mother at the age of 4 years old, Yellowtail was culturally assimilated into a reservation boarding school. When he was 13 years old, he went to the Sherman Institute, in
Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. As of the 2020 census, the city has a population of 314,998. It is the most populous city in th ...
, graduating in 1907. He then attended the Extension Law School in Los Angeles, transferring to the
University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...
, where he gained his
Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...
degree.


Personal life

Yellowtail was married four times. In 1911, he married a daughter of Spotted Horse, and after she died during the 1920's, he then married Lillian Bull Shows. His second marriage ended in divorce, and in 1932, he married his late wife, Margaret Picket. After which in 1960, he entered his fourth marriage to Dorothy Payne. Yellowtail has seven children and many grandchildren. One grandson, Cary Morin, is a singer-songwriter.


Political activism

In 1910 Yellowtail was enlisted by Crow chief
Plenty Coups Plenty Coups (Crow language, Crow: ''Alaxchíia Ahú'', "many achievements"; c. 1848 – 1932) was the principal chief of the Crow Tribe and a visionary leader. He allied the Crow with the whites when the war for the West was being fought becaus ...
to defend the
Crow Indian Reservation The Crow Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Crow Tribe. Established 1868, the reservation is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in southern Montana in the United States. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled membe ...
against a bill sponsored by Montana Senator Thomas J. Walsh that sought to open the reservation to homesteading. The bill was defeated after seven years of work in Washington. Yellowtail's first official position, in 1912, was as a district representative on a tribal business committee where he negotiated grazing leases and gave the tribe a voice during land disputes. Initially, Yellowtail was in this committee to fight disputes related to Crow land, but caught the attention of other political leaders like Plenty Coups. Less than a year later he made his first trip to Washington D.C. He attended the National Indian Memorial in New York City as an interpreter for Medicine Crow, Plenty Coups and other leaders. In 1920, he helped to draft the "Crow Allotment Act" that protected Crow lands, and was instrumental in obtaining voting rights for Native Americans in 1924. From 1934 until 1945, Yellowtail was the Superintendent of the Crow Indian Reservation, the first superintendent to administer his own tribe. During this time, Yellowtail was able to get white ranchers to return 40,000 acres of land to the tribe, built a Crow Hospital, brought horses and cattle from Canada, and buffalo from
Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...
. He also demanded a better physician for the Crow Indian Hospital and advocated for the hospital to be staffed by Crow personnel. Yellowtail was a leading figure in the opposition to a dam on the
Bighorn River The Bighorn River is a tributary of the Yellowstone, approximately long, in the states of Wyoming and Montana in the western United States. The river was named in 1805 by fur trader François Larocque for the bighorn sheep he saw along its b ...
in the southern portion of the reservation. The dam would flood the Bighorn Canyon, sacred to the Crow. Yellowtail was unable to prevent the dam's construction, which began in 1961, but won a modest increase in compensation to the tribe after a divisive fight. In a final irony, Yellowtail Dam was named after Yellowtail. Yellowtail continued to fight for compensation for the Crow people in the 1980s, arguing against sales of coal from reservation mineral rights controlled by the
Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...
. Yellowtail was the subject of a 1985 video, ''Contrary Warriors: A Story of the Crow Tribe''.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yellowtail, Robert 1988 deaths Chairpersons of the Crow Nation Crow Tribe people 1889 births People from Lodge Grass, Montana 20th-century Native American people