[1][2] As an attorney, Cross represented Native Americans in multiple landmark trials, including two U.S. Supreme Court cases, and successfully won a compensation claim against the U.S. government for the flooding of 156,000 acres of tribal land in North Dakota due to the construction of the Garrison Dam.
[4] The Cross family was forced to relocate to Parshall, North Dakota after the construction of the Garrison Dam flooded nine Indian communities, including Elbowoods, under hundreds of feet of water, forming Lake Sakakawea.
Cross’ father spent years lobbying Congress to stop the construction of the dam and later waged an unsuccessful effort to secure just compensation for the Three Affiliated Tribes.
[1] After the Indian Relocation Act fractured the family, Cross was sent to live in Santa Clara, California for his early high school years.
[1][4] Cross returned to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in 1981 to serve as tribal attorney for his people, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
[7][8] In addition to his own writing, Cross’ legal career is chronicled in the books “Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes and the Trial That Forged a Nation” and “Savages and Scoundrels” by Paul Vandevelder.