September 6, 2022 • 53 mins
The extended Drummond family includes TV’s “Pioneer Woman,” Ree Drummond, and Oklahoma Attorney General candidate Gentner Drummond. If you add up the holdings of scores of family members, the Drummonds today are the biggest landowner in Osage County. Many Osages have long wondered: How’d the family get so much land? An out-of-print book and hours of forgotten tapes reveal clues. They also point to an untold story of one Osage woman’s resilience. Learn more and see bonus material from the episode at https://bloom.bg/3DNjPp1.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Just a heads up before we get started. This episode
contains descriptions of abuse. It may be hard to listen to.
Last summer, I bought a book. I had to get
it from a rare books distributor. I paid one dollars
eighty six cents. I bought it because I thought it
(00:23):
might help answer my question about the Drummond's head rights,
those shares of the O Sage mineral estate that's held
in trust by the federal government. The book came in
the mail a week or two later. It's a couple
hundred pages, found in a hardback linen cover smelled like dust.
(00:46):
The cover was blue and pattered. Three different photos of
one guy and one he's young twenties, maybe dressed in
a military uniform. Another he's a kid riding a horse
and a cowboy hat. The biggest photo is a portrait
of him older. He's staring into the camera, holding a
lit cigarette, a big ring on his finger. He's pale, round,
(01:11):
dressed in a three piece suit. The title ranching from
the front seat of a buick, The Life of Oklahoma's
a a Jack Drummond. It's this telling of the booms
and busts of early ranch days. In Osage County, a
biography of one of the three Drummond brothers who grew
(01:32):
up here in the early nineteen hundreds. Almost everyone I
talked to about head rights brought up the Drummonds. A
local newspaper had published a list of non os Age
names who had them, but not how many they had.
I thought maybe the book might give me a clue.
(01:52):
I was also curious what a white man like Jack
would have remembered about the reign of terror. A house
blowing up, the FBI in town, murder all around him.
But the details of this conspiracy are hardly mentioned at all,
just one sentence on page sixty four, the line Bill Hale,
(02:13):
a local rancher had to sell his land because he
was going to prison for conspiring to murder most of
an O s Age Indian family, so their head rights
would devolve to his nephew. That was it. That's all
the book how to say about it. The casual mention
of another rancher in town, who, by the way, also
happened to mastermind the most notorious murders from the time.
(02:38):
There are pages dedicated to Jack Drummond going off to
war fighting a bunch of lawsuits over land, meeting his
first wife, being scammed out of more than ninety dollars
on a trip to Chicago, paying for some local kids
to go to college, loaning money to young ranchers who
are about to go under, driving around Oklahoma, and his
buick checking on cattle. But something at the very beginning
(03:02):
of the book jumped out to me and the author's no.
The author his name was Terry Hammonds. He mentions he
donated dozens of cassette tapes worth of interviews with Jack,
along with a bunch of financial records, to the State
Historical Society in Oklahoma City. It sounded like a gold mine.
Maybe these tapes, these records would tell me something about
(03:25):
the Drummond's head rights and how they got them. So
I reached out to the Historical Society an archivist I
spoke to, ran a search. Nothing came up, no luck.
But a few days later I got an email that
archivist said after her search came back blank, she decided
to keep looking. She spent hours, in her words, scrambling
(03:47):
to find these tapes. She scoured the Historical Society's inventory,
called around to other sites, and to my surprise, she
found the tapes and Jack's financial records somewhere I would
have never thought to look up the road in a
suburb called Edmund at the University of Central Oklahoma. I'll
(04:11):
tell you terry where money is involved. Honors seemed to
try out the windows or does sure does? And in
families and that at one hour. These recordings, they're all
the raw material that went into making that biography, Hours
and hours of two guys sitting in a room talking
(04:33):
about cattle, mortgages, land financing. In the Drummond family. The
secret of the success in the cattle is finance. You
have to know how to always pay those cattals, like
one of them financed all this land. I kept my
(04:56):
land in the terry and Jack started recording these in
they talked every few months for the next couple of years.
We hear dogs bark in the background, the clock ticking,
and occasionally the tape skips or stops sometimes when things
are just getting interesting. What you did was the government
(05:17):
tells you what they'd pay you for it, and you
just took it. That fit. You didn't bother any court
or anything like. No. John's took his money and then
he disappeared, right yeah, and you see him after that
he kept that off. And I'll tell you, and honestly,
at first I was worried there was nothing here. But
(05:37):
then I found this moment when Jack starts talking about
a legal fight he got into with a man named
George Smith and a bank he just calls the National.
So I had all this litigation with George Smith and
the Old Sage, and I fought to National when I've
showed him for this million dollars up there. So the
(05:58):
National just hated me like hell. Basically, this was a
fight between this rancher, George Smith and Jack Drummond over
Land in os Age County. The bank's got involved because
both men had taken out such big loans that whoever
lost the lawsuit would go bankrupt. Think of it as
a high stakes, highly leveraged her for and they called
(06:22):
Bill dam And on the telephone and told him and
I was a crooking son of a bitch and I
was Steely's cattle, and they told him everything bad about me.
I'm telling you all this because as he starts getting
into the details of this dispute, he mentions, but I
know Sam Borshen was a longer in in the Tulsa
(06:44):
and he knew how expensive litigation was, and he said
to me, how long can you keep up this litigation?
I said indefinitely. Well, he said, how can you do that?
And that? And I said, well, I lived with my mother,
so I have reboard and room and laundry. I've got
an O Sage half an old stage head ride and
(07:07):
that paid me enough money so that I can always
get new cars and make my car payments on make
my car installments. And I said that I've got to
and I said as a last resort. Like the tape
ends right there, right after he mentions he is half
an osage head rate. Half a head rate he's using
(07:30):
to make car payments, half a head rate that could
float him during all these core battles. I later found
out Jack had transferred most of his property into other
people's names during this lawsuit, but this half a head
rate he held on to Elsewhere in the tapes, he
kind of brags to Terry Hammonds about it. I've gotta
(07:53):
half O Sage head ride. That did you know? I
how to have O D and that pays me. See,
I gave that to Jim. That's what that try insurance.
Jim Drummond is Jack stunt. He's in his seventies, still
a practicing criminal defense attorney in Texas. I've spoken to
him before I get to that conversation, though, I want
(08:14):
to point out another moment in those tapes with Jack
when he says flat out how he got that head
right share and the number actually ends up being a
little more than a half. Can you see I half
a head four of Ryan i'bout the purchase of it
from old a Pole. So there it was, and I've
(08:39):
been able to confirm this. Jack Drummond bought one half
and one four of a head right from someone named
Movie Pope, and that half share Jack later gave to
his son. If anything, these tapes gave me more questions
than answers. Who was the V Pope, how did he
get head rights? And who has them today? This is
(09:12):
in trust. I'm Rachel Adams Hurt. I would like you
to tell me about that three weeks when you and
O V Pope drove around Oklahoma signing up cattleman for
(09:36):
the Obama Livestock Marketing so hard. That's extremely interesting, And
I just know I heard Jack mentioned OVI Pope's name
again in the middle of a story he tells about
trying to round up farmers and ranchers for a financial
co op. This is the Great Depression, the beginning of
the dust Bowl. Farmers and ranchers are facing yet another
(09:57):
year of crop prices so low that can't stay afloat.
They're overloaded with debt. Oklahoma families are starting to pack
up their trucks and head west to California. This cooperative
was supposed to help ranchers out, and Jack's job was
to get people on board. I would sleep at night
(10:18):
in the car and only both would would drive me.
And then when I get to these towns, I would
I would get me a one the cowman on the
leading cowman, and have him go with me to his friends. See.
Then I had to have the support and for each community,
and it was hard gone. It took me three weeks.
(10:40):
I never stook my clothes off for those three weeks.
Those were a gruesome three weeks. The way Terry describes
it in the book, It's August hot. For nearly a month,
Ovie Pope and Jack Drummond are living out of a car,
bumping along ranch roads, making a last ditch effort to
see the Oklahoma the cattle business. The thing is nowhere
(11:07):
in these capes does Jack say how OVI Pope would
have gotten a head right or why he sold part
of it to Jack. When I started looking around for
something anything about OV Pope, I kept running into dead ends.
Compared to the Drummonds, this was a relatively obscure guy.
No line in the local paper when he went out
of town on business, no university buildings named after him.
(11:32):
But even without any specifics on OV Pope, I could
get transfer records from the National Archives, all the paperwork
that got sent to what was then called the Office
of Indian Affairs, everything they were required before they would
sign off on the sale of the head right to
someone else. If the sale happened before, it's in the
(11:56):
public record, held in a warehouse and for worth. It
was legal to transfer a head right to a nono
stage person or group up until so. There's a gap
in the public records. You can access on head rights
thirteen years that are essentially a black box. But even
though the records before are technically public, they aren't easy
(12:18):
to access. You have to know the names of the
individuals involved in order to ask one of the archive
specialists to email the documents. If you want to search
through them yourself. You have to get an appointment in
a special researcher card and travel to for worth. The
(12:38):
folders I got back were bigger than I expected. It
turns out there was a fair amount of bureaucracy involved
in selling a head right. Each one's about a dozen pages.
