WEBVTT - The Osage Price 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:05.760 Come trade with me. Those are the words that brought 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.320 the Drummond family to Oklahoma and os Age County. Frederick 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:11.239 Drummond came to the fot. What you're hearing is the 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:15.880 introduction to an oral history series called Voices of Oklahoma. 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.599 All sorts of famous people from the state are interviewed. 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:24.480 An Olympic gymnast, a neurosurgeon, a survivor of the Holsa 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.680 Race massacre, and one of the Drummonds. The Drummand name 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:31.600 runs thick in the vast ranch lands of Osage County. 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.199 The branches of the family trade cousins, brothers, uncles, are 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:39.000 extensive in story. This is an interview with Frederick Ford Drummond. 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.720 He inherited part of that one fourth the head right 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.040 and left it to his son for Drummond you heard 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:49.000 from him in the last episode. In this interview, Ford's 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.279 dad is talking about his grandfather, Frederick Drummond, a Scottish 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.480 immigrant who brought the family to the o s Age 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:59.120 Reservation in eighty six. He got a job as a 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.240 trader in Sky had a license from the government to 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.520 sell goods to os Ages. Later, he moved the family 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.640 to Harmony, where he ran another store called the Harmony 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:12.480 Trading Company, and that was the super walmart of os 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.160 Age County at that time. They had everything from groceries, 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:25.720 two ladies and gents, furnishings, shoe department, hardware department, furniture department, groceries. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.520 They had everything that you needed to be a farmer 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.399 or a rancher. At that time it was a pretty 0:01:33.400 --> 0:01:35.959 big deal. And even if you needed to be buried, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.560 they also had coffins that you could get. I thought 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:41.600 that was always kind of funny all the old trading 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:44.280 companies that if they had a furniture store, they were 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:50.520 usually in the morticians as well. This is a story. 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.600 The family tells a lot that Frederick Drummond and his boys, Cecil, 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.120 bred Guttner and Jack built up their ranching empire while 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.960 running a trading post. Cecil was the rancher, Red Genner 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:05.480 was the businessman. Jack was both, but more of a speculator. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.639 They were ranchers and cattlemen, but they were also bankers 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.560 and traders, community members how to stay in local politics. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.280 When we went to Harmony, it was adust to Indian 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:27.000 trading posts on the banks of Harmony Creek. I imagine 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:34.440 it was about something like fifty people. Jack Drummond tells 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.680 the origin story too in those tapes with his biographer, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.640 talks about how his father bought the Harmony Trading Company 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.320 and moved the family there right before alhatment. Jack gives 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:46.760 a bit more detail about how it actually all worked, 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.440 how the families saw themselves. How he kept his story 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:53.400 going was the Indian payments. So he knew that he 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.120 could speak in He could speak the Oss tongue, and 0:02:57.240 --> 0:02:59.840 my brother Gevernor learned to speak the Os tongue all 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.239 who because he was going to be in the store 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.000 and you were in the store when the oil boom. 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:10.480 He had out there right and they were getting those fabulous, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.160 fabulous checks in the year. The year I was in 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.919 I had the men's furnishing in the shoe department. Jack 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.960 started working in the store around nineteen oil production in 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:25.840 O s Age County had taken off, had right, payments 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.639 were huge. Jack ran the men's department. Their dad had 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.520 died by then, so his boss was his older brother, 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.520 Fred Gettinger Drummond. I understand that the O s Age 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.240 back in those days was an area of big parties 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:43.160 and there was a fabulous social life going. Only not 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:47.080 not not with the white people. For the Indians. I've 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:53.600 always heard about golf clubs and no fabulous party, that's all, Bess. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.720 I don't believe it. I don't believe no, no, no, no, no, 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.920 no no no. Don't ever get that in your book 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.360 because it's not so okay. That's what I want to 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:07.280 get cleared up. No, no, Terry, the white people never never, 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:12.560 never had anything like that. It will only these Indians. 