death_date tribe birth_place birth_date known_for article_title name
20 june 1988 crow nation lodge grass , montana 4 august 1889 leadership of the crow nation robert yellowtail
 robert summers yellowtail
robert yellowtail

robert summers `` robbie '' yellowtail -lrb- august 4 , 1889 -- june 20 , 1988 -rrb- was a leader of the crow nation .
described as a `` 20th century warrior '' , yellowtail was the first native american to hold the post of agency superintendent at a reservation .
yellowtail was born in lodge grass , montana in 1889 .
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 correspondence law course of the university of chicago , where he gained his law degree .
he was immediately enlisted by crow chief plenty coups to defend the crow indian reservation 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 by yellowtail .
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 .
in 1934 yellowtail became the superintendent of the crow indian reservation , the first superintendent to administer his own tribe .
yellowtail held the office until 1945 .
yellowtail was a leading figure in opposition to a proposed dam on the bighorn river 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 mineral rights held by the bureau of indian affairs under the crow reservation .
yellowtail was the subject of a 1985 video , `` contrary warriors : a story of the crow tribe '' .
