how many osage murders might there possibly have been?

Like many tribes, the Osage had been forced to allow their lands to be allotted to individual tribal members. And yet members of the United States Congress would sit in these mahogany-paneled committee rooms and literally debate as if the nation's security was at stake, scapegoating the Osage about their wealth. DAVID GRANN: Mollie is a fascinating person. how many osage murders might there possibly have been?cat costa bt24. DAVIES: Many shot, others died of mysterious illnesses, right? In 1870, the Osage-expelled from their lodges, their graves plundered-agreed to sell their Kansas lands to settlers for $1.25 an acre. And by the 1920s, the Osage collectively had accumulated millions and millions of dollars. why does my poop smell different after covid / who sings as rosita in sing / how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Somebody had slipped him what was believed to be strychnine, which is just a horrible poison. I met with a descendant of Mollie Burkhart. [17][h], In the case of the Smith murders, Ernest was soon convinced that even his wife's money and his uncle's political influence could not save him. The United States Congress changed the law to prohibit non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage with half or more Native American ancestry. The violence befalling the Osage tribe is escalating in a show of force and dominance. Under the system, even minors who had less than half-Osage blood had to have guardians appointed, regardless of whether the minors had living parents. Driven from their lands in Kansas, the Osage had bought a swath of northeast Oklahoma in the early 1870s. He then called the local sheriff and said, I've got enough evidence against one of the killers. National Museum of the American Indian. The former Texas Ranger put together an undercover team that included a Native American agent. This is FRESH AIR. DAVIES: Mollie is married to a guy named Ernest Burkhart. But they also had jurisdiction over American-Indian reservations which is why they got jurisdiction over this case and why it became one of their first major homicide investigations. Follow the Osage Nation on Facebook Follow the Osage Nation on Instagram Follow the Osage Nation on LinkedInFollow the Osage Nation on Twitter Subscribe to the Osage Nation on Youtube, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Program. First, let's place Ernest Burkhart in context. But with the arrest of William K. Hale it all stopped. And he recruits one frontier lawman who will pose as a cattleman. So one of the things that happened back then because - you know, we think of ourself as a country of laws, but these institutions back in the '20s in the United States were very fragile. They bought it. In the 1990 U.S. Census, 10,430 people identified themselves as . Colorado newspapers reported the murders as the "Reign of Terror" on the Osage reservation. he was born in a cabin in texas. What happened to the well-being of the nation? As was the case with murders, drug overdoses increased sharply in 2020. Defense attorneys move on to other cases in which clients' lives can still be saved. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Here they were able to track and follow a man all the way to Washington, D.C., had enough information to know he was going and had the power to follow him and to kill him, you know, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from Oklahoma. He went to Oklahoma City to meet with this Osage Indian who was dying of suspected poisoning. And then it turned out that lo and behold, this land was sitting upon some of the largest deposits of oil then in the United States. He didn't like agents who were too tall because he didn't want them to overshadow him. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? DAVIES: David Grann, thank you so much for speaking with us. history.[4]. The incentives for criminality were overwhelming; such guardians often maneuvered legally to steal Osage land, their headrights or royalties; others were suspected of murdering their charges to gain the headrights. Vaughan boarded a train that night to return to Pawhuska,[19] but turned up missing the next morning when the Pullman porter went to awaken him; his berth on the train had not been used. These images belie long-standing stereotypes of Native Americans that trace back to the first contact with whites, Grann tells HISTORY. After a break, Ken Tucker will review the new album by the Philadelphia band The Menzingers. In some cases lawmen were directly complicit or turned a blind eye, Grann says. See. Rita and Bill Smiths house after blast. The great wealth lured not only desperadoes, bootleggers and criminalsbut fantastic jealousy as well. As the body count rose in the early 1920s, the Osage saw no action from local and state law enforcement personnel. DAVIES: Yeah. At the turn of the 20th century, the 2,229 members of the Osage Nation were some of the wealthiest people in America.Despite being forcibly removed from their tribal homeland decades earlier, the Osage managed to strike it rich in the rocky hills of Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) when oil was discovered on their land.. A man standing 5 feet 8 inches, weighing 165 pounds . This is FRESH AIR. In 1923 alone "the tribe took in more than thirty million dollars, the equivalent today of more than four hundred million dollars. But the Osage because they owned their land, they had more leverage with the U.S. government. 0. what episode does buck and eddie kiss south whittier school district board meeting. By that time, there were only a few thousand left. I've never encountered crimes like that before. First, choose a theme and. "The Osage Murders" is a historical documentary focusing on the events that occurred on the Osage reservation in the 1920s. "'Reign of Terror Kills Osage Family". A headright was hereditary, passing to the immediate legal heir of the deceased allottee. "[1] Some Osage used their royalties to send their children to private schools; others bought fancy cars, clothes and jewelry, and traveled in Europe; and newspapers across the country covered their activities. They would refer to him as kind of Boy Scouts, who looked - had very clean-cut images and were very presentable. 