At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma discovered an embarrassment of oil on their land. With a legally recognised claim on it, and a system of royalties established for the people of the tribe, by the early 1920s they had become some of the wealthiest people in America, if not the world. Some numbers have the eventual annual windfall to the Osage people at somewhere around $400 million, in today’s money. With the arrival this good fortune, the Osage also fell victim to a spate of killings, many of which were related to the legal “headrights” to the land, and thus the oil, and thus the money, and many of which also went unsolved. Upwards of sixty murders were recorded through the 1920s, and some historians have posited the notion that ...
At the turn of the Twentieth Century, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma discovered an embarrassment of oil on their land. With a legally recognised claim on it, and a system of royalties established for the people of the tribe, by the early 1920s they had become some of the wealthiest people in America, if not the world. Some numbers have the eventual annual windfall to the Osage people at somewhere around $400 million, in today’s money. With the arrival this good fortune, the Osage also fell victim to a spate of killings, many of which were related to the legal “headrights” to the land, and thus the oil, and thus the money, and many of which also went unsolved. Upwards of sixty murders were recorded through the 1920s, and some historians have posited the notion that ...