Killers of the Flower Moon - Book & Movie.

This book was recommended to me, and it's fascinating.

I had no idea about this historical event (the Osage Reign of Terror), and not sure I realized how poorly American Indians were treated even in the years after WWI. This tribe was pushed into north central Oklahoma, got "lucky" by discovering oil under their otherwise undesirable land and still had to fight for those rights with the government overseeing what they spent, etc. But much of the story is about the murder spree that began to hit their members.

There are so many interesting characters, to include J. Edgar Hoover, who was appointed head of the n/k/a The FBI following the Teapot Dome Scandal.

It wasn't until I began reading the book that I discovered there's a movie that's coming out. Looks like the movie is in post-production. I'm pretty excited. Directed by Martin Scorsese, and the cast includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, Brendan Fraser, and others.

The Book

Killers of the Flower Moon - Wikipedia

The book investigates a series of murders of wealthy Osage people that took place in Osage County, Oklahoma in the early 1920s—after big oil deposits were discovered beneath their land.[8][9] After the Osage are awarded rights in court to the profits made from oil deposits found on their land, the Osage people prepare to receive the wealth to which they are legally entitled from sales of their oil deposits.

The Osage are viewed as the "middle man" and a complex plot is hatched to eliminate the Osage inheritors on a one-by-one basis by any means possible. Officially, the count of the full-blooded, wealthy Osage victims reaches at least twenty, but Grann suspects that hundreds more may have been killed because of their ties to oil.[10]

The Movie

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) - IMDb

 

For those interested in American Indian history (I used to say Native American, but I'm not sure if that's preferred these days?), I also recommend Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne.

The author digs into the brutality committed by the Comanche tribe as well as the White settlors and the government. Goes into the founding of the Texas Rangers, etc. I think it strikes a balance and doesn't come across as having a political agenda or being preachy in any way. I always thought of the Apaches as being particularly feared, but the Comanches were on another level.

One theme that was fascinating to me was about the importance of community and why many White Americans were drawn to become a part American Indian communities and why that rarely happened in reverse. I think many of those themes are instructive today with peoples' feelings of social isolation and lack of purpose.

Apparently, there is a movie adaptation of this book in pre-production, which I hadn't known until now. If it's anything like the book, it's going to have to be extremely graphic.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History|Paperback

This New York Times bestseller and stunning historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West “is nothing short of a revelation...will leave dust and blood on your jeans” (The New York Times Book Review).

Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches.

Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands.

The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, and the amazing story of Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah—a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being.

 

Okay, I’m getting Blood Meridian! Had never heard of Cormac McCarthy, but a lot of people seem to love him.