Yellowtail, Robert, 1889-1988

Variant names

Dates:

Birth 1889-08-04

Death 1988-06-20

Biographical notes:

Robert Yellowtail was a leader of the Crow Nation. 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, graduating in 1907. He then attended the Extension Law School in Los Angeles, transferring to the University of Chicago Law School, where he gained his Juris Doctor degree. 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.