A hundred and fifty years ago, the Osage Nation bought a stretch of prairie the size of Delaware, in what's now Oklahoma. The Osage owned the land and everything beneath it.
Today, much of present-day Osage County has left Osage hands. In some cases, appropriation was swift and brutal: Dozens of Osages were murdered for their share of lucrative mineral rights to this oil-rich land, a period often referred to as the Reign of Terror. But other transfers of wealth played out more subtly—dollar by dollar and acre by acre, over decades—helped along by policies created by the US government.
“In Trust” is the story of that system. A system that moved wealth from Native hands to White ones. One that three brothers learned to operate, laying the foundation for a modern American dynasty of land and influence that continues to this day.
The List
09/06/2022
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The Headright
09/06/2022
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The Osage Price
09/13/2022
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The Guardianship
09/20/2022
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The Association
9/27/2022
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The Middlewoman
10/04/2022
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The Ranch Bid
10/11/2022
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The Pivot
10/18/2022
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The Moonscape
5/9/2023
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The ’Oklahoma!’ Haze
5/16/2023
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The Return to Osage County
11/21/2023
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Senior producer Davis Land
Executive producer Samantha Storey
Senior editor Jeff Grocott
Addition production by Victor Yvellez
Production support from Gilda Di Carli
Sound engineering by Blake Maples
Theme music by Laura Ortman
Photography by Shane Brown
Cartography by Evan Applegate, David Ingold, Jeremy CF Lin, Linly Lin, Devon Pendleton
With additional assistance from: Robert Blau, Aeriel Brown, Frank Culshaw, Stephanie Davidson, McKinnon Dekuyper, Emily Engelman, Daniel Ferrara, Michael Frazer, Thomas Houston, Cynthia Hoffman, Jaclyn Kessler, Francesca Levy, Flynn McRoberts, Eugene Reznik, Rakshita Saluja, Margaret Sutherlin, Bernadette Walker, Jane Yeomans