I thought it was going to be big deal that would restructure the whole way we thought about things and turn everything on its head. I’m talking about the day Scotland was going to vote for its independence and declare itself free of England.

Now, I have always been interested in what happens with the Anglos across the waters because they never boarded a boat and afflicted Native peoples. So, as this skirt-wearing, albeit cultural group was heading to the polls, I just knew this moment was landmark. And it was, in a different way.

Fate intervened--via my cell phone. One of my relatives had texted me that she got her Cobell check on the same day the Scots were voting to secede from the United Kingdom. Now, for anyone who has been in the upper atmosphere on a space station the past four years, final payments went out on a class action lawsuit brought against the federal government for fiduciary negligence on past Native royalty payments. All set in motion by a Blackfoot woman who had the tenacity of a pit bull.

Sure enough, white envelopes began to hit the mailboxes state-side. Nearly everyone who I talked to commented that the envelopes were not the traditional brown-gold paper favored by the U.S. Department of Treasury. A small detail, to be sure, but telling.

I remembered interviewing Elouise Cobell several years ago before she died in 2011 following a battle with cancer. I remember the shock when I heard the news of her passing. I thought of her as bigger than life, this monolith who wrestled the federal government to a rude truce. As a rule, I do not believe in coincidences anymore but the enormity of the fight and the resulting indignation must have eaten away at her.

During the actual trial (Cobell vs. Salazar), I read through the court transcripts. It was tragically comic in an epic and poignant way. The years of fiscal abuse Individual Indian Money (IIM) account holders endured (unwittingly) were legion.  The scope of it had put the original settlement sum at about $10 billion. But it was whittled down to $3.4 billion. For whatever reason, I maintain that somehow the federal government just could not put ownership on a misdeed so large that it defied logical description.

As if a script were written in old-time Vaudeville, Anglo banks and businesses regarded their Indian customers with renewed vigor during the Cobell payout. For beneficiaries who were willing, they could take out an advance loan at a questionable but legally high rate or pay five percent to get their checks cashed. Some banks in a densely populated “Indian” town required check holders to open a bank account and wait a day before funds were accessible.

It is fitting that the money has reached the vintage of a fine wine. By its very nature, the monies were meant to be enjoyed after sitting in limbo for years as attorneys and officials haggled over details that failed to arouse outrage anymore. Give the people back their money, circumstances seem to say.

From the exact onset of royalty payments, pillaging of Indian monies began. So these checks are a snapshot of countless Indian account holders who may have lived in 1899, 1933 or 1974. I randomly picked those years, but I can remember my own grandmother who used to cash her brown-gold U.S. Treasury checks and fold the money into a neat little square. She would wrap the money up with her handkerchief as if it were a tiny hobo pack and put it in her dress pocket. Some of this Cobell money is a remnant of her, I reasoned.

This money won’t last. It’s not meant to. But I was enlightened and encouraged by what I saw. One enterprising news team had gone to a convenience store where Cobell checks were being cashed. The line of Indians was long; but every recipient was aware that the monies were historic. Another said the checks were an admission of guilt by a guilty trust benefactor who once took the bread out of the mouths of their ancestors.

What a remarkable day it had turned out to be, after all.

S.E. Ruckman is a member of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma. She is a graduate of the University of Oklahoma’s School of Journalism and was recently named a National Health Journalism Fellow by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism.