From the Stacks: Osage Indian mysterious deaths investigated in 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

There are some bleak and turbulent times within the history of the United States. There are times we, as a nation, aren't proud of. Times when terrible crimes against an entire people were perpetrated and little to nothing was done. "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann chronicles one of these times.

The people of the Osage Nation had been forcefully moved, cheated and displaced for years as white settlers encroached on their lands, deciding time and time again that they wanted what the Osage had. The Nation finally settled for a dry, rocky, barren land in Oklahoma because it was believed at that time no one would ever want it and they could finally claim a parcel of land as their own. With the discovery of oil and the beginning of the drilling process, that all changed.

In the 1920's, the Osage people in Oklahoma were the richest per capita in the nation. Guaranteed mineral rights, called headrights, allowed an equal share of mineral rights and created the collective wealth at the time. Even though the wealth belonged to the Osage individuals, the government deemed most of them unfit to manage their own accounts and appointed a guardian to oversee their funds. Usually the guardians were "upstanding citizens" of the community and always white. It wasn't long until the white men in the communities of the Osage longed for the wealth of the Indians, then the murders began.

This book starts with the murder of Anna Brown and Charles Whitehorn in 1921. Molly Burkhart, sister of Anna Brown, would be forced to sit by the next few years (1921-23) and watch as her family was systematically murdered one by one. Anna was shot, her mother was slowly poisoned and a sister had died earlier believed to be poisoned as well.

Before J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI intervened, there had been as many as 24 deaths. Not much had been done until the assignment of Tom White to the case because many of the lawmen and witnesses to the murders had also been killed or bribed. Hoover believed this would be the case to push his newly formed bureau into the headlines.

Grann dug into the cases, and he found several more people believed to be murdered for their headrights. His estimation of the reign of terror is from 1918-31 instead of 1921-26. These newly discovered killings were never included in the official estimates of the death tolls during the Reign of Terror and were never considered as homicides.

This book is not only a portrayal of the systematic solving of the murders by the newly formed FBI and Agent Tom White, but also to the abysmal treatment of the American Indian with the leading offender being the United States government.

The title of the book originates from the Osage name for the moon in May. Known as the flower-killing moon because under it the taller more aggressive plants snuff out the smaller blooming plants, an apt analogy for the Reign of Terror against the Osage people.

Lisa Cartee is a children's clerk at Missouri River Regional Library.