Osage Reign of Terror

Oklahoma City Federal Courthouse to Host CLE Seminar and Exhibit on Osage Reign of Terror

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the court:

The federal murder trials of two men charged with killing Osage Indians in the early 1920’s will be featured in a seminar and exhibit opening December 7 at the Old U.S. Post Office Building and Courthouse. Presented by the Historical Society of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, “The Osage Reign of Terror: The Untold Legal History” tracksthe murders of wealthy Osage tribal members, the arrival of agents with the Bureau of Investigation who investigated, and the Federal Prosecutors who charged William K. Hale and John Ramsey with a number of the murders. The federal trials that followed resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling, charges of witness and juror tampering, and high courtroom drama. The events took place in Fairfax, Pawhuska, Guthrie and Oklahoma City and are featured in a book and movie of the same name, “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

A reception hosted by the Historical Society and featuring a documentary film about the trials as well as Federal Court and Osage dignitaries will be held on December 7 at 4 pm in the Federal Judicial Learning Center and Museum.  The event is co-sponsored by the Bank of Oklahoma and The Federal Bar Association – Oklahoma City Chapter.  The exhibit is open to the public beginning December 8, 2023, through October 2024.    

 

Email Leigh Dudley, Executive Director at leigh@fjlcm.org or Arvo Mikkanen arvo.mikkanen@usdoj.gov for more information. Contact via text at 405/697-6117 or 405/420-9912.

The Osage Reign of Terror: A Legal Perspective; CLE Seminar 10/24/23 1:00-5:00 pm, CST; 10/27/23 1:00 – 5:00 pm CST ($50 discount offer for “Turtle Talk” subscribers)

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

The Osage Reign of Terror: A Legal Perspective

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Fletcher Book Review — ” Protectors: The Indian Trust and Killers of the Flower Moon”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

My review of David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon has been published in the Michigan Law Review. You can download the paper here or here.

An excerpt:

Killers of the Flower Moon will be an eye-opener for those who are not aware of what it means for the United States to shirk its duties to Indian people. Osage people alive today are direct victims of the Osage Reign of Terror (pp. 280–91). Grann’s book tells an interesting story about the early days of the FBI, the development of early criminal investigation techniques, and the slow death of frontier injustice and corruption. It is a story ripe for a suspenseful and entertaining film. But Killers of the Flower Moon could be so much more. For whatever reason—be it the fame of the author, the focus on major American historical figures like J. Edgar Hoover, or the fact that the FBI is investigating the current president—Grann’s work has the attention of much of the American public. Killers of the Flower Moon should be a call to action for the United States to take its duty of protection seriously, but instead the stories of real American Indian lives are a framing mechanism for a true-crime FBI story. Indian tribes standing against the political winds that threaten the trust relationship, the duty of protection the ancestors negotiated for in the nineteenth century, deserve more. The thousands of American Indian women who suffer sexual assaults every year and the thousands of American Indian children who witness and suffer violence every year deserve much more.

Continuing thanks to Wilson Pipestem and Alex Skibine.

Fletcher Review of David Grann’s “Killers of the Flower Moon”

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is “Failed Protectors: The Indian Trust and Killers of the Flower Moon,” forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review.

Abstract:

This Review uses Killers of the Flower Moon as a jumping off point for highlighting for readers how so many Indian people in Indian country can be so easily victimized by criminals. And yet, for however horrible the Osage Reign of Terror, the reality for too many Indian people today is much much worse. The federal government is absolutely to blame for these conditions. This Review shows how policy choices made by all three branches of the federal government have failed Indian people. Part I establishes the federal-tribal trust relationship that originated with a duty of protection. Part II establishes how the United States failure to fulfill its duties to the Osage Nation and its citizens allowed and even indirectly encouraged the Osage Reign of Terror. Part III offers thoughts on the future of the trust relationship in light of the rise of tribal self-determination. Part IV concludes the Review with a warning about how modern crime rates against Indian women and children are outrageously high in large part because of the continuing failures of the United States.