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.320 But they had this Indian payment money. It was so 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:21.320 much so lavish. Jack'saw an opportunity in all that wealth, 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:24.080 you can share it. In this story, he tells about 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:29.240 a dispute with his brother Fred Getner around December. Jack 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:31.559 and Fred Getner would fight a lot over the years, 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.159 but this story it was because of the store, about 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.240 a bonus check fred Getner wouldn't give to Jack. He 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.839 was so mad about it. Almost sixty years later, bona 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:44.400 state came and he would call run Cluck at a 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:48.400 time up to his office on the deck there in 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:53.160 the Homony Trading Company, and they even Tom came up. 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.080 He hadn't called on me. So I went up to 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.680 his office and I said, Gutner, I've been waiting for 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.359 you to Paul all day, you give me my brother 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:06.400 set where I said, Jack said, we don't think you 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:11.240 earned one. Well, the year before that men's department in 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.479 the shoe department had lost something like thirty thousand dollars. 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.440 And the year it was under my control, my management, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:25.760 I may earn something like fifty thousand dollars. So Jack 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.640 saying he really turned things around for the men's department 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.000 an additional eighty thousand dollars in revenue. He goes on 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.159 to explain how, for example, on silk shirts, I found 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:42.000 a manufacturing outfits would make silk shirts th big unions 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:46.520 up to just two fifty four, even fifty six sizes. 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:49.680 But those shows would cost us and maybe six or 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.360 eight dollars a shirt, and now I'll get fifty or 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.560 sixty dollars a shirt. They didn't care what the what 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.679 the costs of the shirt was because they were getting 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:05.039 big old stage payments in those times. So when I 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:10.160 found out about these indians won't and then I got 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.360 the merchandize sold them to a little tremendous profit. Well, anyway, 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:17.400 he didn't give me those shirts. He says it would 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.640 cost about six to eight dollars for him to get one, 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:23.120 but he jacked up the prices. He charged stage customers 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.719 more than would have cost him to source the shirts 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.000 for reference. Paying sixty dollars for a shure is like 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:33.920 paying almost a thousand dollars today. They couldn't get him 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.239 anywhere else and the Old States except there at that store, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.320 Right boy, I really charged him part. I will getting 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:46.800 them service, but I'll make them pay for it. The 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.720 main thing was it was just too much money. It 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:54.359 was just an incredible, fantastic amount of money here in 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:59.040 Oil no Stage count eat back then, all the swindlers 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:02.040 and con artists in the world or flock o Sage County. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.880 This is John Maker. He's a citizen of the os 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:11.680 Age Nation. I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, raised in Harmony, Oklahoma, 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:16.160 where my family allotments are. I wanted to talk to 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.840 John because as I've been reporting this story, his family's 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.000 come up a lot in records related to the Drummonds, 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:28.040 both on his mom's side and his dad's side. John's 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:30.480 family has been in Hominy for more than a century. 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.960 Back then, they would have shopped at the Harmony Trading Company. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.560 By the time John was born in the nineteen fifties, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:40.080 the name had been changed to the Pioneer Store. I mean, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.400 everybody just knew, and there was an O Saze prize 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.560 when you go to the store. When I asked John 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.160 about the store, he told me about a time growing 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.320 up when what he had always heard about the Hominy 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.560 Trading Company became reality right in front of him. That's 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.680 because of a little experiment his family tried. This was 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.280 in the sixties when he is in high school. His 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.680 mother's aunt was in town for a visit, and my 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:07.560 mom told her and said, well, you know, we need 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:09.960 to go to the town and get some material, sub 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.600 ribbon stuff to make our Indian dance shirts for me. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.240 My brother, John says his mom's aunt was white and 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.840 sometimes she'd come to stay in Hominy for the summer. 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.760 One day, on one of those trips, the family loads 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.280 up in the car and heads to the store, and 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.000 John's mom asked her aunt for a fever. My mom said, 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:30.920 I want you to go in here and get this stuff. 