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Killers of the Flower Moon

the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Jan 03, 2019IndyPL_SteveB rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
A fascinating but grim look at hidden American history. Writer David Grann is the perfect example of an obsessive reporter, willing to do years of research on an incident that was a major story a century ago but which most people have never heard of. In the 1800s, the Osage Indian tribe was forcibly moved from its ancestral homeland in Missouri, first to Kansas, then in the 1870s to a rocky part of Oklahoma that no one else wanted. But in the 1900s oil was found there and the Osage owned the mineral rights. By 1920, the Osage were, per capita, the richest people on earth. Legally, these mineral rights were called “headrights.” The law included a stipulation that no Osage could sell his or her headrights. They could only change hands by inheritance. Suddenly a lot of white bankers, lawyers, and cattle barons became “best friends” to the Osage. And in 1921, the murders started, possibly as many as 600. Local doctors, sheriffs, judges, bankers, etc. seemed to be locked up in the plot to eventually concentrate ownership of the headrights in the hands of a few young survivors, who could be controlled and embezzled blind. When you think about the Old West and what you were told as a child about who were the “good guys”, a book like this will make you reconsider, “Who were the savages?”