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Killers of the Flower Moon
News
October 20, 2023
Killers of the Flower Moon

REPORTER

REPORTER

“Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar: Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy: Hide it in smiles and affability.”

By now, many of you have already heard or seen a number of promotional items and articles about Killers of the Flower Moon. Martin Scorses’s adaptation of the David Grann book which details one family’s account of the Reign of Terror on Osage land around the 1920s - has its official theatrical release today. I highly encourage readers to read the book and visit the museum in Pawhuska if given the chance, but I briefly want to reflect on the story itself.

In the 1870s, the Osage were driven from their lands in Kansas to parts of northeastern Oklahoma - one of many broken promises by the U.S. government. I do not want to understate the violence of this relocation. Grann states that at this time, “the Osage - expelled from their lodges, their graves plundered - agreed to sell their Kansas lands to settlers ... Nevertheless, impatient settlers massacred several of the Osage.”

The next injustice came after this relocation when the discovery of oil on the once thought infertile land brought prospectors who then bought leases from the Osage in order to obtain the oil.

Soon, the Osage were considered the wealthiest people per capita in the world. It is said that in 1923 alone, the tribe took in more than $30 million, before adjusting for inflation. That also brought another level of attention - The kind of attention that historically, tends to come at a dangerous price.

Grann acknowledges that in the Roaring Twenties, the Osage “were not alone in their profligacy.” However, the attitudes of a growing number of white settlers began to shift, as they began to feel that the Osage were undeserving or lucky recipients of such fortune.

These sentiments of the Osage’s unworthiness led to the implementation of financial guardianships and subsequent forms of violence.

Grann’s account centers around Mollie Burkhart and her family, following the discovery of her sister Anna’s body, found near a creek with a bullet hole between her eyes. Her older sister Minnie had died a few years prior of what was described as a “wasting illness” and not long after, their mother Lizzie grew ill and passed. That’s when Mollie and others began to grow more suspicious.

When we meet Mollie’s husband, Ernest Burkhart, he is 28 years old, nearly a decade after he decided to pack up and leave Texas - opting to live with his uncle, William K. Hale, a cattleman in Fairfax, OK. He met Mollie while chauffeuring her around town, and they went on to have two children. All the while, more bodies fell around them.

The Osage Tribal /council eventually drafted an ordinance requesting the Justice Department intervene. Tom White, an agent with the Bureau of Investigations, who had also served in the Texas Rangers was eventually called up by J. Edgar Hoover, and tasked with investigating the murders in Osage territory.

(Side note, do you know how messy a story has to be for J. Edgar Hoover to not even be a central part of the plot?)

At this point, several other agents had already failed or otherwise been killed in the process.

What follows is the epitome of truth being stranger than fiction. The story is part murder mystery, suspense- thriller, history lesson, yet wholly an American tragedy. The ripples are very much seen and felt today. When you hear about the guardianships, and who assumed ownership of the headrights, and when we connect that past to who presently controls the land and power, the story feels almost unfinished.

In talking about his most recent book, “The Wager,” we discussed David Grann’s ability to tell history in an engaging way, so I’ll try not to be redundant in my reflections.

Until about two years ago, I was an Oklahoman who had never heard about the Osage murders. It wasn’t until I got the chance to work on the film crew out in Pawhuska (humble brag) that the significance of these events and their erasure was made clear.

Initially, I was told that it was a murder mystery set in Oklahoma in the early 1900s. Getting to walk the grounds where many of the events in this book took place was as immersive as it was haunting, and no doubt impacted how I consumed this story. Seeing that it happened around the same time as the Tulsa Race Massacre, led me to better understand the similar motivations for the violence.

That said, with the movie’s release bringing new attention to the horrors of that time, I feel it necessary to emphasize the importance of elevating the voices of the people still affected by these tragedies.

These feelings were reaffirmed when I was sitting around the Creek Council House downtown during their Indigenous People’s Day celebration earlier this month. A gentleman got up and encouraged people to see the film. He added that unsurprisingly, similar tactics were used against a number of indigenous groups, including right here.

To that point, I commend David Grann for acknowledging the strategic and systemic nature of the violence depicted in this story. A systemic violence that has evolved more than it has withered. Grann explains that while this book focuses mostly on one family and region of the United States, these attitudes and sentiments have led to the deaths and erasure of scores of people in this country. Books (and now films) such as “Killers of the Flower Moon” are ways that we can use the arts to confront our past in a healing way.

I applaud the research as much as I applaud what came across as - his genuine care for the subjects. I look forward to seeing how it translates on screen, under the direction of the greatest filmmakers of our time. I also hope that engaging with this story in whatever medium you choose turns out to be an equally transformative experience.

Oh, and when you do get to see the film, look closely and you may see some familiar Okmulgeeans in the background.

Have any comments, questions, additional information to add, or perhaps even a book recommendation? Talk to me: joshua@cookson. news.

Thank you for your time.

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