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.080 Here's the list, she said, but if I go, they're 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.680 gonna charge me more. And my aunt she's got and 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.920 she didn't believe it. Oh, now, Dad, that they can't 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:42.240 do that here she said yes. He said, come on, 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.080 I'll pray it to you. So Mom went in there 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.360 and got this same stuff, same list. And then my aunt, 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.840 the Scottish woman, white woman, she went in the same stuff. 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:57.720 It was like half price, and my aunt was just 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.360 like flabber gas, like she couldn't believe it. It was 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:07.760 really true. And this was at the Hominy Trading Store. 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.480 When I was growing up, it was called the Pioneer Store. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:17.120 That was just a common practice. M hmm. Everybody knows 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:22.040 it opsae price. I don't know how big the markup 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:25.200 was for os age customers. That's not clear from some 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.880 of the old ledgers I've seen the overcharging. It wasn't 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:33.600 exclusive to the Drummond store. Historians and researchers have documented 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.439 how merchants were able to profit off Native American wealth 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:40.640 across Indian country. I have talked to descendants of the 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.360 Drummond brothers about the store getting her Drummond the lawyer 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.719 told me that at one point he had looked through 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.760 the ledgers and didn't see anything that looked like exploitation. 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.120 Another Drummond, Jack's grandson told me he had heard about 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.760 the silk shirts from his grandfather, but he was always 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.080 proud of them. He found something his O s Age 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.320 customers wanted, he was able to source it for them, 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:05.839 like a luxury good. But the os Age price, I've 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.000 heard about it over and over again. Did you ever 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.400 hear anything about the Drummonds growing up? Did your family 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.360 ever talk about something? No, we just knew they had 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.880 a lot of land around, and of course every like 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.600 secretly like, well, you know how they got their land? 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.640 You know, they cheated and did get these out sides 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.719 to run up these big, outrageous bills. If they were 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.079 true or not, I don't know, but it seems to 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:32.559 be pretty unscrupulous. But in those days it was accepted 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.680 as good business pacts. Well, he's a good businessman now, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:39.520 That's that's why they become so wealthy. If you look 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.439 at the Stage County Platt book, there's about five pages 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:48.720 of Drummonds, all druming, well, how must land they owned 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:53.839 in O Sage County. The thing about the Drummond family 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:57.440 story that Frederick and his boys were shop owners and 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.800 that's how they got their start. That's true in a way, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:03.600 But what it leaves out, and what I've learned from 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.840 talking to families and digging up hundreds of historical records. 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.640 Is that the how Many Trading Company and other trading 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.120 post in os Age County the foundation for a lot more. 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.000 They put merchants in a position of financial power over 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:20.480 Osge customers, power that could be built on over the 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:26.840 years to gain money, influence, and land. This is in trust. 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:39.880 I'm Rachel Adams heard in that oral history recording with 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.440 Frederick Ford Drummond, the one I played for you at 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.080 the beginning, he kind of laughs about the story selling 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:48.719 coffins and serving as morticians, but that part of the 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:52.120 business was pretty big. It's another instance where you see 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.920 the how Many Trading Company charging a lot of money. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.240 I know this because the how Many Trading Company keeps 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.480 coming up in my research. But not as a general store, 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:06.560 as an undertaker they advertised in the paper one ad 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:12.920 promised in Bamber's quote constantly in attendance, even overnight. I 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.280 also saw the Homny Trading Company was undertaking and the 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.160 records I pulled on no meat say he the o 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:22.560 Sage woman who is married to Ovi Pope. It was 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.440 her head right shares. Ovi Pope sold to Jack Drummond. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.319 I saw something on her death certificate below where someone 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.320 wrote unknown where her parents names were supposed to be. 