You had to write a formal application, get it notarized,
have an oil and gas inspector weigh in on the
purchase price. The whole thing had to be approved by
the Assistant Secretary of Interior. According to those transfer records,
(13:03):
Jack Drummond bought the one half head right from Ovi
Pope in for two fifty dollars, and three years later
he buys another one fourth of a head right for
eleven thousand, two d fifty dollars. What's also in that
(13:28):
paperwork is something missing in the tapes with Jack. How
Ovi Pope got his head rights. He inherited them from
his wife, an o stage woman named namt He She
died in I found something else on the Pope family too,
this time it was in Oklahoma's court records. I found
(13:50):
out that after Namata he died, Ovi Pope's brother married
her daughter, a daughter she had from a previous marriage
to an O stage man. Her name was Rhodo wheeler Ridge,
and she was trying to get a divorce. I brought
all this, the transfer paperwork and the introduction to the
divorce case to tear a dammeron at the White Hair
(14:12):
Memorial who told me about that list of non ocge
heap very holders. We started with the transfer paperwork. So
this is dated May nineteenth, ninety to a Mr. A
by Ludwick County Clerk Busk, Oklahoma says, Dear sir, there
isn't clothes for recording assignment from O V. Pope to
(14:37):
Alfred A. Drummond, which was approved by the Assistant Secretary
of the Interior on May tenth, together with Cashier's chick.
I wanted to hear Tara's thoughts on this because she
spends all day immersed in these kinds of records. She
would know better what we were looking at. So OV
Pope was a white man who was married to an
(15:00):
stage lady. Um I'll meet say, and she had three
head rights at the time of her death in from suberculosis,
and he got one and a half. Okay, Yeah, it
looks like she was in her sixties and her husband
(15:20):
was in his thirties really and um he inherited half
of her estate. So Ovie Pope has one and a
half head rights. Her daughter, Rhoda wheeler Ridge has one
and a half head rights. Ovie Pope's brother marries the daughter.
(15:43):
And this is her divorce case. If you want to
read starting there is where it explains it this. This This
is Pope v. Pope, Oklahoma nine six. The ground alleged
and the petition was extreme cruelty. On September eighteenth, nineteen four,
(16:08):
plaintive filed an amended petition in which she alleged. Over
pages and pages of testimony, Rhoda talks about the months
before namat Say He died, when Ovi Pope and his
brother Troy packed up her things and moved her to Colorado.
They kept her and her children and house Troy Pope bought,
(16:28):
even while her mother, who Over Pope was married to,
was dying back in Osage County. In January, nat Say
He died, and a little over four months later, as
Rhoda was set to inherit half of her mother's estate,
the two Pope brothers took her to the courthouse. Rhoda
(16:50):
was forced to marry Troy Pope. I want you to
hear some parts of Rhoda's testimony. And just to be clear,
this divorce case is over seven hundred pages long, so
this isn't all of it. But what it does show
is textbook abusive behavior. Rhoda describes a relationship where she
was isolated from her family and her finances, where she
(17:13):
was manipulated and coerced and physically and emotionally abused. It's
tough to listen to, but I think it's important to hear.
We've asked voice actors to read from the testimony. There's
one moment when the lawyer asked Rhoda about her first husband,
a man named King Ridge. They divorced just months before
(17:34):
her mother died. Did Ov Pope ever try to get
you to get a divorce? Yes? He helped me lots
of times, talk to me lots of times, and tried
to get me to do it. I had to go
ahead and do it. After that, the Pope brothers moved
Rhoda to Colorado. Did you want to go to Colorado? No?
(18:00):
He asked Rhoda if she wanted to marry Troy Pope. No,
why did you do that? Well? I was afraid he
might hurt me? Did he threaten to hurt you? Rhoda
doesn't respond. What did he do? Again? No response? What
(18:25):
made you afraid of him? Because they had a gun? Later,
the lawyer tries to show the marriage as a sham.
He drills down on the moment Rhoda was forced to
say I do. What did the preacher ask you? The
preacher asked me to say I do. The preacher asked
(18:47):
you to say I do? And how many times did
he ask you that? He asked me three times? Did
you want to say I do? No, sir? Why did
you because I was afraid of them? Two boys? Roda
tells the lawyer Troy was cruel to her and her children,
(19:10):
that he whipped them. Did he ever slap you any
He'd done it four different times in Colorado? What caused that, Rhoda?
Do you know he gets mad because I don't give
him money because you don't do what because I don't
(19:33):
give him money? Did he ever twist your arm? He
twists my arm two three times like that? Did it
hurt you? Yes? Sir? What name did he call you?
He he just called me, call me names everything. What
(19:55):
would he say? Do you remember Rhoda silent. At another point,
Rhoda says Troy wouldn't let her visit her mother when
she was dying. She says she wanted to see her
all the time, she never got to say goodbye. She
had to find out on me to say he died
(20:15):
from a telegram that arrived at three o'clock on a
Sunday morning. Within months, Ovi Pope was remarried. Rhoda says
she was also sick during this time, and Troy refused
to get her a doctor. Meanwhile, he's signing the back
of her text and cashing them for himself. Did you
get some money from Ovi Pope from your mother's estate?
(20:38):
Rhoda doesn't respond. Did you get three a month from
your mother's money? Yes. In his testimony, Troy Pope denied
(21:12):
that he abused Rhoda or that he and his brothers
were taking her money for themselves. Ovi Pope testified that
Rhoda wanted to go to Colorado. The lawyers didn't spend
much time on his own marriage to Rhode's mom, or
the fact that less than five years after all meats
say he died, Ovi Pope had sold the one and
(21:33):
a half head rights he inherited from her for over
sixty five thousand dollars, the equivalent of more than one
million dollars today. In total, three fourth went to Jack Drummond,
one half went to another white man, and one fourth
went to an investment company. This divorce case goes beyond
(21:54):
detailing the alleged abuse by the Pope brothers. It also
paints the picture of an oh stage woman who went
to great lengths to protect her children. Rhoda enlisted the
hope of her uncle Jimmy to stand guard over her house.
She hired lawyers to get restraining orders against Troy Pope,
and in the end she was successful and got away
(22:15):
from the Pope brothers. She lived for another forty years.
She's buried in Hominy next to her first husband, King Ridge.
I've been in touch with Rhoda's descendants. They didn't know
about this case, about the Pope brothers where these head
right shares went, but over email they gave me a
sense of who Rhoda was outside of this case, because
(22:37):
it didn't define her. They said she grew old on
her allotment with King Ridge. She remarried him after her
divorce from Troy Pope. Her five children grew to live long,
full lives. They gave her grandchildren, whom she adored. She
loved playing cards and board games and hosting everyone over
the holidays. Rhoda was a humble of a person, they said,
(23:01):
but most importantly, she was strong. The Pope brothers never
(23:29):
got any scrutiny outside of this divorce case because despite
all the evidence, the suspicious timing of it in the
middle of the Reign of Terror, what the Pope brothers
did wasn't treated as anything criminal. As far as I
can tell, the FBI didn't investigate. I never found anything
published in the local paper about me to say He's
(23:49):
death or Rhoda's arranged marriage. No books, no movie, another
lost story of the reign of Terror calling Tara dammon again.
So this is exactly the type of schemes crime THEFS.
There's so much of this type of stuff that was
(24:12):
just not looked into. Obviously, wrote his mother was what
in her sixties and Ovi Pope was half her age
and this is just awful, and it's just disgusting. You know,
we don't because you hear stories, right, and you hear rumors,
and it's like, well, you know, we're pretty sure that
so and so has got it. But then then you
(24:32):
see it in black and white, just like that list,
and then it's then it's real. Then it's then it's okay.
I was right, We were right. I had also pulled
the death certificate for Rhoda's mom, not me to say
he It said she died of chronic tuberculosis and heart failure.
OVI Pope was the one who provided all the family
(24:54):
information for the death certificate. He apparently didn't know very
much about the woman he married. Next to the space
for her mother and father's names, it just says unknown.
So so, yeah, she was married to him, and then
she died in with a listed cause of death as tuberculosis. Yeah,
(25:19):
why do you make that sound? Well? So so so
many oh stages have a suspicious cause of death, especially
during that time period, especially the twenties, the the teens. Um.
So we don't know if that's true or not, you know. Um,
so we can't really trust the death certificate just because
of the murders and we know that they were cover
(25:42):
ups and that you know, causes us of death weren't investigated,
either poisoned whiskey or strychnine or doping or I mean
just none of that was none of that was investigated,
you know. So she may have died of tuberculosis because
that you know, that was a disease, you know, prevalent
(26:03):
during that time. But I don't know. There was something
else I brought Tara that day. It was a list,
a small one of non os Age head right holders. Tara,
of course has seen a version of this list before,
the one from that lawsuit that ended up in the newspaper.
But the list I brought her it had numbers how
(26:24):
many head rights or head right fractions some of these
non oth age groups owned. When the Bureau of Indian
Affairs rejected my records request for this information, Bloomberg hired
a law firm to fight it. We argued that the
b i A didn't give a good reason for denying
our request, that the exemptions they claimed didn't apply, and
(26:46):
we were successful kind of Eventually, after a bunch of
back and forth, we got something some seventy names of
non Osage head right holders and how many they owned.
