When the Corps of Discovery Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, met in St. Charles to start their journey up the Missouri River in 1804, the native Americans in the central part of the show me state were the Osage Nation.
The French called the indigenous people the Oua Chage, which eventually morphed into the Osage.
The eighth largest river in the state, the Osage, takes its name from this great tribe. Where the river connects to the Missouri River is the Missouri county of the same name.
There are two other counties in the U.S. named after this nation, one in Kansas and the other in Oklahoma.
Osage County, Oklahoma, was created in 1907 when Oklahoma was admitted as a state. It is the home to the Osage Nation. It coexists with the Osage Nation Reservation.
In 1870, the Osage purchased 1.57 million acres of land in Oklahoma from the Cherokee. When Oklahoma became a state, there were only 2,229 registered Osage members.
With good foresight, the Osage negotiated communal mineral rights to their reservation.
In 1897, the Phoenix Oil Company discovered oil on the Osage reservation. By 1920, the people of the Osage Nation were listed as the wealthiest people per capita in the world. They also became the most murdered.
This led to what is called the “Osage Reign of Terror.”
The book — and now a major motion picture by the same name — “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” by David Grann tells the story of how unscrupulous outsiders swindled and murdered members of the Osage tribe for their wealth.
Grann’s book is a fast read and hard to put down for a history buff like me.
According to Grann, oil leases paid to the Osage nation were more than $30 million in 1923 alone (equivalent to more than $400 million today). These royalties were distributed equally among the small tribe in what’s known as “headrights.”
Headrights could not be bought or sold, only inherited. This caused a rush to Osage County — not unlike the California Gold Rush — with hordes of whites rushing to marry into an Osage family or trick others to become legal guardians.
Single Osage women were highly sought after as white men hunted for oil-rich brides sight unseen.
C.T. Plimer of Joplin, Missouri, wrote to the Osage Agency: “I…want a good Indian girl for a wife… For every Five Thousand Dollars she is worth, I will give you Twenty Five Dollars. If she is worth 25,000, you would get $125 if I got her.”
As usual, the federal government stepped in to make things worse. In 1921, the feds passed a law requiring Osage Indians to prove financial competency or be assigned a financial guardian.
This opened the doors for lawyers to pour into the region and skim money from the Osage.
In an interview with history.com, former Osage Nation Chief Jim Gray, a direct descendant of Henry Roan Horse — a victim of murder during the Reign of Terror — says guardian laws were created to rob Osage people of their autonomy.
Grann’s book explains how most of the whites in the county, including doctors, undertakers, store owners, judges and local law enforcement, were covering up these crimes and murders to enrich themselves.
This is a stain on the history of the United States. But, in a way, this continues today as corrupt individuals prey on older adults for their money. The only difference is these ruthless thieves don’t have to kill their unsuspecting prey to obtain the money.
The AARP recently released a study estimating what is lost to elder fraud scams each year. That figure is $28.3 billion (not million). Worse, the study found that 72 percent — or more than $20 billion — is taken by someone the victim knows, including family, friends or advisors.
Often, scammers convince older adults to remove money from their retirement accounts. To add insult to injury, the victim then owes the Internal Revenue Service for early withdrawal of their funds.
Grann not only makes you feel the pain and anguish of the Osage with his best-selling book, but he also relates the frustration of those in the newly formed FBI who eventually solved some of the most heinous crimes. Unfortunately, many of the murderers were never brought to justice.
I’ve read the book. Now I can’t wait to see the movie
