This article contains plot spoilers of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up,
he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered,
the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the,
the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
The excerpt is from the poem “Wi’-gi-e,” or “Prayer,” which Osage author Elise Paschen wrote in 2009 to honor Anna Kyle Brown, who was thought to be the first victim of the Osage Reign of Terror.
Brown’s body was found at the bottom of a ravine near Fairfax, Oklahoma, in 1921, with the cause of death ruled as “whiskey poisoning.” In truth she’d been murdered for her share of the hereditary mineral rights that had made her wealthy. Years later, a widespread investigation would reveal that Brown clearly died by gun violence and her cause of death was a cover-up.
The film and book trace the true story of greed, brutality and government complicity in the assassination of wealthy Osage citizens.
Brown was one of many Osage people murdered for their money in 1920s Oklahoma. Accurate numbers of the victims are hard to come by, but Geoffrey Standing Bear, the Osage Nation’s current principal chief, estimates that at least 5% of the tribe were murdered, or roughly 150 people.
In 1923, the Osage Nation asked the Bureau of Investigation – the predecessor to the FBI – to look into a string of mysterious deaths. After a long investigation, the bureau uncovered a massive conspiracy masterminded by white men like William King Hale, Ernest Burkhart and other non-Osage members in the community of Fairfax, Oklahoma, particularly those in positions of authority. By 1929, Hale, Burkhart and some of their co-conspirators had been tried and sentenced to prison.
But for the Osage, the story didn’t end there. Existing federal policies and persistent anti-Indigenous sentiment still left Osage people vulnerable to further violence and exploitation.
When I tell my students at the University of Dayton about this spate of unchecked violence, someone inevitably asks how this was allowed to happen.
There is no one answer. But there is a central cause: laws that enabled settlers’ access to – and control over – Osage capital and, by extension, Osage lives.
In 1872, the Osage were forced from their homelands in Kansas and sent to Indian Territory, a region that became the state of Oklahoma. Once resettled, the Osage Nation was compelled to negotiate with the federal government. Through the resulting Osage Allotment Act of 1906, the Osage retained all rights to minerals found on the land, or subsurface rights.
When oil drilling began in earnest in 1896 on Osage lands, the Osage became one of the richest communities on the planet, with many citizens receiving substantial annual payments. This money fueled resentment among the non-Indigenous public, and guardianship became a means for them to get their hands on it.
This article contains plot spoilers of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The sheriff disguised her death as whiskey poisoning.
Because, when he carved her body up,
he saw the bullet hole in her skull.
Because, when she was murdered,
the leg clutchers bloomed.
But then froze under the weight of frost.
During Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the,
the Killer of the Flowers Moon.
The excerpt is from the poem “Wi’-gi-e,” or “Prayer,” which Osage author Elise Paschen wrote in 2009 to honor Anna Kyle Brown, who was thought to be the first victim of the Osage Reign of Terror.
Brown’s body was found at the bottom of a ravine near Fairfax, Oklahoma, in 1921, with the cause of death ruled as “whiskey poisoning.” In truth she’d been murdered for her share of the hereditary mineral rights that had made her wealthy. Years later, a widespread investigation would reveal that Brown clearly died by gun violence and her cause of death was a cover-up.