Book 31 Killers of the Flower Moon

 

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann fulfilled the category “A Book You Know Nothing About” for the PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge. I picked several random books for the prompt, but my library job makes it tough to not know anything about a title.

I grabbed a few that had topics I had little knowledge about. I picked up The Beautiful Cigar Girl, a nonfiction featuring Edgar Allan Poe. Also, I grabbed Triangle about the Triangle Fire. Reading The Beautiful Cigar Girl was a slog. It had a history of Poe and tales of a horrible murder of a young girl in New York City in 1841. My thoughts turned to The Devil in the White City, but this book was a pale comparison to that one. The pacing felt off and spoiler—they never solved the murder, nor gave good information about Poe’s odd demise. It was disappointing.

Instead, I grabbed Killers of the Flower Moon. It came through my circulation desk frequently when first published. The title intrigued me and I downloaded the audio. Wow, I’m glad I did. I knew nothing about the events in the book. More history that I somehow missed.

In this nonfiction, the author relates the history of the Osage tribe, who are pushed into new territories. They are finally settled in what is now Oklahoma. And guess what? Oil is found on their lands. Because of how tribal law and Native American dealing with the government work, the tribe became rich, the richest people per capita in the world (from the blurb). By the 1920s, many of the Osage families were enjoying the high life to its fullest.

Until they started dying one by one.

The book horrified me, especially since it’s nonfiction. You can guess who was killing these people and letting the murders go unsolved. It happened because they had money, because they had land rights, because they were living a cushy life, because they were brown. Some white folks didn’t like that. By the time the investigation got moving—law enforcement dragged their feet—they realized more than a few deaths occurred. Teems of tribesmen were killed in various ways, and their claim on the oil and the land were deferred to others—usually whites. The whole idea and execution (literally) of the plan to remove the Osage from their oil and their land was horrific. They should teach this book in high school. These historic events need to be put into the light.

I could go on, but this is not a political blog. Read the book, please and email me. We’ll talk.

The subtitle includes the words “And the Birth of the FBI.” Honestly, that caught my attention as much as the other half, “The Osage Murders.” Yes, the Federal government sent agents in to help solve the murders. The assigned men worked together in a new way to help solve crimes ignored by local law enforcement. Honestly, that “birth” of a federal agency had nothing on the story of the people in that town. It’s haunting and heartbreaking.

I give Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann Five Oil Strikes and a Bowed Head in sympathy and shame.