In 1923, American terrorists used a nitrocglycerin bomb to blow up the house (pictured) of Osage woman Rita Smith, in Fairfax, Oklahoma, who was killed instantly in the explosion. Also killed was her white husband Bill Smith, and their "mai...d" Nettie Brookshire. They were just a few out of the possibly 100 plus Osage men and women who were killed during this act of mass murder, referred to by historians as the "Reign of Terror" on the Osage reservation during the 1920's. Other Osage citizens were killed by execution, usually with a gun or slowly poisoned to death. Osage people were targeted because they had begun accumulating large sums of money from oil revenue after it was "discovered" on their reservation. Various European-American men and women partook in the process of marrying Osage men or women, then killing them and inhereting their money. Many of the Osage deaths remain a mystery as to exactly how they died or who killed them. One group of killers were eventually caught and tried. The leader of this particular death squad was William K. Hale, who may have been responsible for up to 18 Osage deaths, including the terrorist attack on Rita. He, of course, was eventually pardoned from his life sentence by President Harry S. Truman in 1947. Another killer, Ernest Burkhart, was also pardoned by the Governor of Oklahoma, Henry Bellmon in 1965.

 

 

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