Not the full list. The b i A withhold the
names of non people who had had rights, but the
organization's family trust, churches, oale companies, some of that we
(27:10):
got so I told you we were filing that COYA. Um.
I told you when we were filing the request, and
you politely told me that I was probably not going
to have much luck, and you're right. So the Beer
of Indian Affairs denied it, um, and then we appealed
(27:33):
and they actually said that they were going to send
a letter to every non O s age head right
holder and give them the chance to object to you
look surprised, Oh my god, wow, really keep going so um.
(27:53):
They gave us a list of all the non O
s age entities that did not object the release of
this information. Really, so it's a start. Oh my gosh.
(28:17):
On that list is Jack Drummond's trust and right there
half a head right. It's worth noting the list we
got back from this FOYA is not even close to comprehensive.
The b i A says about a fourth of all
head rights are held by outsiders, something like five hundred
(28:37):
sixty head rights. What we got back was just a
small number of those, a fraction of non oth age
groups who didn't object when the b i A reached
out because of our appeal. By my account, it's about
thirty six head rights represented in this list, there's about
five hundreds that we don't know about. Oh my gosh,
(29:05):
I mean so okay, so about roughly thirty six head rights, right,
So I mean, just do the math in like the
last twenty years, you know, or this past year. You know. Um,
it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. Since that initial list, the
(29:25):
b i A has added a couple more names. So
the latest version represents about thirty eight head rights. If
you add up all the money those thirty eight head
rights have paid out just since the law has changed
to stop more head rights from leaving o stage hands,
the total comes out to more than thirty million dollars.
And Jack Drummonds trust it may not have held the
(29:46):
dozens of head rights that I had heard. The Drummonds
might have put that half a head right, the one
he bought from Ovi Pope, a white man whose oth
age wife was twice his age and died during the
Reign of Terror, who was accused of force her daughter
to marry his own brother just as she was about
to inherit the other half of her mother's estate. That
(30:07):
half a head rate was also a lot of money.
Since when Jack bought it from Ovi Pope for the
equivalent of dollars today, that half a head rate has
paid out one point seven million dollars when adjusted for inflation.
It's just so hypocritical. I think the Bureau knowingly approved
(30:34):
the transaction or sale of O Sage head rights to
Nano Sages and saw nothing wrong with that, you know,
and kept it kept it from us from all these years,
you know, And that that's the The other thing is
that they've they've just been so protective. They're protecting people
(30:57):
that it doesn't belong to, you know, and that's not
their job because these people aren't even Indian. They're not
even Indian, you know, but they have oh Sage money
or they have Indian money, you know, and it's it
just it doesn't it's not right, it's not okay, and
(31:19):
it doesn't make sense. This comes up a lot in
my conversations with Tara. She's always emphatic that this money
belongs to the Osage nation and its citizens. That even
if there were legal ways for those head rights to
be transferred out of oth Age hands, that should have
never been the case. That as long as the O
(31:40):
Stage mineral estate is around. It's meant to be benefiting
O sage citizens, not the white people and oil companies
and universities that have ended up with so many head
rights after the break, the Drummonds who have these shares today. Okay,
(32:12):
just a Second'm gonna plug in. Okay, can you hear me?
This is Jim Drummond. He's a criminal defense attorney outside
of Austin, Texas. His dad is Jack Drummond, the one
from the tapes. Jack said he gave his half a
head right to Jim and a trust. I called him
(32:33):
after I learned the story behind Jack's head right shares.
He didn't answer, but a few hours later he called
me back. I told him I was a reporter that
I was doing a podcast series. I asked if I
could record our call. So you said that Alfred Alexander
Drummond was your father, right? Yeah? So he was my
adoptive father. I was adopted by my grandmother, my biological grandmother,
(32:57):
and he was her second human. They adopted me. Okay,
were you all close? Yeah? Yeah. I talked to Jim
for a few minutes. He told me he's read Jack's book.
It turns out Jim was the one who asked Harry
Hammonds to write it. He didn't know the interview tapes
where his father's financial records were in a public archive.
He never looked into it. Jim was guarded, said he
(33:20):
didn't understand White Bloomberg News would be interested in this,
but there was something he said before we started recording.
But I wanted to talk about the first thing out
of his mouth when he called me back, and you
mentioned you said your first question was is it about
the head rights? I'm just curious what there was a
confort There was a controversy about that in a number
(33:41):
of years ago. You know that the the s h
tribe was looking to try to get some of the
people who acquired head rights from the travel members, and
that they were hoping that people would voluntarily return them
to the ownership and some passion I was. I didn't
(34:02):
ever read the the full story about that or the documents,
but I was contacted by a trust which holds h
Han right that my father required, and they had no
power to agree or disagree with that. The trust owns it,
not me. So that's what I remember about this one.
(34:24):
I remember about that, And are you a beneficiary of
the trust? You just can't. I am, I am the beneficiary,
but that I have no control over the what we
call the as I'm a lawyer, what we call the
rest or, the body of the trust is it? It
does not belong to me. You said that you had
no ability as a beneficiary at the trust to give
(34:46):
it back when I do like, was that something you
wanted to do? You know, I'm just not aware of
the I didn't. I didn't. I decided not to formulate
an opinion on that since I had no power to
do any thing. Uh. I can certainly see an argument
that the Osage Nation made. I think they were exploited. Uh.
(35:07):
There are probably a lot of my family members who
would not agree with me on that. I tend to
be more of a left wing democrat and they came
to be of the other persuasion, the reader persuasion. But
I didn't. I've never made an issue of it. It's
pointless to create a to take sides in a controversy
(35:27):
over which I have no power to have any effect. Interesting. Well,
I would love to talk to you some more, um,
and I would love to kind of show you some
of the documents that I got from from the Alfred
Drummond Collection at the University of Central Oklahoma. Were in
Houston with my producer. Would would you be up for
an in person meeting at some point if we came
(35:49):
up to Austin, I go up a lot. Boy, I
hate to here's the deal, you know, I mean, I don't.
I just don't want to start any controversy with anybody.
And I don't really know a lot of my father's dealings.
I mean, I was growing up. He was fifty two
when I was born. And you know, I'm very I'm
(36:16):
very reluctant unless I in You know, journalists don't like
to share questions in advance. But unless I knew what
questions were you going to delve into about those documents,
I'm very reluctant to get involved. I I belonged to
the Drummond family. I am a peripheral member. But nonetheless,
(36:38):
I don't want to create any problems or controversies for anyone.
But any any allegations of wrongdoing I know zero about I.
I hear you, and I mean I think you mentioned
that you think that the Osage Nation was exploited. I'm
just like, I'm curious if ever there that's the that's
(36:58):
there there, that's there point of view, and I understand.
I understand that, I understand why they might have that
point of view, uh whether, But but in terms of
actually knowing any of the real details of who bought
what and what circumstances they bought it, that's a that's
(37:20):
a wholly different issue of which I'm not qualified or
informed enough to comment on. And frankly, I don't have
the time to review a lot of those documents that
you're referring to at Central State. I'm a busy and
E know, I am seventy three years old. I am
a busy criminal defense attorney. I have a major felony
case load. That's all I do. It's criminal defense, and
(37:42):
I don't really I am not only no interest in
stirring up pot, but I also have no no dog
in that fight. I've talked to Jim several times since
that first call about the head right transfer paperwork the
Pope Brothers. I wanted to know whether it changed to
his perspective knowing the story of this half a head
(38:03):
right in the family it had belonged to. After that
first conversation, Jim said he didn't want to be recorded,
but he still took my calls. He told me that
as far as he could tell, his father, Jack Drummond,
hadn't done anything illegal or an ethical to get this
head right share, that if you average out what it
paid over the last nineties seven years, it's actually a
(38:24):
pretty modest return on what Jack initially bought it for.
And Jim said he couldn't do anything about it anyway.
He said he didn't have control of the trust and
he doesn't like forming opinions on things he can't change.
I asked a trust attorney about this. By the way,
Jim's right, he and the other beneficiaries could certainly ask
the trustee, the bank or financial for managing the trust
(38:47):
to give the head right share back to the ose
ege nation, but the trustee has the final say, And
if there are future beneficiaries, kids or grandkids who aren't
even born yet, that makes it pretty difficult for the
trustee to make need decisions like that. There is an
exception if someone sues over this half of a head
right no stage family who says it was stolen from
(39:08):
them were taken fraudulently, a court could order the trustee
to give this share back to the family. But it's
not only Jim who has those head right shares that
Jack Drummond bought from Movie Pope. There was that other
quarter of a head right in that share. Over time,
has ended up with a few other Drummonds. One of
(39:28):
them is named Frederick Ford Drummond, but he goes by Ford. Hello.
Hi is this Ford? Yes? Hi, my name is Rachel Adams.
Ford wasn't super interested in talking to me the first
(39:49):
time I called him. Yeah, I'd rather not. I'm going
to decline. Okay, is there sounds like an interesting story?
