how many osage murders might there possibly have been?

He's then arrested. Between 1920 and 1925, an estimated sixty Osage were murdered in shootings, poisonings, stabbings, in fires, even in a bombing; a number of white investigators were also slain. The bureau had had in the early 1920s - one of the worst con men in the history of the United States was working for the FBI. [d][e] There, doctors suspected that he had ingested poisoned whiskey. DAVIES: In this period in which whites in Osage had a lot of social contact, a lot of intermarriage, many whites that were trusted by members of the Osage Nation - this FBI agent Tom White and his team begin to discover some pretty sinister stuff going on. His new book is "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI." There was an enormous amount of prejudice. he was born in a cabin in texas. And it was utterly devastating to her as anyone would imagine. To gain part of the wealth, Hale persuaded Ernest to marry Mollie Kyle, a full-blooded Osage. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. The governor quickly pardons him, and then he goes and commits an unrelated murder. DAVIES: And one of the questions that occurred to me as I read this was it was so remarkable that so many of these men would target Osage women, that so many of these Osage women were open to these relationships and trusted these men. And he spoke to them. John Ramsey confessed to participation in the murder of Roan as soon as he was arrested. In 1926, Ernest pleaded guilty to being part of the conspiracy. "It could come down to . You'd have a sheriff. And it is the first hint that Mollie's family has become a target of this conspiracy and that her tribe has also become a target of this conspiracy. March 1, 2011. And then within about 30 years because of oil deposits under her land becomes one of the wealthier people in the United States and is living in a mansion and married to a white husband, has a couple children. 3 Luglio 2022; common last names in kazakhstan; medical careers that don't require math in sa . How'd that happen? It does not seem the kingpin was connected to all the murders. He had been a longtime private eye, had a criminal history. While being investigated for the murder of Henry Roan, Burkhart tied Hale and Ramsey to the murder of Roan and confessed to the murder of William E. Smith. They involve morticians who would then cover up the crimes. Following the shooting of a cousin less than two years later, Mollies sister Rita and her husband were killed when an explosion reduced their house to kindling. GRANN: So not only was Anna Brown murdered, not long after Anna died, Mollie Burkhart's mother, who was kind of one of the last of the Osage elders who still practiced many of the old traditions, became mysteriously sick. In 1929, $27 million was reported as still being held by the "Guardian System", the organization set up to protect the financial interests of 883 Osage families in Osage County.[9]. (Credit: Bettmann / Getty Images). His new book about the murders on the Osage American-Indian reservation in Oklahoma in the 1920s is called "Killers Of The Flower Moon." FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. In 1923 alone, the Osage received what today would be worth more than $400 million. GRANN: Yes, not just Osage women, all Osage - or all full-blooded Osage. Osage County officials sought revenge against Pyle for his role in bringing the murders to light. There are no statistics about how many American-Indian agents were in the bureau at the time, but I suspect he was the only one. This Scottish-born boy came to America at the age of 16 after his father died. 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. And they begin to also realize that there is a complicity of silence. And there was a complicity to these killings because they involved not only the perpetrators. Generally speaking, what are they finding? In 1923 alone, the 2,000 tribe members collectively received $30 millionthe equivalent to $400 million today, according to Grann. 8. 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. and the treaties in which it has been promised, there arises the duty of protection, and . This is FRESH AIR. But there was also a great deal of corruption. Hale and his nephews, Ernest and Bryan Burkhart, had migrated from Texas to Osage County to find jobs in the oil fields. DAVIES: So plenty of jury tampering and all. 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. What happened to the well-being of the nation? Subsequently, Ramsey changed his story, claiming that the actual killer was Curly Johnson. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? 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. A week later, Anna Brown's body is found in a ravine. Kyle. GRANN: These were deeply intimate crimes. In the early 20th century, the members of the Osage Nation became the richest people per capita in the world, after oil was discovered under their reservation, in Northeast Oklahoma. More than two dozen members of the Osage tribe had been shot, stabbed, beaten and bombed in one of the bloodiest crime sprees in American history. Killers of the Flower Moon STUDENT PREP DOCUMENT(1).pdf So the government in - really looking back, just an outrageous system - decided somehow that the Osage were not capable of handling their money. Do you have any insight into that? $28.95. This is FRESH AIR. It's extremely resilient. