Colonial Entanglement: Constituting a Twenty-First-Century Osage Nation

4 Minerals

Chapter 4 Minerals 102 : : : M i n e r a l s W e were all apprehensive as several of the reform commissioners , their lawyer, and I made the trek out to Grayhorse, the most remote Osage community. The Grayhorse Indian camp has always been known not just for its isolation but also for its inhabitants’ fierce independence and skepticism, especially concerning issues of Osage governance . They were the last of the three Osage districts to settle on the Osage reservation, making the migration from the Kansas lands only with great trepidation.1 Additionally, this was the first community meeting to be held after the 2005 referendum vote, where all but one issue was decided by a large margin (see appendix 6). The one remaining issue dealt with how the Osage Mineral Estate was going to be incorporated into the new government. For the Osage annuitants, who made up the majority of participants in the 2004–6 Osage reform process, this was a very serious and contentious matter. When we walked into the aluminum-sided community building in the center of Grayhorse, we were greeted by the stares of two dozen citizens , who were already waiting for the meeting to begin. The long and narrow room was filled with tables and folding chairs facing the single table reserved for the commissioners at the front of the room. Behind the audience, the kitchen sat dark and empty, evidence of the meeting’s lack of advance notice. Unlike the earlier meetings, when the commissioners went to great lengths to encourage participation, including elaborately catered meals by well-known Osage cooks, this round of meetings had few such attractions and was solely intended to address the vocal minority of annuitants who had concerns about the new constitution. From the beginning of the meeting in Grayhorse, it was clear that the apprehension felt on the long drive across the reservation was well founded. This issue of how the Osage Mineral Estate should be incorporated into the new governing structure resulted in a great deal of anxiety for some Osage annuitants, who were deeply skeptical of any change to the original 1906 Osage Allotment Act (34 Stat. 539). If there was one constant theme throughout the community meetings, it was that the Osage Mineral Estate should be left alone. At Grayhorse, this sentiment took on even more force, with tensions reaching a peak. One middleaged annuitant from Fairfax, the nearest town to Grayhorse, grew visibly upset, repeatedly pounding his fist on the table and yelling, “It’s ours!,” asserting that all of the natural resources on the Osage Reservation, and even the gaming proceeds, belonged to the Osage annuitants alone. M i n e r a l s : : : 103 Even though all of the commissioners were annuitants, he continued yelling: “You all need to stay out of the Mineral Estate. You all stay out of it. You have no business in there.” Later in the meeting, when he had calmed down, he explained: “What you need is to look at the Minerals Council as a corporation. You have no control over the corporation; only the shareholders do. You cannot as an elected official in Osage County go over and tell Conoco you have to give us money. Conoco is controlled by shareholders. The Minerals fund is controlled by the shareholders and the 1906 [Osage Allotment] Act, which has not been reformed, [and] remains the same. Only shareholders can decide how it should be done.”2 The tension between the authority of a new constitutional government and the hundred-year-old Osage Mineral Estate was a constant roadblock throughout the 2004–6 Osage reform process, as well as the most contentious issue, as evidenced in tense interactions like this one. The language of annuitants as shareholders in a corporation, however, both belies and obscures the deep history of colonial entanglement behind the Osage Mineral Estate. The story of Osage oil, a tale of wealth and prosperity, is also a classic tale of colonization. Oil production on Osage land began at the end of the nineteenth century, with a blanket lease to the entire reservation going to Kansas railroad man Henry Foster and his brother Edwin in 1896. The Osage agent, H. B. Freeman, the Office of Indian Affairs (OIA), and Foster negotiated the deal, and only after the fact did the 1881 Osage Constitution’s governing body, the Osage National Council, put it to...