ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ Records Lay Foundation for Book and Major Motion Picture
By Kristin Phillips | ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ News
WASHINGTON, February 5, 2024 β For his bestselling book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, author David Grann relied on ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ records to tell the harrowing story of a series of murders in the Osage nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s.
The indictment of John Ramsey and William K. Hale in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. (Criminal Case 5660: U.S. v. John Ramsey and William K. Hale)
The motion picture based on the book was released in October 2023 and has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards.
Grannβs research at the regional archives in Fort Worth and Kansas City was critical to his story. For nearly five years, Grann and his team researched files relating to the Osage Tribe, including guardianship, probate, and criminal case records. These records from the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Court of Appeals, and U.S. District Courts are all stored in the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘β field offices.
βDuring a recent CBS 60 Minutes interview, Grann highlighted the moment he realized the importance of the Register of Guardians, 1919β1924,β said Michael Wright, Director of Archival Operations at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ at Fort Worth. βThe ledger is a handwritten record of the names of guardians of minor and βincompetentβ Osages.β
In his book, Grann explained the prevalence of guardianship in Osage country, stating that guardians were βassigned to any American Indians whom the Department of the Interior deemed βincompetent.ββ Guardians often used the system to their own advantage βto swindle the very people they were ostensibly protecting.β
Records in the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘β holdings included the arrests, trials, and subsequent incarceration of William Hale and John Ramsey for their involvement in the Osage murders. Materials relating to the βReign of Terrorβ caused by Hale and Ramsey in the 1920s can be found in , and . The Notorious Offender Files, 1919β1975, contain the records pertaining to Inmate #26,518 (Hale) and Inmate #26,519 (Ramsey).
βSometimes original research leads to the discovery of interesting side stories,β said Jake Ersland, Director of Archival Operations at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ at Kansas City. βIn this instance, we found that while Thomas Bruce White [one of the undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents] was later serving as warden of Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, two inmates were serving sentences for the murder of his brother, John Dudley White. [Inmate Case Files, July 3, 1895βNovember 5, 1957]β
In a 2017 interview published in Prologue: Quarterly of the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘, Grann stated, βI could not have written this book without the amazing holdings at the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘, where I spent hours upon hours researching this largely forgotten chapter in American history. There were so many surprising documents. . . . Often I would spend several days going through boxes, not finding anything relevant, and then open up a folder to discover something astonishing, like the secret grand jury testimony [that investigated the Osage murders].β
Additional records related to the Osage murders can be found in , , and . These records are held by the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ at Fort Worth and some have been digitized and are available in the ΝώΔαΛΉΘΛΣιΐΦ³‘ Catalog.