In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann presents the fascinating and deeply compassionate true story of the intense and tragic loss felt by the Osage Indians during the 1920s Reign of Terror that saw up to hundreds of brutal murders carried out against them for their valuable share of an oil wealth they only stumbled into. [1] The book begins as a historical account of a long series of unsolved murders put into the context of a unique point in both Osage history, with the discovery of vast oil reserves, and American history, with the love for Progressivism and science. The accounts and their contexts are thoroughly and clearly explained; the book is readable, thoughtful and succinct. Following the personal histories of the victims amid the context of larger history, Grann begins to flesh out his nuanced argument. He asserts that the Osage murders could not have been solved by the morally questionable private eyes or the county sheriffs that were themselves completely lawless, both of which were common at the time. Instead, the case could only be solved by the Progressive, scientific, and cunning force that was the new J. Edgar Hoover-led FBI. This FBI, the first FBI really, wasn’t perfect, Grann argues; like much of American society at the turn of the 20th century (think anthropometry or Social Darwinism), the FBI was overly reliant on numbers that undervalued humanity, like those that quantified work productivity. Despite these shortcomings, that specific FBI with that specific director and those specific field agents was the FBI that was so desperately needed to put a stop to the expanding brutality.
The story commences with the murder story of an Osage woman shot and then dumped in a ravine, centering on how her family is affected. The narrative then moves to a second, almost simultaneous murder of an Osage man. Grann presents the fear and helplessness that the Osage feel at this time, but the responsibility of investigation falls into the hands of a William Hale, a white leader in the region, due to the presence of inept sheriffs made negligent by their racism.[2]
Grann then shifts to the history of the Osage, chronicling how they became so accidentally rich that they were worth serially murdering. The story begins with the Louisiana Purchase, then describes how the government forced the Osage to cede a 6,250 square mile area and move to Kansas. Further evicted by settlers, the Osage purchased land in present-day Oklahoma bigger than Delaware that was so uncultivatable that the white man would never want it.[3] There began a cultural shift for the Osage, moving away from buffalo-hunting and indigenous language towards agriculture and Christian education. As Indian territory continued to be chipped away, eloquent, well-educated Osage tribesmen made sure to argue the best possible terms for their tribe, setting themselves up for immense riches once oil was found soon after.
Similar to the new Indian practices exemplified by the Osage, there are other major American trends Grann examines, such as policing and private investigation. He briefly surveys the many different private investigations into the suspicious, still unsolved murders while telling the bigger cultural history of private investigators at the time. Zooming back in, Grann details how the Osage investigators can make only nominal progress. Amidst these discussions of larger historical trends, Grann details murder after murder of Osage tribesmen. These accounts are well-narrated, interesting, and chilling, and they keep the reader engaged, but no argument is really made in this portion of the book. Despite this, the history of the Osage people, the beginnings of their brutal victimization, and the ineptness of their wannabe-Sherlock-Holmes investigator all serve to set the scene for Grann’s discussion of the new FBI.
The middle of this story focuses on the actual investigators of these murders, devoted lawmen and bureaucrats who methodically take down the vicious actors behind the crimes. Grann writes of the top-down Progressive restyling of the FBI, coupled with the retention of some of the old Bureau of Investigation’s most dedicated and passionate lawmen. Grann takes special care to explain the personal history of one of these lawmen, Tom White, from his familial policing roots to his time as a Texas Ranger to his beginnings in the FBI.
Once White begins work on the Osage crimes, he easily finds his prime suspect, William Hale, the same powerful white leader in the Osage community who had financed some of the fruitless private investigations. White quickly finds out that Hale has his hands in every institution in the region and is directly connected to Osage oil headrights through his nephew, Ernest Burkhart, who is suspiciously married to a woman whose entire family was recently murdered quickly and diabolically. White eventually finds various convicts willing to testify that Hale had approached them to help in his plans. The trial of Hale and Burkhart drudges along, with rigged juries having trouble convicting what is, at this point, an obviously guilty pair. Finally, the two are convicted and sentenced to life in prison. With the historical storytelling mostly over, Grann can move on to his assertions.
Grann’s point about the FBI’s reinvention is that is was an alliance between the truth-hungry lawmen of old, and the obsessively educated, Progressive, and scientific J. Edgar Hoover. The alliance was for the most part stable, but for a few contentious dismissals of lawmen Hoover didn’t see as consistent with his vision. The lawmen who were kept, exemplified by White, respected Hoover’s analytical ways, though they seemed foreign. Hoover respected White and the lawmen in their ability to calmly and methodically carry out their jobs, even at times demonstrating rare patience for their proceedings. This alliance, Grann argues, between rural emotion, experience, and love for the truth with an urban elite’s scientific, careful, and well-educated disposition, was the exact alliance capable of cracking this difficult case against a powerful gang.
The final section of Grann’s book devolves (or evolves) into an alternation between ethnography and investigative journalism. Grann writes of his interactions with the descendants of the victims, spending long amounts of time with them, watching them describe their grandparents’ and parents’ victimizations. Then, he becomes an investigative journalist, trying to discover the hidden murderers of the more open cases. He discovers something that is already discovered (as is clear from the numerous references to others who have discovered the same point), that Hale was not the only diabolical thief-murderer, but that there were several others, many of whom were enabled by a racist legal code governing Osage money mostly by “guardianship” over those Osage deemed “incompetent.” His argument here begins to blame far more people than just Hale and his cronies. Grann blames the guardianship system for its ability to trap Indians and make them vulnerable, and then blames all the evil guardians who appear from Grann’s research to have slaughtered hundreds. Grann may even subtlety blame the FBI for stopping at William Hale and not even confirming that he murdered all those who were killed, failing to out numerous other murderers and thieves. He sees the government’s consistent negligence and malpractice regarding Indians, at all levels from local to federal, as indicative of a major theme of early 20th century American history: racism.
With the beginning disjointed, informative, and enthralling, the middle clear and argumentative, and the ending odd, accusatory, and slow, Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon escapes easy judgement. What the book does clearly offer is multi-faceted: expansive cultural and historical context, suspenseful recounting of murders and their trial, and succinct points about the FBI’s intermediate reinvention as an alliance between the ideologies of old and new, uneducated and educated. As a finale, Grann attempts a wider scope, recognizing the murders were larger than he had first chronicled, and settling on another perpetrator: a racist legal system overrun by racist, corrupt murderers. The book takes the reader on a complicated journey with historical, anthropological, and rhetorical detours, tying up the loose ends of some the murders (not all), and making an argument about the FBI along the way. Unsatisfied with the potential satisfaction that could be felt after reading a solved murder-mystery, Grann makes sure to leave some questions unanswered surrounding American-Indian relations and Progressivism, asking the reader to think critically about how such 20th century movements affected everyone—not just the trusts.
Bibliography
Grann, David. 2017. Killers of the Flower Moon. New York, NY: Penguin Random House.
[1] David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon, (New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 2017), 307.
[2] Ibid, 28.
[3] Ibid, 40-44.