9. DAVIES: Was this reported in the local press? And it becomes apparent that they are now moving into a realm in which it is very hard for them to know who they can trust and that the very power structure within the community is more than likely complicit within these crimes. Document in the "HaleRamsey Murder Case", from the Oklahoman Collection at the Oklahoma Historical Society Photo Archives. They involve morticians who would then cover up the crimes. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? how many osage murders might there possibly have been? He was sometimes called "Will". But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! GRANN: So her family becomes a prime target of a conspiracy. Talk about what services you provide. He shows up to look into the killings. They are rich people with a reservoir of oil and other minerals in their homeland. He realizes given the danger, given the fear in the area, given the corruption the team will have to go in undercover. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? So Mary Jo Webb was somebody who I met. He came to believe that Woodward was responsible for her death. To try to prevent further criminality and to protect the Osage, in 1925 Congress passed a law prohibiting non-Osage from inheriting headrights from Osage who had half or more Native American ancestry.[13][23]. The price of a barrel of oil, which reached more than $3 during the boom years, plummeted to 65 cents in 1931, and an annual headright payment fell to less than $800. Under the Osage Allotment Act of 1906, subsurface minerals within the Osage Nation Reservation were held in trust by the U.S. government, but were tribally owned. Some of the murders were committed for the purposes of taking over land and wealth of Osage members, whose land was producing valuable oil and who each had headrights that earned lucrative annual royalties. So within just two months, Mollie Burkhart had lost her sister to a gunshot, her mother to poisoning. Fixico) and as Vaught in others (e.g. And she had pulled out a box of documents, and she told me about the death of her grandfather who had been run over, who had been poisoned. DAVIES: And is the population of the Osage Nation about what it was or more or less? Subsequently, Ramsey changed his story, claiming that the actual killer was Curly Johnson. In 2000, the tribe filed a lawsuit against the department, alleging that federal government management of the trust assets had resulted in historical losses to its trust funds and interest income. Methodical, incorruptible and fearless, White put together a team that, having eliminated all alternative explanations, concluded the Osage killings were directed by Ernest Burkhart's uncle, William Hale, a wealthy rancher known as "the King of the Osage Hills", who had tried to cash in a $25,000 life insurance policy on Henry Roan. DAVIES: And it's worth noting that I guess particularly Osage women - their control of these assets were restricted in some ways. And the challenges that Tom White and his men faced were just enormous, almost Herculean in that, one - there was enormous corruption. Soon, Grann writes, the world's richest people per capita were becoming the most murdered. We'll talk about how J. Edgar Hoover's FBI handled the murders after we take a short break. Several people who had tried to catch the killers themselves had been killed. The bureau didnt reveal a deeper, darker conspiracy, and as a result many were able to escape justice., Workers strike oil in Osage territory. . They were all frontier lawmen. There was a great deal of lawlessness. DAVIES: And so how helpful, how beneficial was this to the Osage? He recruits a man who once sold insurance and now will sell insurance as his fake identity when he's in Osage County. $28.95. [11] Roan also had a financial connection with Hale, having borrowed $1,200 from the cattleman. GRANN: Exactly. All along, it wasthe UnitedStates thatheld the threads of the lives . Juni 2022. So he puts together an undercover team of these cowboys. This sordid episode has been revived recently by Killers of the Flower Moon, which as of June 2021 is being made into a movie on location in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. He grew up at a time and became a lawman at a time when justice was often meted out by the barrel of a gun. In 1815 there were twelve thousand. There were so many willing executioners. Investigators who probed the case too deeply also had a propensity for turning up dead. There really was a culture of killing and a culture of complicity. In March 1923 an alarmed Osage Tribal Council sought U.S. government intervention in the . Because of the large number of leads and the perception that the police were corrupt, White decided he would be the public face of the investigation while most of the agents would work undercover. Hale fraudulently arranged to make himself the beneficiary of Roan's $25,000 life insurance policy. Woodward also served as the federally appointed Tribal Counsel,[22] and he had guardianship of four other Osage charges, each of whom had died by 1923. By the early 1900s, the Osage - these 2,000 or so on the tribal roll - began to receive quarterly checks for the money that was used to pay for leases and royalties. Many of them were not very well-trained. (Credit: David Grann). Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR contributor Dave Davies recorded with David Grann, author of a new book about one of the biggest serial murder cases in American history. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, occurred between 1921 and 1923. "The Osages, who were forced to sell . KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Instead, he slipped away, robbed a bank and murdered a police officer. In the 1920s an oil boom brought millions in profits to the Osage Nation, but white guardians assigned to guard the Native Americans' wealth brought abuse, theft and murder instead. These private investigators were often, though, sordid characters. And they imposed restrictions. I'm Terry Gross. On May 27, 1921, the partially decomposed body of a 25-year-old Osage woman named Anna Brown was discovered in a ravine in Osage County, Oklahoma, dead from a bullet to the back of the head. Boy Scouts - local Boy Scouts took up the search. David Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker, who's won a George Polk Award. An oil well in Osage County, Oklahoma, home to the Osage Nation. Subsequently, an autopsy revealed that the cause of Brown's death was not alcohol, but a bullet fired into the back of her head. These guardians were believed to have swindled their charges out of millions of dollars. They weren't protected by law or any kind of treaty. They worked quickly and methodically. Now, you have to remember this in the 1920s, and the period of Great Gatsby. The trials received national newspaper and magazine coverage. She's in her 80s now. It has its own government. The Osage would hang lights around their houses so that at night they would be illuminated. The BOI sent Tom White to lead an investigation. And for someone like Mollie Burkhart to have to reckon when she begins to discover that the very people she knew enough and trusted were the very people who were targeting her family. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Mollie Burkhart obviously pleaded for justice, crusaded for justice, but the white authorities really did nothing early on - or very little. So you get a sense just of the quality of the legal establishment who is supposed to be solving these crimes. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? The U.S. Department of the Interior managed leases for oil exploration and production on land owned by the Osage Nation through the Bureau of Indian Affairs and later managed royalties, paying individual allottees. In his new book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann tells the riveting story of the murders of the world's richest people per capita in the 1920s. As one person told me, yes, we were victims of this murder, but we don't live as victims. July 3, 2022 . The Osage had shrewdly retained the rights to any mineral discoveries, and oil barons such as J. Paul Getty, Harry Sinclair and Frank Phillips paid grand sums for leases at outdoor auctions held under the boughs of a vast tree dubbed the Million Dollar Elm. Each member of the Osage tribe received quarterly royalty payments, and as the years progressed, so did the number of digits on their check, growing into the hundreds and then the thousands of dollars. [8] In 1924, the Department of the Interior charged two dozen guardians of Osage with corruption in the administration of their duties related to their charges, but all avoided punishment by settling out of court. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? He has to wear a suit and a fedora where he had once ridden on a horse back with a 10-gallon hat. And she looked down in the direction of where her sister's house had stood, and she could see a large, orange fire rising into the sky. They had servants, many of whom were white. The case shifted from a question of who did it to can you actually convict them? "A look at the Osage Indian murders", Ewen, Alexander and Jeffrey Wollock. This is FRESH AIR. It was a real time of terror. About the film. This was a deeply racist system, and it literally was based on the quantum of Osage blood. It does not seem the kingpin was connected to all the murders. You slowly can't breathe, but you're conscious throughout until finally you mercifully suffocate. 8. And evidence later surfaced that she had been poisoned. And what it showed, though, and what is so important, is the reach and the power of the people who are carrying out these murders. GRANN: There was certainly locally some coverage. It was said at the time whereas as one American might own a car, each Osage owned 11 cars. By the early 20th century, because of this kind of clash of cultural forces, so many whites were coming into the area because of the well, so many oil workers and oil men. DAVIES: Right - a terrible, dramatic crime and a mystery around it. make certain you understand what it means. But then, he never arrived. [1] The Bureau of Investigation (BOI), the preceding agency to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), found a low-level market in contract killers to kill the Osage for their wealth. He was part of a tribe of lawmen. Doubleday. And there was a genuine sense of terror. The Osage Tribal Council suspected that Hale was responsible for many of the deaths. On February 6, 1923, Henry Roan, another cousin of Brown's (also known as Henry Roan Horse), was found in his car on the Osage Reservation, dead from a shot in the head. These were men who were kind of struggling to adapt to the new bureau to adapt to new scientific forms of detection which were slowly emerging such as fingerprinting, handwriting analysis. It could also explain why 77 percent of all killings last year involved a gun more than in any previous year. Osage mineral lease royalties were paid to the tribe, who then distributed it equally to each allottee. Her children inherited all of her estate. And gradually, a lot of the oil was depleted. This equal share was called a headright. We'll continue our conversation after a break. And it's what makes this so barbaric. "Osage Reign of Terror. And they had very. DAVIES: Because they'd bought it. But this is a case where there's a great deal of intrigue and mystery early on. They resettled there. She said, in many cases, they don't fully know even what their ancestors did, but we live side by side. His head had been beaten in. Vaughan complied, and the two men met that night. [1] McAuliffe learned that his grandmother's murder had been covered up by a false death certificate. And this team then is sent in undercover, and, of course, they do not represent the team the kind of agents that Hoover was touting as college boys. Kyle. This is FRESH AIR. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Although Walton later pardoned Davis, the investigation of Bigheart and Vaughan was never completed. And perhaps most interestingly, he recruits an American-Indian agent. In some instances, white settlers even married their marks to legally become the next of kin before murdering their spouses.