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.120 It was the line for the undertaker how many trading 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:41.040 company is written and cursive. Jack Drummond not only acquired 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.240 nor Meat say he's head rights, but his family's store 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:47.839 handled her funeral arrangements when she died while the Pope 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:52.319 brothers were keeping her daughter in Colorado, and normats say 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.640 He's probate file the pages and pages that went into 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:58.880 settling her estate. I could see how much that funeral 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.080 cost three thousand, two hundred dollars, as well as more 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.480 than nine hundred dollars for a note outstanding debt at 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:11.160 the store account for inflation. That's the equivalent of seventy 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.600 dollars that the Homony Trading Company charged. And no meat 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.400 say he's a state. Since I saw the Homony Trading 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.160 Company was an undertaker, I've been looking out for it 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.560 in other probate files and dust certificates. I've seen it 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:30.520 on several others too. Yea, I sai here that famous picture. 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.920 Charles meat Chetzi is John Maker's great grandfather. The Drummond 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.960 store handled his funeral services. John had pictures of a 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.120 lot of his family. We talked about this photo. It's 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.000 black and white, a three quarter profile. Meat Chetzi is 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:51.080 wearing a traditional stage hairstyle and clothing. John told me 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.640 the picture shows up in some prominent books about the 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:59.600 stage nation. This is a famous photograph everybody loves and 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.600 I like, say, dr Baby Baby. He used this his 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.520 likeness on the cover his book. And then when I 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.720 was over in France, this this professor. I stay with 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.240 them for a week in Paris and she asked me 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:14.760 she could use this on her book. It's all in France. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.560 Writings said. I saw Charles meat Chutsi's name when I 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.640 was looking through the records at the Drummond Collection, the 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.040 archive outside of Oklahoma City, with those tapes of Jack 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.160 and all his financial records. There was a claim from 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:34.400 the store for his funeral, dated September. By this point, 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.000 the Homedy Trading Company had expanded the mortuary business to 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.880 a whole separate building called the Hominy Funeral Home. The 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:45.120 local paper wrote it up, calling it a modern city feature. 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.680 Apparently it was pretty unusual to see a funeral home 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:52.840 in a small town like Comedy. When Charles meat Chutsy died, 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.600 the claim for his funeral came from the Drummond store 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.840 and the new funeral home. The bill is itemized cost 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:04.680 looking down for the funeral dinner, cooking utensils, dishes, as 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:11.000 well as undertaking services this funeral dinner, it's like, well, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.680 I see like the casket, harmony, comfugia, home, casketball, embalming, 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:24.160 grave digging services complete people with fifty dollars, which seems 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.880 like not much in today's today's would say funeral with 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:32.640 the big dinner, the feast for two hundred people, a 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:38.320 nice casket, probably around eight thousand dollars. Together, the claims 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:43.320 came out to two thousand seven dollars thirteen cents, tens 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.800 of thousands of dollars in today's money. It's an incredible 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:51.920 amount of money even in those times, because those days 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.400 were simple days, and how could something really be that 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:10.840 expensive back then? So it wasn't just shirts that were 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.640 marked up. Caskets and embalming and all the other stuff 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.200 that went into a funeral were way more expensive than 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.000 they were supposed to be. At one point, a US 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.960 lawmaker heard about the thousands of dollars that o sages 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.560 were charged for funerals. He said the practice was quote 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.160 even worse than the Teapot Dome case, which at that 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:35.640 time was considered the biggest political scandal in US history. 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:38.960 And the debts and a lot of the probate files 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.000 I've looked through weren't just from funerals. They were for 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.480 everyday shopping before the person died too o s Age 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:50.040 customers could o trading companies hundreds of dollars, sometimes even thousands. 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:57.560 But it wasn't just the funeral debt that stuck out 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.680 to me when reading about Charles me Chetsi, because the 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.360 Drummonds had another role when it came to his affairs 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.080 and meet Chetzy's probate. The man signing off on the 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:11.400 store's claims and saying the debt was legitimate was Jack Drummond. 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.359 That's because Jack was the administrator of meet Chetzi's estate. 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.639 This is a role that exists today. It's called an 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:22.800 administrator if you die without a will, an executor if 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:25.960 you die with one. Either way, that person is in 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:29.159 charge of vetting and paying all your debts and distributing 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:34.080 everything you have left to your heirs. Meet Chetsy's estate 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:37.080 wasn't the only time one of the Drummond brothers approved 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.520 a claim from their own store. In fact, this happened 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.119 three times in John Maker's own family. In addition to 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.200 Charles meet Chetzi, John's other great grandfather and his great 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.800 grandmother both had claims from the Hominy Trading Company. After 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:56.199 they died. Jack's brother, Fred Gettner, was the administrator of 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.560 their estates. In all, Fred Gittner alone hand at least 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:05.520 twenty eight oh Sage estates. So the Drummond brothers were 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:08.200 running the store that was claiming all these debts when O. 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.240 S Ages died, and then they put on a different 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.119 hat and approved payment to the store. Once the estate 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:18.560 was settled, the government would pay the Hominy Trading Company 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.200 from O. Sage accounts at the Office of Indian Affairs, 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.560 and when it was all said and done, whoever handled 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.440 the estate would get an administrator's fee. Depending on how 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.040 big the estate was, that fee could be up to 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:36.439 a couple of thousand dollars. Any oh stage, at least 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.600 you know, in my family, in my community, any o 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:44.800 stage that anyone thought might have the propensity or the 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.399 ability to become a lawyer, um, they encouraged them to 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.160 go to law school. And it was because of all 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.879 of the shenanigans that went on with the probate process. 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.679 This is Elizabeth Loha Homer. She's a citizen of the 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:04.680 Aage Nation. She's from Cominy. Elizabeth, as a lawyer, worked 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.280 for the os Age Nation for a while, then went 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.440 to the Department of Justice, then the Department of Interior. 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.600 Now she runs a law firm in d C. She's 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.040 also on the os Age Nations Supreme Court. I asked 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.760 Elizabeth if what I was seeing in the records was normal, 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:23.280 if the people administering estates could be on both sides 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.440 of it approving their own claims, because it seemed like 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.920 a pretty obvious conflict of interest. Oh, I would think 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.080 that that would definitely be a conflict of interest, an 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.280 unwavable conflict of interest. In other words, there are conflicts 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:42.440 of interest that can be waived. You know, I can say, oh, client, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.240 I have a conflict of interest with this. You know, 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:48.480 would you waive that conflict of interests? And there are 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.080 some conflicts of interests that a client can wave, and 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:53.600 then there are conflicts of interests that a client can't wave. 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.040 And in this case, this is a conflict of interest 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:01.040 within a state right and so it should not be waived. 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:03.720 You know, if you've got a claim on the estate, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.600 then you know, there are plenty of other people that 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.520 can administer that estate. It doesn't have to be you. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.520 And the issue is that you're not able to give 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:18.120 it the proper examination to vet its legitimacy. No, it's 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.320 your classic conflict of interest. You have a pecuniary interest 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:26.320 in the subject matter. Pecuniary interest. In other words, you're 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:29.960 financially motivated. It is kind of consistent with a bad 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.040 behavior that we've seen through the twentieth century. I was 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:36.680 starting to see how the store gave the Drummonds power. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:39.639 It was a store, yes, but it was also a 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.040 major lender, a pseudo financial institution, and the Drummonds and 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.560 other local merchants, they weren't just shopkeepers, they were debt collectors. 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.280 You just go and you would be issued you know, 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:54.840 an account, a credit account, and then you would just 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:58.560 you know, just like you do now. You didn't necessarily 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.200 have to have a credit card. You just went there 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.760 and you'd sign your book and that was That was 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:06.719 not at all at all unusual, even during my childhood. 