MapLab: A Massive Land Transfer Out of Osage Hands
Photo illustration by C. Hoffman. Maps courtesy Osage County Courthouse, parcel data on actdatascout.com and geospatial files made available by the Osage County Assessor's Office; Oklahoma Secretary of State. Photograph by Shane Brown
In the early 20th century, the discovery of oil beneath the Osage Nation in Oklahoma made the tribe enormously wealthy. “OSAGE ARE RICHEST PEOPLE; Greatest Per Capita Wealth in World Results From Oil Deal,” blared a New York Times headline in 1921.
That wealth was then systematically preyed upon. The new film Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of how Osage citizens were murdered for their oil rights by their white spouses and federally appointed financial guardians. Based on the book by David Grann, it is a tale of terror and betrayal, facilitated in part by the US government’s failure to uphold its fiduciary duties to the tribe.