Is there someone else in your family that you think?
I was hoping Ford could give me another name, someone
on his side of the family I could talk to
about this. He couldn't really think of anyone, he said,
the Drummond family. At this point, it's really big, and
no one person can really speak for everyone. He wished
(40:11):
me good luck on the story. That was the last
Fort and I talked for a while, at least until
one day when I was in no Stage County and
I heard a rumor that made me call him back. Listen,
I know you said you didn't want to talk, um,
but I have one quick question for you, Um, just
because it's come up, and I want to make sure
that we get get your take. Um. And as you know,
(40:34):
I'm doing a podcast, so I'm recording all my calls. UM.
But I I heard a rumor that you might be
trying to give um your head right share back to
the tribe. That's correct. My father had a one twelve
head right along with his two sisters, so a four
(40:57):
for the head right. I guess they heard it from
their day who I guess they got from his dad.
I'm not sure, and you may know more about it
than I do. But my dad passed away in and
he left it to me and I had along with
my cousins who both of my aunts passed away as well,
(41:22):
so everyone is interested in giving the head right back
to the tribe. Ford Drummond's dad had one twelfth of
a head right, part of the one fourth that Ford's grandfather,
Fred Getner, bought from Jack who bought it from Movie
Pope forward with that to inherit his head right share
after his dad died in but he wanted to give
(41:44):
it back to the Ocge nation, as did his cousins,
who inherited the other part of that head right share.
And I'm curious, like why you decided to to try
to do that. Well, the tribe has asked for him
back for one thing, and it's not honestly a lot
(42:05):
of money um involved, And it just seems like the
right thing to do at this point. I mean, we
I think there's a lot more history coming up about um,
you know, the killers of the Flower Moon movie and
all those kind of things. I have no idea how
we got this hid right, and I'm not aware of
anything nefarious or any wrongdoing or anything, um, but I
(42:27):
just think it's it seems like the right time and
the right thing to do to just try to give
it back to the tribe. But here's the thing. Ford said,
he and his cousins they can't actually give their head
right shares back to the tribe. They tried, but for
some reason, federal law makes it practically impossible. You've probably
learned it's difficult to do it just legally, so they're
(42:50):
trying to get some type of legacy relief to allow
that to happen. So, you know, we're just waiting to
see when we can do it. But yeah, that's that's
my plan, and so is it. The is the Bureau
of Indian affairs. That doesn't really have a mechanism. I
think if there's something the way the laws set up,
(43:11):
that you're supposed to try to find the original airs
of that head, right, the descendants of that head, right,
and or a portion of a head right, And as
you probably have learned, head rights have been split up
into yeah, very minute fractions across for descendants. So it's
(43:33):
it's hard to do that, it's hard to track people down,
and there's not really a good mechanism for just giving
it back to the tribe itself. Oh so, so the
idea is that you would actually find the O stage
a Lott who's head right share that originally was, and
give it back to the family instead of the tribe.
(43:55):
You I'm not sure, you'd probably better off asking someone
at the b i A. I mean, all I know
a patage what There's been a couple of news articles
on it in local newspapers, and it is there is
there's like a whole kind of a list of how
you have, what you have to do to get it done,
and which is just mats basically made it impossible to
do it. Ford is the German family member I mentioned
(44:18):
in episode one. The one who's a citizen of the
Choctaw Nation. He said his great grandfather on his mother's
side experienced the removal of the Choctaw Nation from Mississippi
to their reservation in present day Oklahoma. Ford said he's
a product of both sides of Oklahoma's history, tribal removal
and white settlement, and now he's set to inherit this
(44:41):
fraction of a head right that was traced back to
an o s Age woman who died during the Reign
of Terror, whose white husband was later accused of coercing
her daughter to marry his brother, a man she said
exhibited extreme cruelty against her, and Ford wants to give
it back, but for some bureaucratic reason he can't. Howway
(45:28):
Donnie nick Sha Nicole pockets on Zoli ki stow me
a Watanka. My name's Evert Waller from an Osage Indian
from Hamny, Oklahoma. I am now the seeded chairman of
the Sage Minerals Council. I went to meet Everett Waller
because just a few weeks before, the os Age Minerals
(45:48):
Council announced an effort to get the US Congress to
pass a bill that would make it easier for non
os Age how right holders like four Drummond to give
their shares back to the Osage nation. That should never
would have left my people's hands. Our trustee should not
allow a item, whether it's monetary, whether it's land, whether
it's our future, to be given out to someone else,
(46:12):
because we administrated, we paid for it. Everett and his
fellow Minerals Council members are elected by os Age head
right holders to make decisions about how to develop all
the oil and gas resources in oth Age County. Everett's
job is to represent oth Age head right holders interests,
and a big part of that is getting back all
(46:33):
the head rights held outside the nation. I looked at
the Natio six Act as amended. It was said that
you cannot give these head rights or sell them to
not O Sages, which stopped the bleeding, But then the
damage has already been done. When the first oh Sage
original latt died, any of their possessions should have been
(46:55):
held in trust for the nation. I sat with Everett
at a big table in a huge conference room in
the Minerals Council building on the hill in Pahaska where
all the O s Age government buildings are on the
wall as a mural of dozens of oth Age citizens,
including members of Everett's family. Evert's pushing for this legislation
(47:15):
to get head rates back because even though the rules
were changed in the seventies and eighties so that head
rates could no longer be transferred to non oth ages,
they didn't require any of the head rates that had
already left O s Age ownership to be returned. So
right now, if a non O stage person has a
head right and they want to give it back to
the O s Age nation, cannot happen. I don't want
(47:40):
to say it can't happen. I just said we have
seen a couple of issues before I was chairman that
actually showed that there's not a proper methodology through the
federal government to allow that. And I think that's done,
as you well know, by some people in Washington that
has not completed the requirements of taking care of the
(48:01):
truty rights to the outside. So both Ford and Everett
are saying the current process is so complicated and cumbersome
that non O stage head right holders are practically prohibited
from returning their shares. That's what this new legislation would do.
Make that process easier, and it seems likely that legislation
(48:23):
like this isn't going to be very controversial. We're talking
about adding a legal mechanism for someone to voluntarily give
something back to a tribal nation. Even with all the
gridlock and polarization and government, it's hard to see anyone
taking any major issues with that. And once this is
all solved, for Drummond and his two cousins will give
(48:44):
back their portion of that one fourth of a head
right and Jim Drummond's trustee will hang on to his.
As far as I can tell, the Drummonds had three
fourths of a head right. They bought it from a
man named Ovi Pope, who inherited his shares from his wife,
Na meet say He, who died while the Pope brothers isolated, abused,
(49:07):
and coerced her daughter into marrying Troy Pope. We only
followed three four of a head right and we ran
into the reign of terror. How many of the five
plus other head rights held by non os Ages had
a similar story. I get why the idea of the
(49:41):
Drummonds having dozens of head rights got around. The Drummonds
are a big name around os Age County. Some of
them are rich and powerful. You can't walk through downtown
Pahaska without running into one of the Drummonds businesses, and
across the different branches of the family. They owned so
much land, and their ancestors we're able to buy pretty quickly.
(50:02):
How is one family able to get so much thousands
and thousands of acres by the nineteen thirties, especially since
this was all owned by the O s Age Nation
in six and sure there's still a chance that there's
a Drummond out there who holds more head rights under
some other name. But after reading pages and pages of
(50:24):
head right transfers and going through probate files and other
legal documents from that time, this three fourths of the
head right is all that I could find. That's still
a lot of money over the years, money that wasn't
meant for them. I doubt when O s Age leaders
negotiated collective ownership of the mineral estate they imagine parts
of it would end up with a white family like
(50:44):
the Drummonds. Certainly not like this. But the money the
Drummond family did get from head rates, it's not enough
to build a ranching empire, not one like there's more
than one thousand acres across all the family members the land.
The Drummond's own thousands of acres of blue stem grass.
(51:07):
They can graze, cattle, service collateral for loans, build wealth
over generations. By the time Jack Drummond bought that fraction
of a head right, he and his two brothers already
owned a lot of O Sage land. And when I
tried to find out how they did that, I saw
(51:29):
something more subtle than the murders of the reign of terror.
A system that the Drummond brothers and other white men
in os Ge County used to insert themselves into the
finances of generations of O s Age families. A system
that helped build an empire. What started it all? Next
Time on In Trust? In Trust is a production of
(51:55):
Bloomberg and I Heeart Media. It's reported and hosted by
me Reachuel Adam's Heard. This episode featured voice acting by
Maura Redcorn and Yancy Redcorn. Special thanks to Bill Noonez.
I'd also like to thank Veronica Reading at the Oklahoma
Historical Society and the descendants of Rhoda Wheeler Ridge, who
(52:17):
spent countless hours helping me tell her story. Additional reporting
by Alison Edita Davis. Land is our senior producer. Samantha
Story is our executive producer. Jeff Grocott is our senior editor.
