Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Here just a heads up.
Speaker 1: This episode deals with an important story of crime and
Speaker 1: violence against Indigenous people. We don't get supergraphic, but if
Speaker 1: you're not up for that today, go on and skip
Speaker 1: this one and take care of yourself. Okay. At the
Speaker 1: turn of the twentieth century, the sum two thousand members
Speaker 1: of the O s Age Nation were some of the
Speaker 1: wealthiest people in America, after being forcibly removed from their
Speaker 1: homeland decades earlier and resettled on land no one else wanted. Twice,
Speaker 1: the O s Age had struck it rich in the
Speaker 1: Rocky Hills of what's now Oklahoma when oil was discovered
Speaker 1: on their land. But what should have been a triumph
Speaker 1: became a tragedy in its own right. From in what's
Speaker 1: now known as the Reign of Terror, corrupt local officials
Speaker 1: teamed with grifters and scam artists defraud the O Sage
Speaker 1: of millions of dollars, and they murdered dozens or perhaps
Speaker 1: even hundreds of Native people in the process, in order
Speaker 1: to exploit inheritance laws. The investigation was handled by the
Speaker 1: relatively new Bureau of Investigation or b o I. Under
Speaker 1: a young JEdgar Hoover, this department would become the FBI,
Speaker 1: But to this day, the O Sage are still seeking
Speaker 1: justice for their ancestors who disappeared or died under mysterious
Speaker 1: circumstances during this dark period. Like virtually all Native American people's,
Speaker 1: the Oh Sage were driven from their ancestral lands, which
Speaker 1: included large swaths of what's now Oklahoma. In the eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: they were forced to relocate first Kansas and then ironically
Speaker 1: back to Oklahoma, known then as Indian Territory. The forced
Speaker 1: removals were devastating and many people died, but the O
Speaker 1: Sage managed to buy their land in the territory with
Speaker 1: money from the sale of their reservation in Kansas, and
Speaker 1: when cattlemen from Texas needed grazing land to fatten their
Speaker 1: herds on the way to Kansas City, the O s
Speaker 1: Age leased them grasslands, providing excellent revenue. The O Sage
Speaker 1: were the only Native group in the territory that wasn't
Speaker 1: required to comply with the eight seven DAWs Act. It
Speaker 1: divided reservation lands into allotments, and most of which were
Speaker 1: sold off to white colonists, but then oil was discovered
Speaker 1: on O Sage land in when Oklahoma became a state
Speaker 1: a decade later, allotment was forced upon the O Sage,
Speaker 1: but by that time they had money and bargaining power.
Speaker 1: For the article this episode is based on How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: Spoke with Tera Dameron, who is Osage herself and program
Speaker 1: director of the White Hair Memorial Learning Center. As she said,
Speaker 1: as much as they could, our leaders were trying to
Speaker 1: fight for the rights of our people because we had
Speaker 1: seen what had happened to the other tribes in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: who were completely decimated. The leaders negotiated allotments of six
Speaker 1: hundred and forty acres for each of the two thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty nine registered O Sage people, without
Speaker 1: any surplus land sold to white settlers, and critically, they
Speaker 1: retained mineral rights for all oil, coal, and other resources
Speaker 1: beneath their land, the profits from which would be shared
Speaker 1: collectively among tribal members. Each share was called a head
Speaker 1: right and could only be inherited, not sold. The O
Speaker 1: Sage auctioned off oil drilling rights to the highest bidder
Speaker 1: and collected a percentage of all oil revenue. The tribe
Speaker 1: was soon earning ten million to thirty million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: which is nearly four hundred million in today's money, quickly
Speaker 1: making millionaires of each individual owner of an O Sage
Speaker 1: head right. A common sentiment reported in nineteen twenties newspapers
Speaker 1: was that the O Sage were the richest group of
Speaker 1: people per capita on Earth. All of this made land
Speaker 1: that white Americans hadn't wanted look a lot more. Tempting
Speaker 1: outsiders warmed into Oklahoma boom towns like Fairfax, where they
Speaker 1: could either make money drilling for oil or by squeezing
Speaker 1: cash directly from the O s Age themselves by any
Speaker 1: means necessary. White merchants charged higher prices to OH Sage members.
Speaker 1: Doctors and pharmacists got their O Sage patients hooked on
Speaker 1: expensive medications. The lawyers descended on Oklahoma in droves, charging
Speaker 1: exorbitant fees to assist the O Sage in their business dealings.
