The O'Sage Rain of Terror. Dramatized recently in the 2023 Award-winning Martin Squisessie film,

Killers of the Flower Moon, based on the 2017 book of the same name, has been described as an epidemic of murders and mysterious deaths among the people of the

Osage Nation. Most experts state that at least 60 murders, quite possibly hundreds, were

committed between 1918 and 1931, with the majority of the murders

taking place between 1921 and 1926.

In the late 19th century, the Osage had been displaced from their land.

Again, they purchased roughly 1.5 million acres

in modern day Osage County, Oklahoma.

The land was rocky and barren,

and unbeknownst to anyone when they bought it,

there was black gold below the surface. A lot of black gold.

In the 1890s, a vast oil reserve was discovered under their new reservation land and oil companies

were soon fighting for drilling rights.

In 1906, the Osage Nation negotiated a new deal with the US government that allowed them to retain the rights to this oil.

The tribe now sold leases to drilling companies, some of which were worth over a million dollars,

a million dollars just for the right to drill on the land, and then tribe members received quarterly checks

for their share of the leases and for a percentage of profits on the continued sale of the So much money began flowing in that for most of the 1920s, the Osage were the wealthiest people per capita in the entire world.

And that didn't sit well with many, piss at somebody else, people they believe to be racially inferior,

were making so much money they didn't have to actively work for.

And a lot of white settlers, landowners, local government officials,

and even the federal government itself conspired regarding how they could

take all this fortune away from the Osage.

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