White locals and outsiders attached themselves to the tribes members looking for ways to steal the tribes wealth.
One died in a mysterious explosion.
Conveniently, their headrights reverted to white spouses who became the new recipients of those quarterly distributions.
(L-R) JaNae Collins, Lily Gladstone, Cara Jade Myers, and Jillian Dion in ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’Apple TV+ / Courtesy Everett Collection
The Osage deaths were often misidentified by morticians as a result of laziness and/or corruption.
Estimates are that as many as 60 Osage members and possibly many more might have been murdered.
Its impossible to say because of the questionable cause of death rulings that helped perpetrators escape scrutiny.
Bidding on the book quickly reached seven figures.
Those offers came with alignments ranging fromLeonardo DiCaprioto George Clooney and Brad Pitt.
The filmmakers instead leaned into the marriage between Ernest and Mollie Burkhart.
Hale was eventually convicted of systematically bumping tribe members off to collect their headright annuity payments.
The film will end up on Apple TV+ in the heart of awards season.
A newVanity Fairfeature leaned in on the holdings held by the Drummonds.
We had to take the government to court to find out where the headrights have gone, Walker says.
The Osage has been under scrutiny since we left Missouri and got to Oklahoma in 1872, he says.
One thing the film doesnt show is whether the headrights were taken by hook or crook.
Some were given in good faith.
Unfortunately, bureaucracy remains when it comes to finding out who still holds headrights.
There are entities that have tried to give back headrights, but again the governmental process makes it difficult.
We will have to fix that.
Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear is also glad to see the atrocities the Osage Nation have experienced being exposed.
In school, students learn surface-level topics concerning Indigenous tribes in America, but not this.
I think this film will change that and hopefully propel others to learn more about us.
Kids always learn about Custers Last Stand, or Wounded Knee, but never about what happened to us.
I think this film will change that and hopefully propel others to learn more.
The purchase was essential for their food sovereignty programs, as the land is primed for hunting and grazing.
Complications arise when non-Osage want to give the land back, however.
Non-members hold 26 percent of headright interest in the Osage mineral estate.