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? So the Osage purchased this land. By David Grann. Somebody had planted a bomb under the house, killing everyone in it, including Mollie's sister Rita, including her - Rita's husband and a white servant who lived in the house. What you begin to realize, the deeper you dig, is that this was not a crime about who did it as much as who didn't do it - that there was a culture of killing taking place during this period and that there were scores if not hundreds of murders. There were so many willing executioners. And there was a certain kind of unmooredness to the society. They lived in mansions and had chauffeured cars. The Mystery Of The Osage Murders | Texas Standard Osage Indian Murders - Primary Sources: Native Americans - American In 2000, the Osage Nation filed a suit against the Department of the Interior, alleging that it had not adequately managed the assets and paid people the royalties they were due. They were driven off their lands. And what that meant is they would receive a check for any royalties or any leases that derived from the oil money. By . They once controlled much of the Midwest of the country. White oil men are blowing fortunes and going bankrupt. Whats interesting is you get to see Hoover and the bureau in its formative period. Most of the murders were never prosecuted, but some men were convicted and sentenced including William Hale, who ordered the murders of his nephew's wife and other members of her family, to gain control of their oil rights. First, choose a theme and. History Bookshelf David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon : CSPAN3 Local whites befriended them, in some cases, married them and targeted them for their money. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, were reported between 1921 and 1923. But then, he never arrived. Non-Osages were able to inherit an Osage headright, and this was the motive for the Reign of Terror. He also alerted one of the FBI agents. [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. In Killers of the Flower Moon, Grann picks up the case and reveals the even wider conspiracy in the Osage murders, which may have numbered in the hundreds. The settlement also strengthened management of the tribe's trust assets and improved communications between the Department of Interior and the tribe. The Reign of Terror was a frightful time for the Osage people. The courts appointed the guardians from local white lawyers or businessmen. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Credit: David Grann). DAVIES: We're speaking with David Grann. GRANN: So the Osage issue a tribal resolution where they plead for federal investigators to come in, those who will not be tainted or connected to the local power structure. It makes your whole body convulse as if with electricity. There was a great deal of lawlessness. And she issued rewards, and she hired a team of private investigators. He was a young man. 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. 5. These are just the murders we're talking about now in Mollie Burkhart's family. 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]. On May 27, 1921, local hunters discovered the decomposing body of 36-year-old Anna Brown in a remote ravine of Osage County. It's hard to even put a number on it. 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. It does not seem the kingpin was connected to all the murders. The Osage - he was a friend of the Osage. It wasn't simply a reservation given to them, right? You want to pick one, tell us about it? KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. All rights reserved. They had to pay for justice.. His body was eventually found 24 hours later lying along the tracks. That loophole proved the genesis of a calculated, cold-blooded plot to gain inheritance rights from tribe members before killing them. The tribe held the mineral rights communally and paid its members by a percentage related to their holdings. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Grann's new book is both an absorbing murder mystery as J. Edgar Hoover's FBI takes on its first murder investigation and also a dark journey into the hard-edged racism that allowed whites to view Native Americans as subhumans who ought to be relieved of their newly acquired wealth. They worked quickly and methodically. But with the arrest of William K. Hale it all stopped. And it probably made this more possible. phenols may certain rubber and plastic materials / rfl meaning in recruitment / justo b rapper how does a narcissist react to being blocked 0 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. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? 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. Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust and Killers of the Flower Moon "[7], In 1925, Osage tribal elders, with the help of local law officer James Monroe Pyle, sought assistance from the BOI when local and state officials could not solve the rising number of murders. 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. These images belie long-standing stereotypes of Native Americans that trace back to the first contact with whites, Grann tells HISTORY. