New Bloomberg Podcast "In Trust:" How The Osage Nation Was Swindled

 In 1626, Dutch settler Peter Minuit, an agent for the Dutch West India Company, purchased Manhattan for 24 dollars in beads and trinkets from the indigenous people who lived there. Almost 400 years later, that deal still ranks as an even greater ripoff than when the Minnesota Vikings traded five players and six draft picks for Dallas Cowboy running back Herschel Walker in 1989. The Cowboys went on to win three Super Bowls. The Vikings traded Walker a few years later.

That lopsided deal set the tempo for centuries of horrendous deals where Native Americans lost land, mineral rights, or water rights to white settlers.

Now, Bloomberg News and iHeartMedia have released a new podcast called In Trust, which investigates a massive transfer of wealth a century ago, out of Osage hands and into White ones – facilitated by the United States government — and how the Osage Nation is fighting to reverse decades of land loss today. 

The limited series, which launched today, is hosted by Bloomberg reporter Rachel Adams-Heard.

Adams-Heard writes, "A hundred and fifty years ago, the Osage Nation bought a stretch of prairie the size of Delaware, in what's now Oklahoma. The Osage owned the land and everything beneath it. Today, much of present-day Osage County has left Osage hands. In some cases, appropriation was swift and brutal: Dozens of Osages were murdered for their share of lucrative mineral rights to this oil-rich land, a period often referred to as the Reign of Terror. But other transfers of wealth played out more subtly—dollar by dollar and acre by acre, over decades—helped along by policies created by the US government."

 

Adams-Heard adds: "In Trust is the story of that system. A system that moved wealth from Native hands to White ones. One that three brothers learned to operate, laying the foundation for a modern American dynasty of land and influence that continues to this day."

You can listen to the first two episodes here.

If you're interested, here is some additional reading:

How Osage Nation's Land, Mineral Rights Were Lost

Who Gets Osage Oil Money? A List From BIA Raises New Questions

In Trust airs weekly on Tuesdays and can be heard on iHeartRadio and everywhere podcasts are available.