The Reign of Terror: The 1930s Osage Murders

In 1923, they were the richest people per capita in the world, receiving upwards of $400 million in today’s money. Then they started dying. In what came to be known as the “Reign of Terror,” over 60 Osage Americans were systematically murdered—many would never get the justice they deserved. These events were all but forgotten for a long time, but their importance in the history of Indigenous oppression and as a testament to the destructive impact of American greed is more relevant than ever.

The Osage lived over much of the Midwest for centuries but were pushed into a reservation in Kansas in the 1800s. Though President Thomas Jefferson promised otherwise, the tribe would lose over 100 million acres of land. The federal government traded annuities—set amounts of money to be paid every year—for land in its treaties, using them to create dependency and debt for Indigenous tribes. Yet the Osage only started receiving full cash payment of annuities (the first Indigenous nation to do so) when they sent a delegation to the capital in 1879. But by then, the Long Depression of the 1870s had taken its toll: half of their population had starved. However, they were able to purchase what is now Osage County in Oklahoma in 1872.

Oil was discovered on the Osage prairie in the late 1800s. With negotiation, the tribe retained a communal claim to the mineral resources, known as headrights, until 1926. All individuals listed on tribal rolls prior to 1906 were considered allottees, and the headrights could be passed down to legal beneficiaries (including spouses). The U.S. Congress mandated that most Osage be provided guardians until they could prove “competency”—that they could manage their money responsibly. Many of these guardians were non-Osage businessmen and attorneys who collected costly royalties and could even inherit their wards’ estates. Others, taking advantage of the fact that headrights could be inherited, married into families in order to get access to the money. The oil money brought with it insatiable greed, and with that, the Reign of Terror began.

In the early 1910s, dead bodies (of wealthy Osage) suddenly started appearing. But the local police didn’t allow autopsies or proper investigations and each death was written off as an unfortunate accident. The tribe couldn’t accept this. They sent several representatives to D.C., most of whom were themselves murdered, to request the FBI’s help. Finally, in 1925, the bureau sent a team led by Thomas Bruce White Sr. Their investigation led them to William King Hale, an influential local businessman who claimed to wholeheartedly support the Osage tribe. Yet, thanks to his associates’ confessions, it was soon clear that Hale had orchestrated several Osage deaths. One such case was the contract killing of an Osage man, Henry Roan, whom Hale called a “good friend.” Hale then forged a life insurance policy in order to access Roan’s headrights.

Another of Hale’s plots involved the family of Mollie Kyle, an Osage woman. Hale arranged for his nephew, Ernest Burkhart, to marry Kyle in 1917. Over the next five years, Kyle’s three sisters would pass away, one after the other: Minnie, due to a mysterious illness that was most likely poisoning; Anna, after being shot one night; Rita, in an explosion in her house that killed her and her white husband. Kyle’s mother also passed away due to age in 1918, making Kyle the heiress to her whole family’s headrights. Unbeknownst to her, Hale and Burkhart were responsible for Kyle’s sisters’ deaths and slowly poisoning her as well. Luckily, the FBI caught on in time, and, in 1931, she gained control over her family’s wealth. Unfortunately, most of the other killings—the bureau’s first murder cases—remain unsolved to this day. 

Once the FBI had gotten involved, the U.S. Congress passed legislation restricting headright inheritance to only people with half or more Osage ancestry. Later legislation extended the tribe’s communal control from 1926 to indefinitely, resulting in only 25% of headrights being owned by non-Osage people today (The Bureau of Indian Affairs). In October 2011, the United States settled outstanding litigation about the mismanagement of Osage trust funds and mineral estate for $380 million. The tribe currently has around 16,000 enrolled members.

What happened in Osage County one hundred years ago goes far beyond the murders. It’s a chapter in which the U.S. government, law enforcement, businessmen, attorneys, and many more collaborated to exploit fellow Americans and deny them justice. Despite this, for all of U.S. history, the Osage have persevered through the country's most harsh and discriminatory practices. This November, we can honor Native American Heritage Month by learning more about this history: the American institutions that carried out the Reign of Terror and the hard work of the tribe that ended it. It's also a time to highlight current issues for Indigenous people, particularly when crimes are being overlooked yet again. Today, Indigenous women in the United States are more than twice as likely to experience violence than any other demographic. Due to logistical problems like legal jurisdiction and lack of agency coordination, as well as the rising rates of poverty, more and more Indigenous women are disappearing without proper investigation and prevention—murder is the third highest cause of death for Indigenous women (Urban Indian Health Institute). Learn more at: https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw.