53 pages • 1 hour read
David GrannKillers of the Flower Moon (Adapted for Young Readers): The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Nonfiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The Marked Woman”
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Underground Reservation”
Mollie’s mother and father both grew up on the original Osage reservation in Kansas and participated twice a year in a buffalo hunt. They packed up all their possessions and left for weeks to follow and hunt buffalo. When they killed a buffalo, every part of the animal was used for the betterment of the tribe. After white settlers began to target, attack, and kill them, the Osage tribe sold their Kansas land and bought land in Oklahoma for their new reservation. There, Mollie’s mother and father move into their new home.
The move took a great toll on the tribe, and many died from starvation or from “white diseases” such as smallpox. They still participate in the buffalo hunts, but eventually, the settlers (with government encouragement) hunt all the buffalo to extinction. They do this only to weaken tribes who rely on buffalo. The government also wants to eradicate the Osage culture, so they force the Osage people to learn white and Catholic ideas. They withhold rations from the population until they learn to farm and agree to send their children to religious, English-speaking boarding schools. Mollie attends one of these schools and spends eight months living a two-day carriage ride away from her family. Any Osage children who try to flee the school are hunted by lawmen and dragged back. Eventually, through this forced integration, the Osage people adopted white names to use colloquially.
This forced assimilation creates a generational divide, with some children embarrassed that their parents wear traditional Osage clothing and do not speak English. Each time Mollie returns from boarding school, she notices the increasing presence of white fashion and customs.
The Osage tribe is the last tribe to succumb to the end of tribal land ownership. After years of debates with the US government, the Osage tribe members each receive 657 acres and manage to include a stipulation that the tribe still owns any natural resources under the land. They insist because they already know there were some oil deposits on the land. Ignorant of this fact, the US government agrees. While the land allotted by the government can be sold, the “headright,” which refers to an Osage tribe member’s share to an equal cut of all oil profits, cannot be sold. It can only be passed down from generation to generation.
As they discover more oil deposits, the tribe begins to lease their land to prospectors. People excitedly gather to watch the oil geysers rocket out of the earth, covering everyone in a layer of black.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “The Devil’s Disciples”
Although the Osage tribe has plenty of money, the US government deems many tribe members “incompetent,” so a white guardian has to approve each check they write. Mollie, with the support of her guardian—her husband, Ernest—uses her money and influence to continue investigating Anna’s death. Many private eyes begin working on the case and discover that while Anna’s house was untouched, the alligator purse she wore to Mollie’s luncheon was ransacked. This evidence corroborates Bryan’s story that he dropped her off at home. Additionally, they discover that someone answered a call from Anna’s house at 8:30 p.m., placing her at home long after Bryan dropped her off. They still do not know who made the call or whether Anna is the one who answered. Another detective discovers that Anna was pregnant when she died, but no one knows who the father was.
Other private eyes also investigate Charles Whitehorn, who was found dead days before Anna. They discover that his widow was upset because he was having a relationship with another woman, and many speculate that Anna was involved. About nine months after the murders of Anna and Charles, a 29-year-old Osage man dies. Authorities believe he was poisoned, but due to poor forensic investigations, they cannot confirm this theory. A month later, another Osage woman is seemingly poisoned to death, and soon after, another Osage man dies after drinking poisoned whiskey.
At this point, a wealthy white oilman feels moved to get involved. Barney McBride, a long-time friend of the Osage tribe, heads to Washington to plead with the federal authorities to investigate these murders. While in Washington, McBride is brutally murdered. His murder is a clear threat to anyone who pushes for an investigation of the Osage murders.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “The Million Dollar Elm”
As the number of murdered Osage men and women continues to grow, so does the oil industry. Every few months, the leases of the land are auctioned off. Leases for tracts without proven oil sell for only a few hundred or thousand dollars. Overnight, people can become rich if an unknown lease happens to sit on a large deposit of oil. At the height of the frenzy, the plots of land known to sit on top of oil reserves are leased at over a million dollars.
Meanwhile, new reporters help slowly turn the American public sentiment against the Osage Tribe. White Americans resent that an Indigenous tribe is so wealthy, so in turn, Congress passes increasingly strict laws on their spending. Even with guardian approval, tribe members can only withdraw a few thousand dollars per year. In addition to Congress, local officials, bank robbers, and even merchants execute illegal plans to steal Osage wealth for themselves.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “This Thing of Darkness”
About six months after the last poisoning, another Osage man is found shot and killed in his car, and the typical investigation commences. This man was briefly married to Mollie when she was 15. There was no legal record because it was an arranged Osage marriage, but they parted amicably. Mollie does not involve herself in this investigation because she does not want her jealous husband to find out about her past with this man.