Additional editing by Francesco Leavy and Daniel Ferrara. Additional production
(52:38):
by Victor Ebayez, Production support from Jelda de Carle, Sound
engineering by Blake Naples, fact checking by Molly Nugent, Theme
music by Laura Orman, Photography by Shane Brown. You can
email us at Podcasts at Bloomberg dot net. Find more
about this episode at Bloomberg dot com. In Trust find
(53:02):
in trust anywhere you get your podcasts. M h
Just a heads up before we get started. This episode
contains descriptions of abuse. It may be hard to listen to.
Last summer, I bought a book. I had to get
it from a rare books distributor. I paid one dollars
eighty six cents. I bought it because I thought it
(00:23):
might help answer my question about the Drummond's head rights,
those shares of the O Sage mineral estate that's held
in trust by the federal government. The book came in
the mail a week or two later. It's a couple
hundred pages, found in a hardback linen cover smelled like dust.
(00:46):
The cover was blue and pattered. Three different photos of
one guy and one he's young twenties, maybe dressed in
a military uniform. Another he's a kid riding a horse
and a cowboy hat. The biggest photo is a portrait
of him older. He's staring into the camera, holding a
lit cigarette, a big ring on his finger. He's pale, round,
(01:11):
dressed in a three piece suit. The title ranching from
the front seat of a buick, The Life of Oklahoma's
a a Jack Drummond. It's this telling of the booms
and busts of early ranch days. In Osage County, a
biography of one of the three Drummond brothers who grew
(01:32):
up here in the early nineteen hundreds. Almost everyone I
talked to about head rights brought up the Drummonds. A
local newspaper had published a list of non os Age
names who had them, but not how many they had.
I thought maybe the book might give me a clue.
(01:52):
I was also curious what a white man like Jack
would have remembered about the reign of terror. A house
blowing up, the FBI in town, murder all around him.
But the details of this conspiracy are hardly mentioned at all,
just one sentence on page sixty four, the line Bill Hale,
(02:13):
a local rancher had to sell his land because he
was going to prison for conspiring to murder most of
an O s Age Indian family, so their head rights
would devolve to his nephew. That was it. That's all
the book how to say about it. The casual mention
of another rancher in town, who, by the way, also
happened to mastermind the most notorious murders from the time.
(02:38):
There are pages dedicated to Jack Drummond going off to
war fighting a bunch of lawsuits over land, meeting his
first wife, being scammed out of more than ninety dollars
on a trip to Chicago, paying for some local kids
to go to college, loaning money to young ranchers who
are about to go under, driving around Oklahoma, and his
buick checking on cattle. But something at the very beginning
(03:02):
of the book jumped out to me and the author's no.
The author his name was Terry Hammonds. He mentions he
donated dozens of cassette tapes worth of interviews with Jack,
along with a bunch of financial records, to the State
Historical Society in Oklahoma City. It sounded like a gold mine.
Maybe these tapes, these records would tell me something about
(03:25):
the Drummond's head rights and how they got them. So
I reached out to the Historical Society an archivist I
spoke to, ran a search. Nothing came up, no luck.
But a few days later I got an email that
archivist said after her search came back blank, she decided
to keep looking. She spent hours, in her words, scrambling
(03:47):
to find these tapes. She scoured the Historical Society's inventory,
called around to other sites, and to my surprise, she
found the tapes and Jack's financial records somewhere I would
have never thought to look up the road in a
suburb called Edmund at the University of Central Oklahoma. I'll
(04:11):
tell you terry where money is involved. Honors seemed to
try out the windows or does sure does? And in
families and that at one hour. These recordings, they're all
the raw material that went into making that biography, Hours
and hours of two guys sitting in a room talking
(04:33):
about cattle, mortgages, land financing. In the Drummond family. The
secret of the success in the cattle is finance. You
have to know how to always pay those cattals, like
one of them financed all this land. I kept my
(04:56):
land in the terry and Jack started recording these in
they talked every few months for the next couple of years.
We hear dogs bark in the background, the clock ticking,
and occasionally the tape skips or stops sometimes when things
are just getting interesting. What you did was the government
(05:17):
tells you what they'd pay you for it, and you
just took it. That fit. You didn't bother any court
or anything like. No. John's took his money and then
he disappeared, right yeah, and you see him after that
he kept that off. And I'll tell you, and honestly,
at first I was worried there was nothing here. But
(05:37):
then I found this moment when Jack starts talking about
a legal fight he got into with a man named
George Smith and a bank he just calls the National.
So I had all this litigation with George Smith and
the Old Sage, and I fought to National when I've
showed him for this million dollars up there. So the
(05:58):
National just hated me like hell. Basically, this was a
fight between this rancher, George Smith and Jack Drummond over
Land in os Age County. The bank's got involved because
both men had taken out such big loans that whoever
lost the lawsuit would go bankrupt. Think of it as
a high stakes, highly leveraged her for and they called
(06:22):
Bill dam And on the telephone and told him and
I was a crooking son of a bitch and I
was Steely's cattle, and they told him everything bad about me.
I'm telling you all this because as he starts getting
into the details of this dispute, he mentions, but I
know Sam Borshen was a longer in in the Tulsa
(06:44):
and he knew how expensive litigation was, and he said
to me, how long can you keep up this litigation?
I said indefinitely. Well, he said, how can you do that?
And that? And I said, well, I lived with my mother,
so I have reboard and room and laundry. I've got
an O Sage half an old stage head ride and
(07:07):
that paid me enough money so that I can always
get new cars and make my car payments on make
my car installments. And I said that I've got to
and I said as a last resort. Like the tape
ends right there, right after he mentions he is half
an osage head rate. Half a head rate he's using
(07:30):
to make car payments, half a head rate that could
float him during all these core battles. I later found
out Jack had transferred most of his property into other
people's names during this lawsuit, but this half a head
rate he held on to Elsewhere in the tapes, he
kind of brags to Terry Hammonds about it. I've gotta
(07:53):
half O Sage head ride. That did you know? I
how to have O D and that pays me. See,
I gave that to Jim. That's what that try insurance.
Jim Drummond is Jack stunt. He's in his seventies, still
a practicing criminal defense attorney in Texas. I've spoken to
him before I get to that conversation, though, I want
(08:14):
to point out another moment in those tapes with Jack
when he says flat out how he got that head
right share and the number actually ends up being a
little more than a half. Can you see I half
a head four of Ryan i'bout the purchase of it
from old a Pole. So there it was, and I've
(08:39):
been able to confirm this. Jack Drummond bought one half
and one four of a head right from someone named
Movie Pope, and that half share Jack later gave to
his son. If anything, these tapes gave me more questions
than answers. Who was the V Pope, how did he
get head rights? And who has them today? This is
(09:12):
in trust. I'm Rachel Adams Hurt. I would like you
to tell me about that three weeks when you and
O V Pope drove around Oklahoma signing up cattleman for
(09:36):
the Obama Livestock Marketing so hard. That's extremely interesting, And
I just know I heard Jack mentioned OVI Pope's name
again in the middle of a story he tells about
trying to round up farmers and ranchers for a financial
co op. This is the Great Depression, the beginning of
the dust Bowl. Farmers and ranchers are facing yet another
(09:57):
year of crop prices so low that can't stay afloat.
They're overloaded with debt. Oklahoma families are starting to pack
up their trucks and head west to California. This cooperative
was supposed to help ranchers out, and Jack's job was
to get people on board. I would sleep at night
(10:18):
in the car and only both would would drive me.
And then when I get to these towns, I would
I would get me a one the cowman on the
leading cowman, and have him go with me to his friends. See.
Then I had to have the support and for each community,
and it was hard gone. It took me three weeks.
(10:40):
I never stook my clothes off for those three weeks.
Those were a gruesome three weeks. The way Terry describes
it in the book, It's August hot. For nearly a month,
Ovie Pope and Jack Drummond are living out of a car,
bumping along ranch roads, making a last ditch effort to
see the Oklahoma the cattle business. The thing is nowhere
(11:07):
in these capes does Jack say how OVI Pope would
have gotten a head right or why he sold part
of it to Jack. When I started looking around for
something anything about OV Pope, I kept running into dead ends.
Compared to the Drummonds, this was a relatively obscure guy.
No line in the local paper when he went out
of town on business, no university buildings named after him.
(11:32):
But even without any specifics on OV Pope, I could
get transfer records from the National Archives, all the paperwork
that got sent to what was then called the Office
of Indian Affairs, everything they were required before they would
sign off on the sale of the head right to
someone else. If the sale happened before, it's in the
(11:56):
public record, held in a warehouse and for worth. It
was legal to transfer a head right to a nono
stage person or group up until so. There's a gap
in the public records. You can access on head rights
thirteen years that are essentially a black box. But even
though the records before are technically public, they aren't easy
(12:18):
to access. You have to know the names of the
individuals involved in order to ask one of the archive
specialists to email the documents. If you want to search
through them yourself. You have to get an appointment in
a special researcher card and travel to for worth. The
(12:38):
folders I got back were bigger than I expected. It
turns out there was a fair amount of bureaucracy involved
in selling a head right. Each one's about a dozen pages.
