Book Review
Author: David Grann
Publisher: Simon &
Schuster, 2017
Pages: 339
Human greed has no limits. Worse, greed can make
people inhuman. David Grann’s book which is classified as ‘history’ reads more
like a crime thriller. It tells us the bloodcurdling history of how
almost an entire tribe of people, the Osage Indians of Oklahoma, were killed
with meticulous planning by a few individuals whose greed overwhelmed their humanity.
A few hundred people were killed and many of those deaths were passed off as
natural. The author of this book quotes the Osage historian Louis F Burns, “I
don’t know of a single Osage family which didn’t lose at least one family
member because of the head rights.” The head rights refer to the legal grants
given to the Osage people for selling the oil in their lands.
The whites in North America
perpetrated many atrocities on the original inhabitants of those lands. Even in
the beginning of the 20th century, the atrocities continued to be
perpetrated though in apparently less cruel ways. The Osages were also victims
of the white marauding. “In the early 1870s, the Osage had been driven from
their lands in Kansas onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in
northeastern Oklahoma,” the author tells us. These hapless people were pushed
out of their own homelands, in short. But a few decades later, it was
discovered that there were enormous oil deposits beneath the new Osage homes. Some
vicious whites were quick enough to devise ways and means of grabbing money
from the Osage people by cheating them. Some went to the extent of marrying
Osage women and then taking possession of their wealth. Some did not hesitate
to kill their Osage wives and relatives.
This book focuses on one particular
family: that of Molly Burkhart, an Osage woman who married a white man named Ernest
Burkhart. This Ernest looked the paragon of virtues so much so that Molly
couldn’t even believe what he had done to her and her family when it all came
to light later. Ernest and his uncle William Hale emerge as diabolic characters
in this book of ‘history’.
But they are not the only killers of
the Osages. There are many others. This book chose to focus on them because
they present one of the darkest sides of human nature. They killed too many
people, innocent and unsuspecting people, just for the sake of wealth all of
which nobody would need in an entire lifetime.
What shakes us most, perhaps, is the
fact that these white killers didn’t even regret their crimes when their
wickedness was discovered and brought to the court of justice. They tried to
bribe the judges and witnesses in order to escape arrest. They even killed an
attorney and some of the witnesses.
They didn’t even think of the Osages
as people, in the first place. One of the Osages remarked during the trial, “It
is a question in my mind whether this jury is considering a murder case or not.
The question for them to decide is whether a white man killing an Osage is
murder – or merely cruelty to animals.”
This book touches the depths of human
depravity. This is not history. This is much more than that.
Martin Scorsese has made a movie on
this with the same title. I don’t know how shocking the movie is. The book
jolted me. I shuddered again and again and found it hard to believe that some
people could be as devilish as William Hale and Ernest Burkhart. And there are many
others too mentioned in the book though briefly.
The book ends with a remark from one
of the descendants of an Osage who was killed during ‘The Reign of Terror’ [as
the Osage killings came to be known later]: “The blood cries out from the
ground.” That is what the biblical God told Cain after he killed Abel.
Hari OM
ReplyDeleteI recently read this... it stays with one for some time... It is not easy history. But the blood cries from many grounds even now... YAM xx
That's the saddest side, Yam, that we humans never learn... the meaning of being human!
DeleteSounds something like that of Armenian tribes.Americans suffer from this Heart of Darkness that bears American Dreams only because of the white thirst for sucking red human blood. They are indeed cannibals. A very simple book review, prompting book lovers to read!👍
ReplyDeleteThe Europeans had this notion that they were the torchbearers of civilisation. But history often shows them on the other side.
DeleteIt has been argued that the root of all evil is when man stopped being nomads and became settlers. I don't remember the name of the book.
ReplyDeleteSapiens by Harari? I think so.
DeleteA stark reminder that humanity often struggles to learn from its own past, repeating the same tragic mistakes.
ReplyDeleteIndeed!
DeleteNot only was Ernest Burkhart excessively greedy, but he had ensnared Molly to such an extent that she did not even suspect him in the least, all the while claiming to be the embodiment of righteousness.
ReplyDeleteIndeed the man was a personification of the devil.
Delete