Does the Pioneer Woman live on stolen Osage land depicted in 'Killers of the Flower Moon?'

“The Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond made the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, famous through her farm lifestyle brand, but a recent social media post about an upcoming film is drawing attention to the darker history of the Drummond family’s land.

The upcoming Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio film "Killers of the Flower Moon" is based on David Grann’s best seller and has renewed interest in the Osage "Reign of Terror," in which dozens of Osage people were murdered for their oil-rich land in the early 20th century.

Amid the tumultuous time, the Drummond family began growing wealth through Osage dealings and began amassing the property that placed them in the top 100 landowners in the country.

How the Pioneer Woman's family got their wealth and acquired so much Osage County land

Ree Drummond is married to Ladd Drummond, who is in the fourth generation of the family and is second cousins with Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

The Drummond family is the largest landholder in Osage County, reports Bloomberg, which produced a lengthy podcast based on interview recordings between biographer Terry Hammons and Jack Drummond, who is one of the sons of the first Oklahoma Drummond, Frederick, who immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland in the 1880s.

In reviewing financial records, interview tapes and government reports, Bloomberg determined that the Drummond patriarchs were able to amass so much land because they used money made off of, or borrowed from, the Osage.

Bloomberg reported that the family also used business practices that “bumped up against the line of what was considered legal," even for that time.

“They were put in charge of Osage families’ finances, borrowed from Osage estates, probated Osage wills, and collected on debts that they claimed as owners of a government-licensed store," according to Bloomberg. "They bought headright fractions, even as they lobbied for the headright system to be abolished. And they bought land. Lots of it.”

A headright is the right to collect royalties to subsurface minerals. The headright system was created by the federal government to ensure the Osage received their fair share of money from the oil drilled on their allotted lands.

While land could be sold, a headright could only be passed to the allotted Osage tribal member’s legal heir — leading to the murders of many to obtain the deceased's headrights.

More: Osage people confront tragic story behind 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

How the Drummond family gained wealth through the Osage people

In the early 1900s, the Drummonds operated a store where there was always a higher price for Osage, according to Bloomberg’s interviews.

They also acted as the undertakers for many Osage people when they died, which also brought in money to the store.

“The Hominy Trading Co. and other stores operated as undertakers,” according to Bloomberg. “The cost would be presented as a claim on a person’s estate. Many times, the person responsible for vetting that claim was one of the Drummond brothers. They would be able to approve claims from their own store and collect a significant fee for doing so.”

However, the ledgers available in public archives aren’t detailed enough to compare individual transactions, Bloomberg reported, and Gentner Drummond says he’s reviewed them and never seen any signs of exploitation.

In 1925, Jack Drummond bought half of a headright from OV Pope, a white man who had inherited 1.5 of his Osage wife’s three headrights, for $20,050, which is almost $340,000 today. Three years later, he bought a quarter of a headright for $11,250.

Over the last century, those headright shares have paid members of the Drummond family about $2.4 million when adjusted for inflation, Bloomberg reported. Ford Drummond, who is going to inherit a portion of the quarter share, told Bloomberg he and his cousins would like to return it to the Osage Nation.

But right now, it’s nearly impossible to do so, something the Osage Minerals Council hopes to change, the Osage News reports.

More: Everything you need to know about the Oklahoma-made movie 'Killers of the Flower Moon'

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ree Drummond's Oklahoma family tied to Osage 'Reign of Terror' history