You had to write a formal application, get it notarized,
have an oil and gas inspector weigh in on the
purchase price. The whole thing had to be approved by
the Assistant Secretary of Interior. According to those transfer records,
(13:03):
Jack Drummond bought the one half head right from Ovi
Pope in for two fifty dollars, and three years later
he buys another one fourth of a head right for
eleven thousand, two d fifty dollars. What's also in that
(13:28):
paperwork is something missing in the tapes with Jack. How
Ovi Pope got his head rights. He inherited them from
his wife, an o stage woman named namt He She
died in I found something else on the Pope family too,
this time it was in Oklahoma's court records. I found
(13:50):
out that after Namata he died, Ovi Pope's brother married
her daughter, a daughter she had from a previous marriage
to an O stage man. Her name was Rhodo wheeler Ridge,
and she was trying to get a divorce. I brought
all this, the transfer paperwork and the introduction to the
divorce case to tear a dammeron at the White Hair
(14:12):
Memorial who told me about that list of non ocge
heap very holders. We started with the transfer paperwork. So
this is dated May nineteenth, ninety to a Mr. A
by Ludwick County Clerk Busk, Oklahoma says, Dear sir, there
isn't clothes for recording assignment from O V. Pope to
(14:37):
Alfred A. Drummond, which was approved by the Assistant Secretary
of the Interior on May tenth, together with Cashier's chick.
I wanted to hear Tara's thoughts on this because she
spends all day immersed in these kinds of records. She
would know better what we were looking at. So OV
Pope was a white man who was married to an
(15:00):
stage lady. Um I'll meet say, and she had three
head rights at the time of her death in from suberculosis,
and he got one and a half. Okay, Yeah, it
looks like she was in her sixties and her husband
(15:20):
was in his thirties really and um he inherited half
of her estate. So Ovie Pope has one and a
half head rights. Her daughter, Rhoda wheeler Ridge has one
and a half head rights. Ovie Pope's brother marries the daughter.
(15:43):
And this is her divorce case. If you want to
read starting there is where it explains it this. This This
is Pope v. Pope, Oklahoma nine six. The ground alleged
and the petition was extreme cruelty. On September eighteenth, nineteen four,
(16:08):
plaintive filed an amended petition in which she alleged. Over
pages and pages of testimony, Rhoda talks about the months
before namat Say He died, when Ovi Pope and his
brother Troy packed up her things and moved her to Colorado.
They kept her and her children and house Troy Pope bought,
(16:28):
even while her mother, who Over Pope was married to,
was dying back in Osage County. In January, nat Say
He died, and a little over four months later, as
Rhoda was set to inherit half of her mother's estate,
the two Pope brothers took her to the courthouse. Rhoda
(16:50):
was forced to marry Troy Pope. I want you to
hear some parts of Rhoda's testimony. And just to be clear,
this divorce case is over seven hundred pages long, so
this isn't all of it. But what it does show
is textbook abusive behavior. Rhoda describes a relationship where she
was isolated from her family and her finances, where she
(17:13):
was manipulated and coerced and physically and emotionally abused. It's
tough to listen to, but I think it's important to hear.
We've asked voice actors to read from the testimony. There's
one moment when the lawyer asked Rhoda about her first husband,
a man named King Ridge. They divorced just months before
(17:34):
her mother died. Did Ov Pope ever try to get
you to get a divorce? Yes? He helped me lots
of times, talk to me lots of times, and tried
to get me to do it. I had to go
ahead and do it. After that, the Pope brothers moved
Rhoda to Colorado. Did you want to go to Colorado? No?
(18:00):
He asked Rhoda if she wanted to marry Troy Pope. No,
why did you do that? Well? I was afraid he
might hurt me? Did he threaten to hurt you? Rhoda
doesn't respond. What did he do? Again? No response? What
(18:25):
made you afraid of him? Because they had a gun? Later,
the lawyer tries to show the marriage as a sham.
He drills down on the moment Rhoda was forced to
say I do. What did the preacher ask you? The
preacher asked me to say I do. The preacher asked
(18:47):
you to say I do? And how many times did
he ask you that? He asked me three times? Did
you want to say I do? No, sir? Why did
you because I was afraid of them? Two boys? Roda
tells the lawyer Troy was cruel to her and her children,
(19:10):
that he whipped them. Did he ever slap you any
He'd done it four different times in Colorado? What caused that, Rhoda?
Do you know he gets mad because I don't give
him money because you don't do what because I don't
(19:33):
give him money? Did he ever twist your arm? He
twists my arm two three times like that? Did it
hurt you? Yes? Sir? What name did he call you?
He he just called me, call me names everything. What
(19:55):
would he say? Do you remember Rhoda silent. At another point,
Rhoda says Troy wouldn't let her visit her mother when
she was dying. She says she wanted to see her
all the time, she never got to say goodbye. She
had to find out on me to say he died
(20:15):
from a telegram that arrived at three o'clock on a
Sunday morning. Within months, Ovi Pope was remarried. Rhoda says
she was also sick during this time, and Troy refused
to get her a doctor. Meanwhile, he's signing the back
of her text and cashing them for himself. Did you
get some money from Ovi Pope from your mother's estate?
(20:38):
Rhoda doesn't respond. Did you get three a month from
your mother's money? Yes. In his testimony, Troy Pope denied
(21:12):
that he abused Rhoda or that he and his brothers
were taking her money for themselves. Ovi Pope testified that
Rhoda wanted to go to Colorado. The lawyers didn't spend
much time on his own marriage to Rhode's mom, or
the fact that less than five years after all meats
say he died, Ovi Pope had sold the one and
(21:33):
a half head rights he inherited from her for over
sixty five thousand dollars, the equivalent of more than one
million dollars today. In total, three fourth went to Jack Drummond,
one half went to another white man, and one fourth
went to an investment company. This divorce case goes beyond
(21:54):
detailing the alleged abuse by the Pope brothers. It also
paints the picture of an oh stage woman who went
to great lengths to protect her children. Rhoda enlisted the
hope of her uncle Jimmy to stand guard over her house.
She hired lawyers to get restraining orders against Troy Pope,
and in the end she was successful and got away
(22:15):
from the Pope brothers. She lived for another forty years.
She's buried in Hominy next to her first husband, King Ridge.
I've been in touch with Rhoda's descendants. They didn't know
about this case, about the Pope brothers where these head
right shares went, but over email they gave me a
sense of who Rhoda was outside of this case, because
(22:37):
it didn't define her. They said she grew old on
her allotment with King Ridge. She remarried him after her
divorce from Troy Pope. Her five children grew to live long,
full lives. They gave her grandchildren, whom she adored. She
loved playing cards and board games and hosting everyone over
the holidays. Rhoda was a humble of a person, they said,
(23:01):
but most importantly, she was strong. The Pope brothers never
(23:29):
got any scrutiny outside of this divorce case because despite
all the evidence, the suspicious timing of it in the
middle of the Reign of Terror, what the Pope brothers
did wasn't treated as anything criminal. As far as I
can tell, the FBI didn't investigate. I never found anything
published in the local paper about me to say He's
(23:49):
death or Rhoda's arranged marriage. No books, no movie, another
lost story of the reign of Terror calling Tara dammon again.
So this is exactly the type of schemes crime THEFS.
There's so much of this type of stuff that was
(24:12):
just not looked into. Obviously, wrote his mother was what
in her sixties and Ovi Pope was half her age
and this is just awful, and it's just disgusting. You know,
we don't because you hear stories, right, and you hear rumors,
and it's like, well, you know, we're pretty sure that
so and so has got it. But then then you
(24:32):
see it in black and white, just like that list,
and then it's then it's real. Then it's then it's okay.
I was right, We were right. I had also pulled
the death certificate for Rhoda's mom, not me to say
he It said she died of chronic tuberculosis and heart failure.
OVI Pope was the one who provided all the family
(24:54):
information for the death certificate. He apparently didn't know very
much about the woman he married. Next to the space
for her mother and father's names, it just says unknown.
So so, yeah, she was married to him, and then
she died in with a listed cause of death as tuberculosis. Yeah,
(25:19):
why do you make that sound? Well? So so so
many oh stages have a suspicious cause of death, especially
during that time period, especially the twenties, the the teens. Um.
So we don't know if that's true or not, you know. Um,
so we can't really trust the death certificate just because
of the murders and we know that they were cover
(25:42):
ups and that you know, causes us of death weren't investigated,
either poisoned whiskey or strychnine or doping or I mean
just none of that was none of that was investigated,
you know. So she may have died of tuberculosis because
that you know, that was a disease, you know, prevalent
(26:03):
during that time. But I don't know. There was something
else I brought Tara that day. It was a list,
a small one of non os Age head right holders. Tara,
of course has seen a version of this list before,
the one from that lawsuit that ended up in the newspaper.
But the list I brought her it had numbers how
(26:24):
many head rights or head right fractions some of these
non oth age groups owned. When the Bureau of Indian
Affairs rejected my records request for this information, Bloomberg hired
a law firm to fight it. We argued that the
b i A didn't give a good reason for denying
our request, that the exemptions they claimed didn't apply, and
(26:46):
we were successful kind of Eventually, after a bunch of
back and forth, we got something some seventy names of
non Osage head right holders and how many they owned.
