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smitty9112 t1_jeee8ex wrote

Reply to comment by Xenomorph_kills in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ Will Have World Premiere at Cannes Film Festival by MarvelsGrantMan136

It's an adaptation of the nonfiction book about the murders of dozens of Osage Indians back in the 1920s. The land the Osage ended up on turned out to be rich with oil, and greed lead to a conspiracy of murder to obtain their head rights to the oil. I actually just finished reading the book yesterday and can't wait for the movie.

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Misdirected_Colors t1_jeejyf3 wrote

I always thought it was just like a couple people murdered. But recently read the wiki and it was 60+?! Like a cover up type situation that got way out of hand over 15-20 years. Wild.

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cocacola150dr t1_jeembpy wrote

Having read the book it’s not a cover up, it’s blatant, it’s just that nobody cared. The head rights were granted to the Osage, but they were placed into a trust monitored by white people and they had to go through those white people to get the money. There was a main antagonist, yes, but there were also many one off killers. It’s insane that it’s all been lost to history and nobody would know about it if it wasn’t for the book being written.

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Theungry t1_jees4eu wrote

The saddest part is that this type of thing is just a continuous path of US behavior. This isn't atypical or out of character for any period from 1492 to the present.

The current government investment in policing around MMIW isn't going to stop or even slow MMIW, but it will absolutely result in the killing of more indigenous folks in border towns. Meanwhile fossil fuel companies are siphoning money into local police forces to pay them to attack and arrest peaceful Line 3 water protectors who are simply asking for the US to honor their treaties.

No major news networks even show up to cover these things after a brief interest in the Dakota access pipeline bullshit fizzled out.

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murkler42 t1_jeg1gf3 wrote

MMIW?

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[deleted] t1_jeg2yz9 wrote

“Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women”

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murkler42 t1_jeg3b25 wrote

Haven’t seen that term before, appreciate it!

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Gone_Back t1_jef2zlu wrote

It was a cover up on the part of the FBI (predecessor). They realized the corruption and murders ran much deeper but wanted to scream success, so they swept the rest under the rug to be forgotten (that’s the whole point of the last part of the book). That is literally a cover up.

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meeseeksanddestroy t1_jef7pg0 wrote

Was also a cover up by all state and local parties until the feds were basically forced to get involved. At which point they prosecuted a couple of high profile people for maybe 5% of the crimes those people were known to have committed and put up the "Mission Accomplished" banners.

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Gone_Back t1_jefl0vw wrote

Yeah, the whole Reign of Terror is filled with greedy, disgusting, murdering, racist, and corrupt individuals. I definitely could add even more descriptors for the vile people involved, but it would go on and on.

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TheBoyWonder13 t1_jeffyi2 wrote

In the book there definitely are cover-ups, >!Hale was mostly pretty careful to cover up his tracks, never going through the murders himself and often killing off co-conspirators he'd hired in what looked like routine accidents or paying off private eyes and witnesses to obfuscate the investigation. It took a while before Tom White and his men were able to detangle Hale's "plots within plots", it's not like they were just killing the Osages in public in broad daylight.!< But otherwise you're right, after J Edgar Hoover thought the FBI had done enough to make themselves look good they walked away and let everything else fade away to time.

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Shavings_in_the_RIO t1_jeeuhbq wrote

It’s hard to come up with a good estimate since it’s not known what was a murder or what was a natural death. I was told it was around 100 or so growing up. You can talk to any Osage and they will have had a family meme bet who died during that era. My great great grandfather was one of the victims.

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DisneyDreams7 t1_jeewr92 wrote

It was all murders, none of them were natural deaths because they weren’t extremely old

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Shavings_in_the_RIO t1_jeexsm0 wrote

What? I’m a bit confused what you mean but there were totally elderly tribe members, some of them died naturally. This event took place over the course of 5 years. The reason we know that there were more than just the 24 investigated deaths was because the death rate from 1920-1925 greatly exceeded the norm.

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elitegenoside t1_jefk985 wrote

Something about Native Americans being killed makes me think it didn't just "get out of hand." Pretty sure that was the plan, so they could steal the land.

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Misdirected_Colors t1_jeflq3w wrote

Idk I'm of the opinion when anyone is killed things probably got out of hand. Wew boy that escalated in a hurry

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Gone_Back t1_jef1rln wrote

The book was so damn good. I even love the follow up at the end the author has on his own investigations. It shows the extent of cover up was truly never fully uncovered. I don’t want to give too much away but anyone seeing this post should read it.

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smitty9112 t1_jef9bxy wrote

Yeah I'm really curious to see the format of the movie and how it will all be covered.

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MartyVanB t1_jeeopmo wrote

I didnt like the book that much. It wasnt horrible but IIRC it was hard to keep track of who was who

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eddiejugs t1_jeep12a wrote

It's a horrible story and only adding high profile actors will take away from the horrendous acts by the characters. People will want Oscars for Leo rather than an introspective look.

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