bloodland

BOOK REVIEWS:
Bloodland :A Family Story of Oil

Bloodland :A Family Story of Oil,
By Dennis McAuliffe

http://www.okit.com/

Paperback 341 pages amazon.com $11.16
Tony Hillerman

"As a boy in the Oklahoma oil patch, I heard rumors of the atrocities committed against the Osages. Dennis McAuliffe's magnificent reporting job brings this terrible episode in American history vividly to life."

Booklist "An intimate quest for identity, a fascinating real-life whodunit, and a shattering expose of another shameful episode in the painful history of U.S. and Indian relations."

The New York Times "It starts in the 19th century and takes a sharp turn in the 20th, one we have never taken in all the westerns that fill our movie screens... It is a western and a crime story, and it is history, not mythology."

The Seattle Times "McAuliffe has opened not only old family wounds but a national tragedy."

Kirkus Reviews "An informative, often poignant story of a suppressed chapter of American history-a kind of Native American Roots."

Book Description Part murder mystery, part family memoir, and part spiritual journey, Bloodland reveals myriad layers of greed and deception. Skillfully written by Washington Post journalist Dennis McAuliffe, the book unearths family secrets and ultimately exposes a systematic plot by white men to marry and murder newly wealthy young Osage women. McAuliffe first noticed inconsistencies in the accounts of his young Osage grandmother's cause of death -- attributed first to kidney disease, then suicide. After discovering that she died of gunshot wounds, he pieces together evidence from FBI files, Bureau of Indian Affairs documents and Osage tribal members' personal accounts to reveal what became referred to as a "Reign of Terror".

In the 1920's oil was found on the Osage reservation, transforming the tribe into the wealthiest population in the world. Tribal members attended the most exclusive finishing schools and Ivy League Universities, owned expensive automobiles and dressed in the finest fashions of the era. In a frenzy that resembled the California Gold Rush, strangers descended on the region and married Osage women to gain control of this newfound wealth. Many of the new brides and their families died mysteriously shortly after their weddings. The author's young, well-educated and beautiful grandmother, Sybil Bolton, was among the last of the murdered brides. Eventually McAulife is forced to suspect that his own grandfather may have engineered her murder.

About the Author Dennis McAuliffe, an accomplished writer and Assistant Foreign Affairs Editor for the Washington Post, approaches his memoir as an investigative journalist skillfully researching the material. McAuliffe is currently on leave of absence to teach journalism at the University of Montana. He is an enrolled member of the Osage tribe.