Not the full list. The b i A withhold the
names of non people who had had rights, but the
organization's family trust, churches, oale companies, some of that we
(27:10):
got so I told you we were filing that COYA. Um.
I told you when we were filing the request, and
you politely told me that I was probably not going
to have much luck, and you're right. So the Beer
of Indian Affairs denied it, um, and then we appealed
(27:33):
and they actually said that they were going to send
a letter to every non O s age head right
holder and give them the chance to object to you
look surprised, Oh my god, wow, really keep going so um.
(27:53):
They gave us a list of all the non O
s age entities that did not object the release of
this information. Really, so it's a start. Oh my gosh.
(28:17):
On that list is Jack Drummond's trust and right there
half a head right. It's worth noting the list we
got back from this FOYA is not even close to comprehensive.
The b i A says about a fourth of all
head rights are held by outsiders, something like five hundred
(28:37):
sixty head rights. What we got back was just a
small number of those, a fraction of non oth age
groups who didn't object when the b i A reached
out because of our appeal. By my account, it's about
thirty six head rights represented in this list, there's about
five hundreds that we don't know about. Oh my gosh,
(29:05):
I mean so okay, so about roughly thirty six head rights, right,
So I mean, just do the math in like the
last twenty years, you know, or this past year. You know. Um,
it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.
It's a lot of money. Since that initial list, the
(29:25):
b i A has added a couple more names. So
the latest version represents about thirty eight head rights. If
you add up all the money those thirty eight head
rights have paid out just since the law has changed
to stop more head rights from leaving o stage hands,
the total comes out to more than thirty million dollars.
And Jack Drummonds trust it may not have held the
(29:46):
dozens of head rights that I had heard. The Drummonds
might have put that half a head right, the one
he bought from Ovi Pope, a white man whose oth
age wife was twice his age and died during the
Reign of Terror, who was accused of force her daughter
to marry his own brother just as she was about
to inherit the other half of her mother's estate. That
(30:07):
half a head rate was also a lot of money.
Since when Jack bought it from Ovi Pope for the
equivalent of dollars today, that half a head rate has
paid out one point seven million dollars when adjusted for inflation.
It's just so hypocritical. I think the Bureau knowingly approved
(30:34):
the transaction or sale of O Sage head rights to
Nano Sages and saw nothing wrong with that, you know,
and kept it kept it from us from all these years,
you know, And that that's the The other thing is
that they've they've just been so protective. They're protecting people
(30:57):
that it doesn't belong to, you know, and that's not
their job because these people aren't even Indian. They're not
even Indian, you know, but they have oh Sage money
or they have Indian money, you know, and it's it
just it doesn't it's not right, it's not okay, and
(31:19):
it doesn't make sense. This comes up a lot in
my conversations with Tara. She's always emphatic that this money
belongs to the Osage nation and its citizens. That even
if there were legal ways for those head rights to
be transferred out of oth Age hands, that should have
never been the case. That as long as the O
(31:40):
Stage mineral estate is around. It's meant to be benefiting
O sage citizens, not the white people and oil companies
and universities that have ended up with so many head
rights after the break, the Drummonds who have these shares today. Okay,
(32:12):
just a Second'm gonna plug in. Okay, can you hear me?
This is Jim Drummond. He's a criminal defense attorney outside
of Austin, Texas. His dad is Jack Drummond, the one
from the tapes. Jack said he gave his half a
head right to Jim and a trust. I called him
(32:33):
after I learned the story behind Jack's head right shares.
He didn't answer, but a few hours later he called
me back. I told him I was a reporter that
I was doing a podcast series. I asked if I
could record our call. So you said that Alfred Alexander
Drummond was your father, right? Yeah? So he was my
adoptive father. I was adopted by my grandmother, my biological grandmother,
(32:57):
and he was her second human. They adopted me. Okay,
were you all close? Yeah? Yeah. I talked to Jim
for a few minutes. He told me he's read Jack's book.
It turns out Jim was the one who asked Harry
Hammonds to write it. He didn't know the interview tapes
where his father's financial records were in a public archive.
He never looked into it. Jim was guarded, said he
(33:20):
didn't understand White Bloomberg News would be interested in this,
but there was something he said before we started recording.
But I wanted to talk about the first thing out
of his mouth when he called me back, and you
mentioned you said your first question was is it about
the head rights? I'm just curious what there was a
confort There was a controversy about that in a number
(33:41):
of years ago. You know that the the s h
tribe was looking to try to get some of the
people who acquired head rights from the travel members, and
that they were hoping that people would voluntarily return them
to the ownership and some passion I was. I didn't
(34:02):
ever read the the full story about that or the documents,
but I was contacted by a trust which holds h
Han right that my father required, and they had no
power to agree or disagree with that. The trust owns it,
not me. So that's what I remember about this one.
(34:24):
I remember about that, And are you a beneficiary of
the trust? You just can't. I am, I am the beneficiary,
but that I have no control over the what we
call the as I'm a lawyer, what we call the
rest or, the body of the trust is it? It
does not belong to me. You said that you had
no ability as a beneficiary at the trust to give
(34:46):
it back when I do like, was that something you
wanted to do? You know, I'm just not aware of
the I didn't. I didn't. I decided not to formulate
an opinion on that since I had no power to
do any thing. Uh. I can certainly see an argument
that the Osage Nation made. I think they were exploited. Uh.
(35:07):
There are probably a lot of my family members who
would not agree with me on that. I tend to
be more of a left wing democrat and they came
to be of the other persuasion, the reader persuasion. But
I didn't. I've never made an issue of it. It's
pointless to create a to take sides in a controversy
(35:27):
over which I have no power to have any effect. Interesting. Well,
I would love to talk to you some more, um,
and I would love to kind of show you some
of the documents that I got from from the Alfred
Drummond Collection at the University of Central Oklahoma. Were in
Houston with my producer. Would would you be up for
an in person meeting at some point if we came
(35:49):
up to Austin, I go up a lot. Boy, I
hate to here's the deal, you know, I mean, I don't.
I just don't want to start any controversy with anybody.
And I don't really know a lot of my father's dealings.
I mean, I was growing up. He was fifty two
when I was born. And you know, I'm very I'm
(36:16):
very reluctant unless I in You know, journalists don't like
to share questions in advance. But unless I knew what
questions were you going to delve into about those documents,
I'm very reluctant to get involved. I I belonged to
the Drummond family. I am a peripheral member. But nonetheless,
(36:38):
I don't want to create any problems or controversies for anyone.
But any any allegations of wrongdoing I know zero about I.
I hear you, and I mean I think you mentioned
that you think that the Osage Nation was exploited. I'm
just like, I'm curious if ever there that's the that's
(36:58):
there there, that's there point of view, and I understand.
I understand that, I understand why they might have that
point of view, uh whether, But but in terms of
actually knowing any of the real details of who bought
what and what circumstances they bought it, that's a that's
(37:20):
a wholly different issue of which I'm not qualified or
informed enough to comment on. And frankly, I don't have
the time to review a lot of those documents that
you're referring to at Central State. I'm a busy and
E know, I am seventy three years old. I am
a busy criminal defense attorney. I have a major felony
case load. That's all I do. It's criminal defense, and
(37:42):
I don't really I am not only no interest in
stirring up pot, but I also have no no dog
in that fight. I've talked to Jim several times since
that first call about the head right transfer paperwork the
Pope Brothers. I wanted to know whether it changed to
his perspective knowing the story of this half a head
(38:03):
right in the family it had belonged to. After that
first conversation, Jim said he didn't want to be recorded,
but he still took my calls. He told me that
as far as he could tell, his father, Jack Drummond,
hadn't done anything illegal or an ethical to get this
head right share, that if you average out what it
paid over the last nineties seven years, it's actually a
(38:24):
pretty modest return on what Jack initially bought it for.
And Jim said he couldn't do anything about it anyway.
He said he didn't have control of the trust and
he doesn't like forming opinions on things he can't change.
I asked a trust attorney about this. By the way,
Jim's right, he and the other beneficiaries could certainly ask
the trustee, the bank or financial for managing the trust
(38:47):
to give the head right share back to the ose
ege nation, but the trustee has the final say, And
if there are future beneficiaries, kids or grandkids who aren't
even born yet, that makes it pretty difficult for the
trustee to make need decisions like that. There is an
exception if someone sues over this half of a head
right no stage family who says it was stolen from
(39:08):
them were taken fraudulently, a court could order the trustee
to give this share back to the family. But it's
not only Jim who has those head right shares that
Jack Drummond bought from Movie Pope. There was that other
quarter of a head right in that share. Over time,
has ended up with a few other Drummonds. One of
(39:28):
them is named Frederick Ford Drummond, but he goes by Ford. Hello.
Hi is this Ford? Yes? Hi, my name is Rachel Adams.
Ford wasn't super interested in talking to me the first
(39:49):
time I called him. Yeah, I'd rather not. I'm going
to decline. Okay, is there sounds like an interesting story?
Is there someone else in your family that you think?
