Martin Scorcese’s new film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” was released by Apple TV on Oct. 20. As of Oct. 23, the film has grossed over $46.3 million worldwide. The film is based on the non-fiction book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann. The film follows the Reign of Terror, a time during which the Osage were murdered for their land once it was discovered to be full of oil. In particular, the film focuses on Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who marries an Osage woman by order of his wealthy uncle William Hale, played by Robert DeNiro, who orchestrated the deaths of his niece’s family so that his nephew could inherit her family’s land.
The Osage people were a tribe of Native Americans who lived along the Osage River and roamed their ancestral land between Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas. However, this land was sold to the U.S. by France in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. After Missouri gained statehood, “Over 5,000 Osage were removed west to the Indian Territory,” according to the U.S National Park Service. Then, following the settling of Kansas, they were relocated finally to Pawhuska, OK, in 1872 where they currently reside today.
Pawhuska is a small town in Oklahoma with a population of about 795 people per square mile as of 2021. This town’s economy relies heavily on two things: the Osage tribe and Pioneer Woman. You may know her from her cooking show on Food Network the brand she’s built around lifestyle and blog, or her husband Ladd Drummond. According to the World Population Review, the Drummond Family is the 23rd largest landowner in the U.S. with 433,000 acres of land. The family currently residing near the city of Pawhuska leaves people asking questions about the acquisition of this land.
Let’s go back to the beginning. The first Drummond to settle in Oklahoma was Frederick Drummond (1864-1913) in 1886 who immigrated from Scotland. He traveled from New York to St. Louis before he was hired to work as a clerk at the Osage Mercantile Company in Pawhuska. Soon after, he married Addie Getner in 1980. They became a well-liked couple as he helped organize the Hominy Trading Company, which was at one point the nation’s largest dealer of Pendleton blankets, which heavily involved the Osage people. Together Frederick and Addie had three sons and a daughter; Roy Cecil, Frederick Getner, Alfred Alexander and Blanche Henrietta. All of their sons contributed to the growing Drummond empire; Roy Cecil (1892–1981) and Alfred (1896-1989) established ranches in Osage and the neighboring Marshall County, managing over 200,000 acres of land in Oklahoma and southern Kansas. As for Frederick (1895–1958), after his father’s death in 1913, he returned from college to assist in the running of the Hominy Trading Company. Later, he established two cattle ranches in Osage County adding another 25,000 acres to the Drummond estate. Roy Cecil and his wife Katherine had six children; one of their sons was named Frederick Alexander (1914-1999) who had a son named Charles (1943-2022) or “Chuck,” who had a son named Ladd. Ladd Drummond married Ree Drummond also known as “The Pioneer Woman.”
Osage leaders negotiated with the federal government and placed their land rights into a trust, managed by the government and called headrights. These were communally owned and revenue was paid out periodically to Osage members as their land was discovered rich with oil. However, rich, white, land-owning families were legally assigned as proprietors of these headrights and profited off of and sold the Osage land without their knowledge or consent. In the 1920s, the Osage people were on average, the richest people in the world, according to the History Channel. In their podcast, In Trust, Bloomberg explains that the Drummond Family was able to purchase so much land because they borrowed from or made money off of the Osage.
However, the Osage people are taking legal action to fight for their land back and the federal government is slowly making progress toward reparations to the Osage and their land. But, the only question that remains is how much of their 433,000 acres truly belongs to the Osage people?
