Introducing: In Trust
In Trust
iHeartPodcasts and Bloomberg
4.8 • 595 Ratings
🗓️ 30 August 2022
⏱️ 2 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
A hundred and fifty years ago, the Osage Nation bought a stretch of prairie the size of Delaware, in what's now Oklahoma. The Osage owned the land and everything beneath it. Today, much of present-day Osage County has left Osage hands. In some cases, appropriation was swift and brutal: Dozens of Osages were murdered for their share of lucrative mineral rights to this oil-rich land, a period often referred to as the Reign of Terror. But other transfers of wealth played out more subtly—dollar by dollar and acre by acre, over decades—helped along by policies created by the US government.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a story about land and oil, about family, about wealth, about the stories we pass down, and the stories we don't. |
| 0:13.3 | More than 100 years ago, the Osage Nation negotiated something unique. |
| 0:18.7 | Okay, a lot to surface lands, but the subsurface remains as a mineral estate. |
| 0:26.1 | The Osage knew they needed to protect the oil and gas wealth beneath their reservation, |
| 0:31.1 | because not long after that deal, oil production in Osage County, Oklahoma, exploded, |
| 0:37.1 | bringing a lot of money to Osage families. |
| 0:41.1 | For the past year, I've been trying to figure out who ended up with that wealth and how they got it. |
| 0:47.0 | The truth has got to come out, you know, and it's not always pretty and it's not always flattering. |
| 0:53.4 | This story took me across Oklahoma, across Texas, into people's homes and state archives, |
| 1:00.3 | to a sea of grass in the middle of the prairie. |
| 1:03.5 | Through over 100 years of history, to the source of the money, land, and power that shapes Osage County today. |
| 1:11.2 | I'll tell you, Terry, where money's involved, |
| 1:16.7 | honor seems to pry out to win this or does. |
| 1:20.5 | This is in trust, an investigative podcast about a massive transfer of wealth, |
| 1:26.1 | out of Osage hands and into white ones, and how the |
| 1:29.2 | OSH nation is fighting to get it back. |
| 1:33.9 | InTrust is a new series from Bloomberg and IHeartMedia, reported and hosted by me, Rachel |
| 1:39.7 | Adams Heard. Listen to Intrust starting on September 6th on the IHeartheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. |
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