Search results
Oct 18, 2023 · The Osage murders illustrate something profoundly dark about the lie of American identity. The trope is that anyone can find success and happiness — that there’s something mythic and...
- Aja Romano
- Overview
- The wealth of the Osage
- The Osage murders begin
- “Killers of the Flower Moon”
The suspicious deaths of more than 60 members of Oklahoma’s Osage Nation are the focus of Martin Scorsese’s new film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Rita Smith, an Osage Nation American, and her husband William E. Smith were killed when their house exploded in March 1923. More than 60 Osage people were murdered for their wealth around this time.
Poison, jealousy, murder, ambition. Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese’s newest film, tells a story seemingly made for Hollywood—the tale of how white settlers used fatal means to seize the wealth of the Osage people of Oklahoma in the early 20th century. But the film, based on David Grann’s bestselling 2017 book of the same name, isn’t all fiction.
Born in very real, misguided federal policies and fueled by the outsized desire of white settlers to profit from Native Americans’ land wealth, local greed resulted in the deaths of at least 60 wealthy Osage people—and possibly many more. Here’s what happened, why some are still left unsolved, and how the crimes set the stage for modern law enforcement in the United States.
The Osage Nation came into massive wealth after oil was discovered beneath its reservation in the 1890s. Worth about $400 million dollars annually in modern currency by the 1920s, oil transformed the daily lives of the Osage people and turned them into what was then considered the richest nation on Earth.
At the time, prevalent attitudes held that Native Americans were naive, primitive, and in need of white oversight lest they squander their wealth. The government also historically considered Indian tribes to be dependent nations in need of federal protection: promoting laws designed to “protect,” not empower, Native people.
These laws often did not protect Native interests—and instead served as ways for white settlers to seize and retain control over Native people and their ancestral lands. In 1887, for example, the Dawes Act broke tribal lands up and gave them to Native families with tribal claims willing to undergo cultural assimilation. However, the law also sold “excess” land to white settlers, dramatically reducing the amount of land owned by Native nations.
The Osage nation sidestepped this “allotment” system, since it had bought 1.5 million acres of Oklahoma land outright from the federal government when the group was driven out of its ancestral lands in Kansas in 1872. The Osage nation gave all the land to members, each receiving 657 acres. The nation itself held on to the mineral rights of the land, granting each member an inheritable “headright” to the share of the nation’s mineral wealth. As the nation’s oil brought in more and more money, each Osage was entitled to more wealth—drawing the interest, then interference, of non-Osage Oklahomans.
The Osage people’s newfound wealth brought scrutiny to individuals’ money management, and newspaper reports about chauffeured cars, mansions and fancy clothing upset those who thought the Osage should spend their money more wisely. In 1908, in response to an outcry of protest over the Osage Nation’s supposed inability to manage its money, Congress gave county probate courts in Oklahoma jurisdiction over land held by Native Americans who were deemed “minors and incompetents” by a judge. If a person was deemed incompetent, the probate court could appoint a white guardian to oversee their financial affairs—and lease or sell their land.
In 1921, Congress went even further to specify that any person with Osage blood under 21 years of age, in addition to anyone who was half or full Osage, must prove their competency or have a state-court-appointed guardian assume management of their finances. Even the suspicion of irresponsibility was enough for the court to designate a white guardian with the right to disperse an Osage’s money, charge them steep administrative fees—and pocket any funds above a threshold of a $1,000 per quarter. As a result, writes historian Dennis McAuliffe, 600 guardians took $8 million in surplus funds alone with no oversight and no accountability over the course of just three years.
The stage had been set for financial abuse—and soon, murder. Beginning in 1921, a series of mysterious deaths began in Osage County.
In May 1921, the bodies of Anna Brown and her cousin Charles Whitehorn were discovered on the same day in different parts of the county. Two months later, Brown’s mother Lizzie Kyle, who had inherited headrights, was killed by poisoning. Then, Lizzie’s nephew was killed in February 1923—and on March 10, Lizzie’s daughter, her son-in-law, and a domestic worker died in a mysterious explosion at their home. The deaths sparked panic throughout Osage County and became known as a “reign of terror.” Meanwhile, the massive wealth of the Kyle family was inherited by the only survivors—Mollie Kyle, a full-blooded Osage who was Lizzie’s last remaining daughter, and her white husband Ernest Burkhardt.
The Kyles weren’t the only Osage people who died around this time, all under suspicious circumstances that included suspected poisonings, supposed suicides, and even being thrown off a train. Between 1921 and 1925, at least 60 Osage people were murdered or disappeared. All possessed wealth due to their headrights—and the Osage Tribal Council suspected that a prominent local white cattleman, William K. Hale, might be to blame.
Hale, originally from Texas, was known for his exploitative financial dealings with Osage people, and he was of outsized influence in Osage County. He owned or partially controlled the bank, the local general store, the funeral home, and even served as a reserve sheriff. Hale’s nephew, Burkhardt, was married to Mollie Kyle, who had now inherited her family members’ millions. Though the murders continued, local investigations and law enforcement efforts to solve the murders failed.
The Osage Tribal Council turned to the federal government for help solving the mystery of the murders. In response, the Bureau of Investigation, now known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, began an undercover investigation in the area.
As the investigation began teasing out Hale’s possible connection to the killings, more murders occurred. When Mollie Kyle confessed to her priest that she thought she might be being poisoned, investigators cracked the case. Hale, it turned out, had pressured his nephew to marry Kyle, then engaged contract killers to murder her entire family. Under pressure from his uncle, Burkhardt had been giving his wife poison-laced whiskey to drink.
Nor did the saga of the Osage Nation’s wealth end with the killers’ convictions. In 1925, Congress passed a law prohibiting non-Osage people from inheriting headrights owned by people with Osage or other Native American ancestry. But complaints about the federal government’s dealings with the Osage Nation’s assets continued. In 2011, after decades of legal tussling, the U.S. government finally gave the Osage Nation a $380 million settlement and agreed to a variety of measures designed to better manage the Osage Nation’s assets.
Today, the Osage Nation murders are largely thought to have been the case that helped birth the FBI and modern law enforcement, which relies on extensive investigations, undercover operations, and the use of informants to crack complex criminal cases. Though the murders began over a century ago, they still echo in the lives and finances of the Osage people.
Oct 20, 2023 · Here's how faithfully Martin Scorsese's western epic captures the real history behind the Osage murders.
- Megan Mccluskey
Oct 19, 2023 · A true-life saga involving organized crime, racial prejudice and evolving American identity, the material seemed at first glance like a perfect fit for the director of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas,...
The Osage murders were a series of murders of Osage tribal members in Oklahoma principally in the 1920s. Many of the killings were part of a conspiracy to obtain the oil wealth of Osage members. The murders were the first major criminal investigation conducted by the U.S. government agency that became the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Oct 19, 2023 · In the early 1920s, William Hale was a powerful force in Osage County, a venal man who regarded Native Americans as less than human while pretending to be the tribe's friend and benefactor. Hale...
People also ask
What do the Osage Murders tell us about American identity?
What are the Osage Murders?
How long did it take white to find the Osage killers?
How did the Osage Tribal Council solve the murders?
Where did the Osage murders take place?
Why did the Osage people die?
Oct 20, 2023 · The script originally told the story of an Osage tribal family, who were murdered for their oil lease rights in the early 1920s, from the perspective of Tom White (Jesse Plemons), the agent in...
