History leaves unseen shadows waiting to be caught by the light. To document a story, to witness one, and to research what was previously perceived for a deeper truth is to see a shadow's form more clearly, the shape of what let that symbolic shadow fall, and to begin to understand how occurrences shape one another and how nothing stands alone.
Who holds the key to unlocking these shadows of history? Those with access to the information and the ability to write it. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by journalist David Grann (2017) lets light into the already laid out history of what would become Osage County, Oklahoma at the turn of the 20th century, investigating and writing it of late for a more nuanced comprehension of what took place there:
"History is a merciless judge. It lays bare our tragic blunders and foolish missteps and exposes our most intimate secrets, wielding the power of hindsight like an arrogant detective who seems to know the end of the mystery from the outset." (p. 277)
The brutal, forced assimilation of Native Americans is known to be a total horrific catastrophe of ethics and humanity. But where exactly have those events taken place in time and what actually occurred between people? A systemic logic of hierarchy and dominance is found through piecing together the information presented by Grann in Killers of the Flower Moon.
Grann locates the period of the Reign of Terror sometime between the early 20th century and the late-1920s in the geographical region (a part of what is now known as Oklahoma) that existed between two conflicting "governments": that of the Native's indigenous way of life and that of the burgeoning nation of the United States. Because Osage County found itself between these two types of leadership, it became a territory that existed somewhat outside of the law, where crimes took place and inquests by the community were the only form of "official" investigation.
The Reign of Terror names the violent acts perpetrated by incoming settlers onto the bodies of Native Americans: multiple murders of individuals part of the Osage community of Native Americans. Crimes were not looked into properly and with the right procedures; everything was handled as eye-witness accounts, word-of-mouth, and by crude examination of the corpses: see the case of Anna Brown. Brown's body, part of the Osage Tribe in that county, was found dead in a ravine with no adequate witness accounts to confirm the other, nor adequate confessions. With the lack of technology (for example, fingerprinting/biometrics, photography, DNA testing) finding her murderer was extremely difficult, even moreso to prove when suspect.
When crimes occurred on Native soil, tribunals would hold the case. Otherwise, the case would be brought to the state courts, and later to federal. As Grann describes it, the beginning of the investigations were sloppy and corrupt, which made it extremely difficult to conclude any facts and to pinpoint any suspects of the murders.
"An Osage, speaking to a reporter..., states, 'Your money draws 'em and you're absolutely helpless. They have all the law and all the machinery on their side. Tell everybody, when you write your story, that they're scalping our souls out here.'" (p. 167)
As the settlers continued to attempt Native integration while all this took place (via their education system, dress codes, housing, and property laws) the Osage corner of the world, like the others, became ever more haunted and amoral due to the loss of culture (for ex. boys were told to cut off their braids, girls were required to attend strict hours of school which taught nothing of their livelihoods). It didn't help that the Osage people had been mandated to move and live on one of the most oil-rich grounds within the United States.
FBI Agent/Detective Tom White, assigned by then president J. Edgar Hoover, used new strategies, including undercover operations and extensive research. Hoover was not shocked to uncover the truth: that the settlers were killing the Osage directly and through assigning henchmen, Native, Caucasian, and mixed alike, to gain money and power through a hegemonic process that would eventually claim inheritance to the Osage's headrights (of great monetary value) through murder. Again, the fact that the Osage's lived on oil-rich land only added to their already grievous situation. Needless to say, on a territory so on the brink of collapse, the prospect of filling one's bank account was extremely enticing to some of the community. The root cause of such treachery was not only greed. It slowly became clear that hatred, too, was to blame:
"One skeptical reporter noted, 'The attitude of a pioneer cattleman toward the full blood Indian... is fairly well recognized.' A prominent member of the Osage tribe put the matter more bluntly: 'It is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not. The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is murder - or merely cruelty to animals.'" (p. 233)
Indeed, Mollie Burkhart, an Osage who was betrayed by her husband Ernest Burkhart, was poisoned by doctors who had promised her insulin to quell her diabetes. Like an abused animal, she was chosen among other Osages for a kind of undercover "culling" by toxic injection.
Though the main culprit of the Rein of Terror, William Hale - who was seen as an admirable, upstanding man among the entire community - was found guilty and sentenced to prison, Osage County continues to remain broken and disturbed by a present still marked by the evil of the past. Coming to grips with these shared histories of societal clashes cloaked in blood, even by the act of reading Killers of the Flower Moon, might open up a pathway to release the trauma that still fills our atmosphere. Osage County is but one part of that bigger history, and though the pain that comes with it might weigh us down invisibly, to reveal the Reign of Terror as a singular passage might give each of us the space to breathe better, more wholly, and more clearly.
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