Speaker 1: Things went from bad to worse in when Congress passed
Speaker 1: a law requiring all O Sage to pass a competency
Speaker 1: test to see if they were able to manage their
Speaker 1: own finances. Under this insulting law, Dameron says Virtually all
Speaker 1: full blooded oh Sage were automatically deemed incompetent and in
Speaker 1: signed a guardian to handle their money. Guardianships over O
Speaker 1: Sage people were assigned by corrupt local judges who gifted
Speaker 1: the positions to relatives, cronies, end political supporters. These guardians
Speaker 1: often swindled their wards out of their head rights or
Speaker 1: spent the oil money themselves while giving the ward of
Speaker 1: pittance as an allowance. There were even cases where an
Speaker 1: O Sage ward had to borrow money from their guardian
Speaker 1: and fell hopelessly into debt. Marriage was another way that
Speaker 1: outsiders could make a claim at a head right, especially
Speaker 1: if the O Sage spouse unexpectedly died, which started to
Speaker 1: happen with shocking frequency. Dammon said, you have these intelligent,
Speaker 1: healthy people who all of a sudden die from poisoning
Speaker 1: or from these really vague diseases like consumption. Jim rone Gray,
Speaker 1: a former OH Sage chief, set in a PPS documentary
Speaker 1: that a full blooded Oh Sage with money was basically
Speaker 1: walking around with a target on their back. A quote.
Speaker 1: The sense of fear must have been horrible. Local police
Speaker 1: and judges were often involved and thus no help. So
Speaker 1: the leaders took their pleas to Washington, d C. Where
Speaker 1: they were able to convince the Butting b o I,
Speaker 1: led by twenty nine year old Jager Hoover, to take
Speaker 1: on its first murder investigation. The victims in question were
Speaker 1: several members of an extended o s age family. Anna Brown,
Speaker 1: a young and vivacious woman, was the first to be killed,
Speaker 1: her body found by hunters with a gunshot to the
Speaker 1: back of her head. Brown's death had been ruled accidental
Speaker 1: by local authorities. Not long after, Brown's mother died from
Speaker 1: suspected poisoning. Then her cousin, Henry Rowan was also shot
Speaker 1: and killed. That left just two of Brown's surviving sisters,
Speaker 1: Rita and Molly, with all of the family's valuable head rights. Then,
Speaker 1: on March tenth, an explosion ripped apart Rita's home, killing
Speaker 1: her and her family. Molly was now the sole survivor.
Speaker 1: What she didn't know was that her white husband, Ernest Burkhardt,
Speaker 1: was slowly poisoning her. Burkhart was the submissive nephew of
Speaker 1: an influential and charismatic cattleman named William K. Hale. Through
Speaker 1: undercover agents, the b o I learned that Hale had
Speaker 1: ordered the killings of Anna Brown and her family so
Speaker 1: that his nephew would inherit all of their head rights
Speaker 1: were worth half a million dollars a year. When Burkhart
Speaker 1: and other accomplices confessed, Hale was convicted of ordering Henry
Speaker 1: Rowan's murder and sentenced to life in prison, but due
Speaker 1: to his powerful connections, Hale was paroled in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and Burkhart, despite pleading guilty, was fully pardoned by Oklahoma's
Speaker 1: governor in n and Damren reminds us quote that was
Speaker 1: just one family and one conviction. All of us O
Speaker 1: Sage have family stories about relatives dying or disappearing under
Speaker 1: mysterious circumstances. Estimates of the total number of O s
Speaker 1: Age killed in the nineteen twenties ranges from twenty four
Speaker 1: into jewels to several hundred. The truth Dammaron says is
Speaker 1: that there's never been any closure, There's never been any justice. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: the descendants of the corrupt guardians and scam artists who
Speaker 1: stole O Sage head rights back in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 1: are still collecting royalties on O Sage oil and gas
Speaker 1: revenue by O Sage, accounting of the head rights owners
Speaker 1: are non O Sage. In law finally made it illegal
Speaker 1: for non O Sage people to inherit head rights, but
Speaker 1: some of those head rights were gifted to churches, universities,
Speaker 1: and other institutions that have no descendants per se. Damaron
Speaker 1: says that the O Sage Nation is strong and because
Speaker 1: of its mineral wealth and leadership, the O s Age
Speaker 1: have been able to help other Native peoples and sustain
Speaker 1: their own future. She said, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: successful O Sages. We overcame the terror of the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: but we're still fighting to get back what's rightfully ours.
Speaker 1: In the U. S Government agreed to a three hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty million dollar settlement with the os Age Tribe
Speaker 1: for a mismanagement of funds. Also in the Native American
Speaker 1: Rights Fund donated twenty acres of ancestral land back to
Speaker 1: the os Age Nation. And at the very least more
Speaker 1: people know the story. Some of my colleagues at iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio and Bloomberg published an eight episode podcast mini series
Speaker 1: this fall diving deep into the history and present of
Speaker 1: the O s Age Nation. The podcast is called in Trust,
Speaker 1: and journalist David Graham published a book in eighteen about
Speaker 1: the Brown family's plight called Killers of the Flower Moon.
Speaker 1: It's now being made into a movie by Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article Reign of Terror,
Speaker 1: The Forgotten Story of the os Age Tribe Martyrs on
Speaker 1: house toff works dot com, written by Dave Rooves. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to learn more, check at the podcast in Trust,
Speaker 1: available wherever you get your podcasts. Brain Stuff is production
Speaker 1: of ire Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com, and its produced by Tyler Klang. Four more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.