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. There was a tremendous amount of corruption in Osage County. Grann is a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of the new book "The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI" (ph). In 1990, the murder rate per 100,000 people stood at 9.4; and stood at 6.5 in 2020. Ramsey met Roan on a road outside of Fairfax, and they drank whiskey together. Just explore that with us for a moment. But what they often lacked at least back then was real experience investigating real criminals. He never arrived in Osage County - disappeared. The short film explores the systematic murders of the Osage from 1910 to 1930 in an organized effort to rob them of their oil and money. Tell us that story. (Credit: David Grann), Prejudice provoked a scapegoating of the Osage for their wealth, and the U.S. Congress literally holds hearings about what the country could do in response, Grann says. So it was very hard to know who to turn to, who you could trust, who would stop these crimes, who would truly investigate them. Instead, he slipped away, robbed a bank and murdered a police officer. Burkhart was eventually pardoned by Oklahoma Governor Henry Bellmon in 1965. DAVIES: Now, you used the word victims - plural. GRANN: Yeah. Grann spoke to FRESH AIR's Dave Davies about his new book, "Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI.". These three books deal with the absolutely despicable history of the Osage Indians being cheated out of their oil rights in the 1920s in Oklahoma. First, let's place Ernest Burkhart in context. And by 1923, just to give you. Who would investigate this kind of murder at the time? What are we talking about? His doubts arose from a variety of conflicting evidence. You tell some fascinating stories about that. The priest told her not to touch liquor under any circumstances. We'll continue our conversation after a break. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. And he recruits one frontier lawman who will pose as a cattleman. And evidence later surfaced that she had been poisoned. Her heirs became fabulously wealthy. Seu lugar para proteger o seu capital. Theyre scalping our souls out here, complained one exasperated Osage. Photo: Tyson Luneau In the 1920s, the Osage had become the wealthiest people per capita in the world following the discovery of oil on their lands. One descendant of a murderer I spoke with sent me a note at one point. That night, when he arrived at his boarding house, he received a telegram, and it said be careful. 7. DAVIES: Right. 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. Even though scientists understood toxicologies for poison, the local police forces didn't. What was the impact on the daily lives of members of the Osage? Members of the Osage Indian Nation became very wealthy in the 1920s after oil deposits were found on their land. [12] Two months later, Lizzie Q. Kyle was killed as well. GRANN: So so much of the Osage wealth was stolen. GRANN: There was certainly locally some coverage. And eventually a very obscure branch of the Justice Department which was then known as the Bureau of Investigations, which would later be renamed the FBI, take up the case. GRANN: Yeah. Indictment for John Ramsey and William K. Hale, 1/9/1926. Osage Reign of Terror: Dark Hearts - Tulsa World In the early 1900s death was all too common in the . GRANN: You know, Tom White is in many ways like Mollie Burkhart in that he is a transitional figure in this country. She's in her 80s now. Unlock with LitCharts A+ Active Themes The house has been reduced to ash, and as dawn arrives, the justice of the peace, Mathis, and the Shoun brothers search alongside neighbors of the Smiths for bodies. One of the most prevalent means of murder and of killing the Osage was poison because of the lack of training. DAVIES: Mollie Burkhart and relatives of the other victims would turn to private investigators. Osage Murders | PBS Short Film Festival Partly that was because the victims were Native Americans. They were also often susceptible to corruption. DAVIES: There was an attorney, local attorney named W. W. Vaughn, a man with 10 kids, looks into things, thinks he has some evidence that might be helpful GRANN: Yeah, so W. W. Vaughn was a local white attorney. GRANN: Yeah. Somebody had slipped him what was believed to be strychnine, which is just a horrible poison. The coroner ruled the cause of death was "suspicious," but did not rule that it was murder. DAVIES: And you describe there was another kind of lawman who he would employ at times loosely described as cowboys. David Grann's book. It could also explain why 77 percent of all killings last year involved a gun more than in any previous year. They literally imposed a system where guardians - white guardians - were placed in charge of overseeing how the Osage spent their money. And they also had very limited jurisdictions over crimes, the FBI back then. It would later become Oklahoma. GRANN: This had now become a national story. He realizes given the danger, given the fear in the area, given the corruption the team will have to go in undercover. history.[4]. And one of the most powerful things in all of the research was meeting with the descendants. But hundreds of millions of dollars was swindled. And she had to sit through the trials and listen to the evidence presented and learn the secrets of her husband, that the secrets of this murder were right inside her house. Morrison received a life sentence in 1926, for his participation in the Brown murder. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Farris, David. In his investigation, McAuliffe found that the BOI believed that the murders of several Osage women "had been committed or ordered by their husbands. [5] His book about his investigation, Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation (1994), presents an account of the corruption and murders during this period.[1]. 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. