Overview

A still-relevant story of greed and murder of Native Americans by their countrymen

A true story of greed and murder of Native Americans by their countrymenJournalist Dennis McAuliffe Jr. grew up believing that his Osage Indian grandmother, Sybil Bolton, had died an early death in 1925 from kidney disease. It was only by chance that he learned the real cause was a gunshot wound, and that her murder may well have been engineered by his own grandfather.As McAuliffe peeled away layers of suppressed history, he learned that Sybil was a victim of the "Osage Reign of Terror"-a systematic killing spree in the 1920s when white men descended upon the oil-rich Osage reservation to court, marry, and murder Native women to gain control of their money.The Deaths of Sybil Bolton is part murder mystery, part family memoir, and part spiritual journey.

Reviews

"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." —Booklist


"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." —Tony Hillerman

"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." —New York Times

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