Press Play with Madeleine Brand
Osage tribe got rich from oil, became targets of murder conspiracy
President Thomas Jefferson once called the Osage Indians “the great nation.” That was before he pushed them off their ancestral land in the central part of America. They lost about 100 million acres. They were forced to move again in the late 19th century. So they bought some rocky, supposedly worthless land in what is now Oklahoma.
By Madeleine Brand • • 1 min readPresident Thomas Jefferson once called the Osage Indians “the great nation.” That was before he pushed them off their ancestral land in the central part of America. They lost about 100 million acres. They were forced to move again in the late 19th century. So they bought some rocky, supposedly worthless land in what is now Oklahoma. There turned out to be oil in those hills that made the Osage wealthy. They became targets of one of the most shocking murder plots in American history.