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:09.760 I want to take a moment here to make clear 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:12.760 that the o Stage nation is far from the only 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.080 tribal nation whose citizens became indebted to traders and merchants. 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.480 In May of the Department of Interior released the initial 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:27.480 results of a massive investigation into federal policies affecting Native Americans. 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.480 The focus was on Indian boarding schools, but the report 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:36.320 covers so much more. That investigation highlights a private letter 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:40.040 from Thomas Jefferson, a letter that shows how this whole 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.200 credit system at trading companies dates back to the early 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.159 eighteen hundreds and how Native American debts were part of 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.280 an explicit strategy to make it easier for the government 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.680 to get Native land. Jefferson wrote the letter in eighteen 0:21:54.680 --> 0:21:58.200 o three to William Henry Harrison, who at the time 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:02.080 was in charge with negotiating with tribal nations over land boundaries. 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.800 Jefferson writes that the US will quote push our trading 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.040 houses and be glad to see the good and influential 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:15.119 individuals among them run in debt. He goes on, because 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.720 we observe that when these debts get beyond what the 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.400 individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:26.000 by a session of lands. This letter was written a 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.439 hundred years before Frederick Drummond took over the Hominy Trading 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:34.159 Company before the Osage Reservation was allotted. But what this 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.439 report said was that Jefferson strategy would go on to 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:42.920 inform the future of federal Indian law and policy. O 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:46.280 Sage families vowed about one million dollars to bankers and 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:51.560 merchants across the county. The Drummonds, included US lawmakers, caught 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:55.840 wind they held hearings about it. What I didn't understand 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.840 at first, and what I hoped Elizabeth could explain, was 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.280 why there was all this for the Drummonds to collect 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.400 on in the first place. Both ages, at least those 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.639 who had head rights, they were supposed to be the 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.080 richest people in the world. The store was charging a lot, 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:12.560 but was it so much that oth Age customers couldn't 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:16.520 pay their bill? Elizabeth said this was all made worse 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:19.760 by how Congress decided head right money should be distributed. 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:25.320 I mean there's all kinds of of references in the 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.520 hearing record of members of the Congress will they don't work, 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:31.760 you know, and they've got all this money and they're 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.200 like children, you know, which is like not true. I mean, 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.080 we were the first ones to you know, kind of 0:23:38.080 --> 0:23:43.320 adopt these policies of you know, of understanding very sophisticated 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:48.720 legal principles of retaining the subsurface to state. When we 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:51.439 allotted the surface the state of our reservation, I mean 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:55.960 that was pretty slick, right, That is pretty smart. And 0:23:56.040 --> 0:24:00.800 yet the talk amongst the powers that be or the 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:04.120 people the local community is like their children, and they 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.080 don't know how to manage their money and they're squandering it. 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:11.960 And so, you know, there was legislation the early nine 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:18.119 twenties that actually limited the amount of money that osages 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:22.200 could draw down courtly. They limited to like a thousand dollars. 0:24:22.240 --> 0:24:24.119 I mean, you might have a state worth tens of 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:27.080 thousands of dollars, but you could get a thousand dollars 0:24:27.119 --> 0:24:30.520 per quarter. And so like the whole merchant community kind 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:34.320 of adapted to that. These hearings over oh Sage fund 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:38.520 restrictions continued into the mid nineteen twenties. Some O s 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:40.960 Age leaders said they were in favor of the restrictions. 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:43.480 They saw them as a way to protect their people 0:24:43.600 --> 0:24:48.080 from losing land and money, but others fought against them. 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:52.200 They wrote to Congress sent telegrams. One former chief named 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.240 Bacon Ryan told Congress that families wanted to be able 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:59.080 to build houses or remodel their homes. Others were sick 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:02.000 or getting old and needed to be able to access 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:07.800 their money. In those hearings, US politicians were primarily focused 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:11.720 on O Sage spending, even though, as Bacon Rhyn pointed out, 0:25:12.080 --> 0:25:14.600 their spending was just like that of other wealthy people. 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:20.280 Who was that hearing from with the inspector named HS Trailer. 0:25:21.119 --> 0:25:24.160