The Osage Nation Murders: The Conspiracy to Murder a Group of Native Millionaires in the US, Which Scorsese Portrays in His New Film

In the early 20th century, members of the Osage American Indian Nation became the richest people on earth. But one after another they began to appear murdered.

These mysterious deaths became one of the first cases investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The story serves as inspiration for American director Martin Scorsese’s new film, starring Lily Gladston and his usual collaborators Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, premiering in the United States on October 20

Scorsese based his story on the book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (“The Moonflower Killers: The Death of the Osage and the Birth of the FBI”), by David Grann.

Grann spoke to BBC Culture in 2017 about the impact her book’s publication had, saying: “The most common comment I’ve received is: ‘I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this.'”

“I think to some extent it’s a reflection of the structural force that led to these crimes, which is prejudice.”

Mysterious murders

“The Osage Nation, like many other indigenous peoples in the United States, was displaced from their lands into part of northeastern Oklahoma,” David Grann told the BBC.

“People thought that land had no value. It was rocky and barren. But then they found out one of the country’s largest oil reserves”, noted the author.

“And the Osage became the richest people in the world.”

As Grann said, the Osage went on to break all the stereotypes that existed about Native nations.

The newspapers of the time speak of the exorbitant wealth of those who called “the red millionaires”who lived in mansions, dressed in furs and expensive jewelry, and employed white servants.

Some felt that the indigenous people, who were considered ‘primitive’ and ‘savages’, should not have all that money and power.

And soon the Osage began mysteriously disappearing or being murdered, one after another.

“A special woman”

In his book, David Grann examined a particular family.

“I followed the case of an extraordinary woman named Mollie Burkhart, who was born in indigenous territory in Oklahoma and spoke the Osage language,” the writer told the BBC.

“Over a period of about thirty years, this woman moved to a country house, married a white man and began speaking English. And their relatives were the main targets of a conspiracy to kill them.”

Mollie had three sisters and one after the other they were murdered. One was poisoned, another was shot dead and the third died in a massive explosion.

“Someone planted a bomb under their house and the explosion killed Mollie’s sister, her brother-in-law and a white servant who lived in their home,” David Grann explained.

During his research Grann discovered that these events could not have happened without the cooperation of the authorities or at least without them ‘turning a blind eye’.

An entire organization had been created that conspired to extract millions of dollars from the Osage by killing them.

“It was a conspiracy in which doctors participated in helping to poison the Osage; funeral home employees who covered up the murders; journalists who refused to write about the dead; Agents of public order who were directly complicit in the deaths or were indifferent to them because they were indigenous peoples and the system did not care,” the author said.

But then Entering the scene was a young man named J. Edgar Hoover, who ran an office that Grann describes as a “dark branch” of the Justice Department. called Research Agency.

AND The Osage murders became Hoover’s first case. and the first major murder investigation by what would soon be called the FBI.

“Initially the FBI botched things,” Grann explained. “There was a bandit named Blackie who had just been released from prison and investigators believed he was being used as an informant.”

“But they lost track of Blackie, he robbed a bank and killed a police officer.”

“One of the most devilish topics”

Hoover, fearing a scandal, turned the case over to another investigator, a Texas forest ranger named Tom White.

“This was the beginning of Hoover’s career and while it may seem hard to believe, he felt insecure at workthe writer explained.

“So to avoid scandal he turned the case over to Tom White, who organized an undercover team with perhaps the only Indian in the bureau.”

The agents then infiltrated the region and began uncovering the crime using their state-of-the-art investigative techniques one of the biggest conspiracies in American history.

During the investigation, they discovered a man who, according to Grandma, was “one of the most evil and devilish guys I have ever met in all my years as a reporter.”

He was William Hale, a white man who had moved to Osage territory in the early 20th century.

“He had arrived as a man without a past: no one knew where he came from, he was dressed in rags, he traveled on horseback and had no money.”

“But little by little he became more and more powerful, gathering land and livestock, and soon he controlled the entire area until he became known as ‘the King of the Osage Hills,’” David Grann explained.

Hale befriended the Indians and even his cousin, Ernest Burkhart, married the Indian Mollie.

Many whites married into the Osage for sinister reasons. When the U.S. government allocated parcels of land in Oklahoma to the Osage, the tribesmen retained the rights to benefit from the oil, but these could only be inherited and not sold.

Marry an Osage for inheritance It was a way for whites to get oil money.

According to Grann, “this (murder) plot had a particularly diabolical character, because it involved people who married into families, pretended to love them and at the same time planned to kill them.”

“He controlled everyone in the community”

Grann’s investigation uncovered many murders of Osage members that went uninvestigated and may never be solved.

“A lot of killers walked free,” Grann explained, because the FBI “didn’t actually uncover this much deeper, darker conspiracy that was out there.” Witnesses are now dead and crimes often went unrecorded.

Hale was convicted of murder along with other individuals. He was convicted and sent to prison. But in the end he was forgiven.

According to David Grann, many at the time thought the pardon was “a favor done to him by his friends in politics.”

“It was said that Hale controlled everyone in the community, from the local sheriff to the mayors and the governor’s office,” the writer explained.

“So even though several people were found guilty of the Osage murders, the majority were released.”

Ultimately, the author noted, his research showed the coldness and prejudice with which the native nations of the United States were treated (I)