The murders create an atmosphere of fear. Many Osage members string lights throughout the streets to keep themselves and their neighbors safe. Mollie’s sister Rita and her husband, Bill, move homes to a more populated area filled with guard dogs in an attempt to feel safe, but eventually, each guard dog dies of poison. One night, Bill goes to get moonshine (from the same bootleg distributor that Anna used), and when he returns home, his house explodes. Someone had planted a bomb underneath; Rita dies immediately, and Bill dies about two weeks later.
The Oklahoma governor sends a special investigator, who is eventually arrested for corruption due to his connections with criminals in the area. Soon, the governor himself steps down for corruption. Anyone who learns any helpful information or tries to help the Osage people is killed. One lawyer named W. W. Vaughan, who discovered a breakthrough, is thrown from a train on his way to bring evidence to the Osage sheriff. His evidence is also destroyed.
Mollie has struggled with diabetes her whole life and always expected to be the first of her family to die, but she is the last survivor. She retreats, fearing that she will be targeted next. She sends her third child, Anna, away to be raised by relatives and even stops attending church. Two years after the bombing, in 1925, Mollie secretly reaches out to a priest, saying that she is certain that she is being poisoned.
Part 1, Chapters 4-7 Analysis
Injustice, a result of The Impact of Greed and Prejudice, affects the Osage people long before the killings. The Osage people view their original reservation in Kansas as their permanent homeland, but as the American population begins to increase, settlers encroach on the land. The settlers began squatting, harassing, and killing Osages to get them to leave. The greed leads settlers to want the land and its resources, and their prejudice leads them to believe they are more deserving of the land than its current inhabitants.
The harassment becomes so extreme that the Osage Tribe sells its land for an undervalued amount because even the US government is plagued by greed and prejudice. Even after the Osages sell their land and prepare to move farther west, white settlers continue their murders and harassment to ensure their right to the best land. Grann describes the violence as so unsettling that “[a]n Indian Affairs agent said, ‘The question will suggest, which of these people are the savages?’” (45). Even in condemning the white settlers’ actions, the agent uses racist, stereotypical language. White settlers who steal and massacre are rewarded with land, demonstrating how greed and prejudice lead to injustice. Grann explores this idea further by exploring the subjectivity of whiteness and how one can lose access to white “justice” by associating too closely with the Osage people. For example, McBride and Vaughan forfeit their protection as white men by trying to help the Osage people. By trying to defend them, the two men become victims of greed and prejudice.
Grann uses animal imagery to further emphasize this greed. He describes two oilmen fist-fighting over a land lease as “rolling on the ground like rabid racoons” (78). This simile provides vivid imagery to emphasize the dehumanizing effect of this greed and the delirium it causes. The surviving Osage people continue to face the negative consequences of the settlers’ greed and prejudice: “The Osage found themselves surrounded by predators—‘a flock of buzzards,’ as one member of the tribe complained at a council meeting” (86). The greed of the corrupt law officials, merchants, robbers, and others turns them into predators or buzzards circling the Osage people, waiting to devour them.
Details of Mollie’s past and the history of the Osage tribe convey The Culture and Resilience of the Osage Nation. Mollie has been a traveler in the mist since she was a child. She is forced through the “big, black mouth, bigger and darker than a wildcat’s” (55) of an English-speaking boarding school focused on assimilating Osage children into white, Catholic American culture. The vivid animal imagery highlights the danger and the unknown that Mollie faced as a young child. Her survival demonstrates her strength and ability to navigate white society while maintaining her Osage roots. In another example of the importance of animals, the buffalo hunts that Mollie’s parents participate in as children produce no waste; each kill means something to the tribe. This hunt is the antithesis of the senseless killings of the Osage people. Buffalo are hunted to better the tribe as a whole, but the Osage people are killed for the selfishness of individuals.
Even after they gain immense wealth, this communal mindset influences how the tribe spends its oil money. Many white reporters highlight lavish spending by some members of the Osage but fail to describe the tribal values of generosity as the motivation behind their spending habits. As the murders continue and fear spreads through their community, the Osage people stay strong as a tribe and attempt to protect one another. They string lights throughout the town, using their resources to attempt to end the darkness plaguing their people. They pool their resources to light up a dark night and attempt figuratively to end the darkness plaguing their people.
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