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Killers of the Flower Moon Quotes - LitCharts But the Osage because they owned their land, they had more leverage with the U.S. government. DAVE DAVIES, BYLINE: Well, David Grann, welcome to FRESH AIR. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. And you realize when you speak to someone like Margie Burkhart how much these crimes still reverberate in the present, how much this history is still living in the present. For more than a decade, members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma were quietly . are now White (Albino) or Mulatto. Defense attorneys move on to other cases in which clients' lives can still be saved. Osage | Encyclopedia.com But there was still a great indifference because the victims were Osage, were Native Americans. What are their methods? At the time Hale, originally from Texas, was considered to one of the most prominent citizens of the area. DAVIES: So word of this spread. He was a master bureaucrat. . But with the arrest of William K. Hale it all stopped. how many osage murders might there possibly have been?does checkers use peanut oil how many osage murders might there possibly have been? Then local whites began targeting the tribe. And the murderers, it turned out, were local whites who had befriended and in many cases married their victims. [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. What we know about the increase in U.S. murders in 2020 More than two dozen members of the Osage tribe had been shot,. One night, there was a loud explosion in the community. DAVIES: So this was now a national story. The second level of tension is that they were being murdered, seemingly randomly. DAVIES: What happened in the first trial? Over two decades, they would have to cede more than 100 million acres of their land. And maybe most heartbreaking is that this involved a man who had become very close to even married Osage women and had betrayed those relationships. Most Notorious! A True Crime History Podcast: 144: Oklahoma's Osage She said, in many cases, they don't fully know even what their ancestors did, but we live side by side. There was one champion steer-roper Osage who got a call one night. When they were herded south onto their parcel of Oklahoma land, no one had the slightest idea that the place floated on an ocean of liquid gold--oil. . 25. DAVIES: Wow. All along, it wasthe UnitedStates thatheld the threads of the lives . Journalist David Grann tells the story. As was the case with murders, drug overdoses increased sharply in 2020. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann, Doubleday, 352 pages, $28.95. The oil boom was in full swing, and the Osage people were prosperous due to ownership of mineral rights. The first chronicle is told largely from the perspective of an Osage woman named Mollie Burkhart, whose family had become a prime target of the murder conspiracy. Randy Krehbiel paints him as a "shady character involved in blackmail and possibly embezzlement, armed robbery, and even murder." After securing Tulsa's top law enforcement spot in April 1920, Gustafson still moonlit as a private detective, working "cases that might have been more properly handled by the police." Her sister Anna had been discovered in a ravine in May 1921 with a bullet wound to the back of her head. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. The FBI's First Big Case: The Osage Murders - HISTORY DAVID GRANN: Mollie is a fascinating person. [21] Other witnesses and participants were murdered as investigation of the conspiracy expanded. [12], In the early 1990s, journalist Dennis McAuliffe of The Washington Post investigated the suspicious death of his grandmother, Sybil Beekman Bolton, an Osage with headrights who died in 1925 at age 21. how many osage murders might there possibly have been? He is somebody who is born around the same time on the frontier in a log cabin in Texas. (Credit: David Grann), The Osage became the richest people per capita in the world. The systematic embezzlementreferred to as the Indian business by some white settlers on the Osage reservationwasnt lucrative enough for some, however. And within two months, she was dead. Osage murders. OETA Debuts New Documentary About Early 1900s Osage Murders Mollie Burkhart obviously pleaded for justice, crusaded for justice, but the white authorities really did nothing early on - or very little. In 1815 there were twelve thousand. Driven from their lands in Kansas, the Osage had bought a swath of northeast Oklahoma in the early 1870s. Howell, Melissa. And they imposed restrictions. Thirteen other deaths of full-blooded Osage men and women, who had guardians appointed by the courts, occurred between 1921 and 1923. [3][4] This was after a major class-action suit had been filed against the departments of Interior and Treasury in 1996 by Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) on behalf of other Native Americans, for similar reasons. "The Osage Murders: Oil Wealth, Betrayal and the FBIs First Big Case." And perhaps most interestingly, he recruits an American-Indian agent. As a youth he had been told she died of kidney disease, then as a suicide. In 1923 alone "the tribe took in more than thirty million dollars, the equivalent today of more than four hundred million dollars. "Osage Reign of Terror. And in 1870, they needed to find a new homeland. GROSS: We're listening to the interview FRESH AIR's Dave Davies recorded with David Grann about his new book "The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The FBI" (ph).