Osage Indian Murders "Osage Reign of Terror" FBI and Court Documents - Download

Osage Indian Murders "Osage Reign of Terror" FBI and Court Documents

 3,601 pages of material.

In the 1920's oil made the members of the Osage Nation the richest population group in the World. In 1923, in Oklahoma the average White household earned $1,000 a year, with distributions from oil revenue the average Osage household earned $65,000. In 1923, the Osage Nation received $27 million of revenue from oil drilled on its reservation. It also led to them becoming statistically the most murdered people in the United States. The Osage bought 1.5 million acres in northern Oklahoma, including the rights to its resources, for $1 million from the Cherokee Nation in the late 1800s after settlers pushed them from their reservation in Kansas. The federal government paid the tribe $8.5 million for its Kansas reservation.

 
FBI FILES

3,332 pages of files copied from FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., covering the Osage Indian Murders. Files contain approximately 2,800 pages of narrative material.  Files date from 1923 to  1932.

The Bureau investigated this case involving the swindling and murder of members of the Osage Indian tribe in Oklahoma for the rights to their oil fields. Between 1921-1923 members of the Osage Indian Reservation died under suspicious circumstances. The FBI became involved after the Department of Interior wrote to Director William J. Burns requesting assistance in investigating these deaths. William "King of Osage" Hale was suspected of being involved in the deaths. Posing as medicine men, cattlemen and a salesman, FBI agents infiltrated the reservation and eventually solved several of the murders. Hale and other members of the Osage Indian Reservation were convicted of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. The murders were committed in an attempt to collect insurance money and gain control of valuable oil properties owned by the deceased Osage Indians.

 
COURT FILES

254  pages of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma court files from the criminal cases arising from the "Osage Reign of Terror," and the decision in United States v. Ramsey, 271 U.S. 467 (1926). United States v. Ramsey was a U.S. Supreme Court case brought by a defend in the Osage case, in which the Court held that the government had the authority to prosecute crimes against Native Americans (Indians) on reservation land that was still designated Indian Country by federal law.

 
OTHER MATERIAL

Other material includes FBI photos and the Osage Nation’s account of the facts of the "Osage Reign of Terror."

 
BACKGROUND

The Osage became wealthy by earning royalties from oil sales through their federally mandated "head rights."

In May 1921, the badly decomposed body of Anna Brown, a member of the Osage Nation, was found in a remote ravine in northern Oklahoma. Two months later, Anna's mother, Lizzie Q, suspiciously died. Two years later, her cousin Henry Roan was shot to death. Then, in March 1923, Anna's sister and brother-in-law were killed when their home was bombed. One by one, at least two dozen people in the area inexplicably turned up dead. Not just Osage Indians, but a well-known oilman and others.

The Osage Tribal Council hired private detectives who turned up nothing. The Osage Tribal Council turned to the federal government, and Bureau of Investigation (in 1935, the Bureau of Investigation became the Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents were detailed to the case.

Suspicion quickly turned to local cattleman William Hale the so-called "King of the Osage Hills."  Hale had bribed, intimidated, lied, and stolen his way to wealth and power. According to author of Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation, Dennis McAuliffe Jr., Hale earned much of his fortune by insuring his Osage pastureland for $1 an acre and then ordering his ranch hands to torch 30,000 acres one night.

 Hale's connection to Anna Brown's family was clear. His weak-willed nephew, Ernest Burkhart, was married to Anna's sister. If Anna, her mother, and two sisters died, in that order, all of the "head rights" would pass to the nephew and Hale could take control.  Half a million dollars a year or more.

Bureau investigators found that locals weren't talking. Hale had threatened or paid off many of them; the rest had grown distrustful of outsiders. Hale also planted false leads that sent agents scurrying across the southwest.

Agents found it necessary to go undercover as an insurance salesman, cattle buyer, oil prospector, and a herbal doctor to turn up evidence. Over time, they gained the trust of the Osage and built a case. Finally, the nephew talked. Then others confessed. The agents were able to prove that Hale ordered the murders of Anna and her family to inherit their oil rights, cousin Roan for the insurance and others who had threatened to expose him. In January 1929, Hale was convicted.