I was hoping Ford could give me another name, someone
on his side of the family I could talk to
about this. He couldn't really think of anyone, he said,
the Drummond family. At this point, it's really big, and
no one person can really speak for everyone. He wished
(40:11):
me good luck on the story. That was the last
Fort and I talked for a while, at least until
one day when I was in no Stage County and
I heard a rumor that made me call him back. Listen,
I know you said you didn't want to talk, um,
but I have one quick question for you, Um, just
because it's come up, and I want to make sure
that we get get your take. Um. And as you know,
(40:34):
I'm doing a podcast, so I'm recording all my calls. UM.
But I I heard a rumor that you might be
trying to give um your head right share back to
the tribe. That's correct. My father had a one twelve
head right along with his two sisters, so a four
(40:57):
for the head right. I guess they heard it from
their day who I guess they got from his dad.
I'm not sure, and you may know more about it
than I do. But my dad passed away in and
he left it to me and I had along with
my cousins who both of my aunts passed away as well,
(41:22):
so everyone is interested in giving the head right back
to the tribe. Ford Drummond's dad had one twelfth of
a head right, part of the one fourth that Ford's grandfather,
Fred Getner, bought from Jack who bought it from Movie
Pope forward with that to inherit his head right share
after his dad died in but he wanted to give
(41:44):
it back to the Ocge nation, as did his cousins,
who inherited the other part of that head right share.
And I'm curious, like why you decided to to try
to do that. Well, the tribe has asked for him
back for one thing, and it's not honestly a lot
(42:05):
of money um involved, And it just seems like the
right thing to do at this point. I mean, we
I think there's a lot more history coming up about um,
you know, the killers of the Flower Moon movie and
all those kind of things. I have no idea how
we got this hid right, and I'm not aware of
anything nefarious or any wrongdoing or anything, um, but I
(42:27):
just think it's it seems like the right time and
the right thing to do to just try to give
it back to the tribe. But here's the thing. Ford said,
he and his cousins they can't actually give their head
right shares back to the tribe. They tried, but for
some reason, federal law makes it practically impossible. You've probably
learned it's difficult to do it just legally, so they're
(42:50):
trying to get some type of legacy relief to allow
that to happen. So, you know, we're just waiting to
see when we can do it. But yeah, that's that's
my plan, and so is it. The is the Bureau
of Indian affairs. That doesn't really have a mechanism. I
think if there's something the way the laws set up,
(43:11):
that you're supposed to try to find the original airs
of that head, right, the descendants of that head, right,
and or a portion of a head right, And as
you probably have learned, head rights have been split up
into yeah, very minute fractions across for descendants. So it's
(43:33):
it's hard to do that, it's hard to track people down,
and there's not really a good mechanism for just giving
it back to the tribe itself. Oh so, so the
idea is that you would actually find the O stage
a Lott who's head right share that originally was, and
give it back to the family instead of the tribe.
(43:55):
You I'm not sure, you'd probably better off asking someone
at the b i A. I mean, all I know
a patage what There's been a couple of news articles
on it in local newspapers, and it is there is
there's like a whole kind of a list of how
you have, what you have to do to get it done,
and which is just mats basically made it impossible to
do it. Ford is the German family member I mentioned
(44:18):
in episode one. The one who's a citizen of the
Choctaw Nation. He said his great grandfather on his mother's
side experienced the removal of the Choctaw Nation from Mississippi
to their reservation in present day Oklahoma. Ford said he's
a product of both sides of Oklahoma's history, tribal removal
and white settlement, and now he's set to inherit this
(44:41):
fraction of a head right that was traced back to
an o s Age woman who died during the Reign
of Terror, whose white husband was later accused of coercing
her daughter to marry his brother, a man she said
exhibited extreme cruelty against her, and Ford wants to give
it back, but for some bureaucratic reason he can't. Howway
(45:28):
Donnie nick Sha Nicole pockets on Zoli ki stow me
a Watanka. My name's Evert Waller from an Osage Indian
from Hamny, Oklahoma. I am now the seeded chairman of
the Sage Minerals Council. I went to meet Everett Waller
because just a few weeks before, the os Age Minerals
(45:48):
Council announced an effort to get the US Congress to
pass a bill that would make it easier for non
os Age how right holders like four Drummond to give
their shares back to the Osage nation. That should never
would have left my people's hands. Our trustee should not
allow a item, whether it's monetary, whether it's land, whether
it's our future, to be given out to someone else,
(46:12):
because we administrated, we paid for it. Everett and his
fellow Minerals Council members are elected by os Age head
right holders to make decisions about how to develop all
the oil and gas resources in oth Age County. Everett's
job is to represent oth Age head right holders interests,
and a big part of that is getting back all
(46:33):
the head rights held outside the nation. I looked at
the Natio six Act as amended. It was said that
you cannot give these head rights or sell them to
not O Sages, which stopped the bleeding, But then the
damage has already been done. When the first oh Sage
original latt died, any of their possessions should have been
(46:55):
held in trust for the nation. I sat with Everett
at a big table in a huge conference room in
the Minerals Council building on the hill in Pahaska where
all the O s Age government buildings are on the
wall as a mural of dozens of oth Age citizens,
including members of Everett's family. Evert's pushing for this legislation
(47:15):
to get head rates back because even though the rules
were changed in the seventies and eighties so that head
rates could no longer be transferred to non oth ages,
they didn't require any of the head rates that had
already left O s Age ownership to be returned. So
right now, if a non O stage person has a
head right and they want to give it back to
the O s Age nation, cannot happen. I don't want
(47:40):
to say it can't happen. I just said we have
seen a couple of issues before I was chairman that
actually showed that there's not a proper methodology through the
federal government to allow that. And I think that's done,
as you well know, by some people in Washington that
has not completed the requirements of taking care of the
(48:01):
truty rights to the outside. So both Ford and Everett
are saying the current process is so complicated and cumbersome
that non O stage head right holders are practically prohibited
from returning their shares. That's what this new legislation would do.
Make that process easier, and it seems likely that legislation
(48:23):
like this isn't going to be very controversial. We're talking
about adding a legal mechanism for someone to voluntarily give
something back to a tribal nation. Even with all the
gridlock and polarization and government, it's hard to see anyone
taking any major issues with that. And once this is
all solved, for Drummond and his two cousins will give
(48:44):
back their portion of that one fourth of a head
right and Jim Drummond's trustee will hang on to his.
As far as I can tell, the Drummonds had three
fourths of a head right. They bought it from a
man named Ovi Pope, who inherited his shares from his wife,
Na meet say He, who died while the Pope brothers isolated, abused,
(49:07):
and coerced her daughter into marrying Troy Pope. We only
followed three four of a head right and we ran
into the reign of terror. How many of the five
plus other head rights held by non os Ages had
a similar story. I get why the idea of the
(49:41):
Drummonds having dozens of head rights got around. The Drummonds
are a big name around os Age County. Some of
them are rich and powerful. You can't walk through downtown
Pahaska without running into one of the Drummonds businesses, and
across the different branches of the family. They owned so
much land, and their ancestors we're able to buy pretty quickly.
(50:02):
How is one family able to get so much thousands
and thousands of acres by the nineteen thirties, especially since
this was all owned by the O s Age Nation
in six and sure there's still a chance that there's
a Drummond out there who holds more head rights under
some other name. But after reading pages and pages of
(50:24):
head right transfers and going through probate files and other
legal documents from that time, this three fourths of the
head right is all that I could find. That's still
a lot of money over the years, money that wasn't
meant for them. I doubt when O s Age leaders
negotiated collective ownership of the mineral estate they imagine parts
of it would end up with a white family like
(50:44):
the Drummonds. Certainly not like this. But the money the
Drummond family did get from head rates, it's not enough
to build a ranching empire, not one like there's more
than one thousand acres across all the family members the land.
The Drummond's own thousands of acres of blue stem grass.
(51:07):
They can graze, cattle, service collateral for loans, build wealth
over generations. By the time Jack Drummond bought that fraction
of a head right, he and his two brothers already
owned a lot of O Sage land. And when I
tried to find out how they did that, I saw
(51:29):
something more subtle than the murders of the reign of terror.
A system that the Drummond brothers and other white men
in os Ge County used to insert themselves into the
finances of generations of O s Age families. A system
that helped build an empire. What started it all? Next
Time on In Trust? In Trust is a production of
(51:55):
Bloomberg and I Heeart Media. It's reported and hosted by
me Reachuel Adam's Heard. This episode featured voice acting by
Maura Redcorn and Yancy Redcorn. Special thanks to Bill Noonez.
I'd also like to thank Veronica Reading at the Oklahoma
Historical Society and the descendants of Rhoda Wheeler Ridge, who
(52:17):
spent countless hours helping me tell her story. Additional reporting
by Alison Edita Davis. Land is our senior producer. Samantha
Story is our executive producer. Jeff Grocott is our senior editor.
Additional editing by Francesco Leavy and Daniel Ferrara. Additional production
(52:38):
by Victor Ebayez, Production support from Jelda de Carle, Sound
engineering by Blake Naples, fact checking by Molly Nugent, Theme
music by Laura Orman, Photography by Shane Brown. You can
email us at Podcasts at Bloomberg dot net. Find more
about this episode at Bloomberg dot com. In Trust find
(53:02):
in trust anywhere you get your podcasts. M h
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