Parallel tragedies: "Killers of the Flower Moon," Tulsa Race Massacre started 3 days apart

With the cinematic release of "Killers of the Flower Moon" this week, history buffs are brushing up on the true events depicted in the film.

One of those events was another historical massacre taking place 50 miles away.

The blockbuster Martin Scorsese film "Killers of the Flower Moon" depicts the true events in 1920s Oklahoma when members of the Osage Nation were systematically killed by non-Native residents seeking the tribe’s oil rights.

One of the earliest victims of these murders was found on May 27, 1921, on the Osage lands in northern Oklahoma.

Three days later, the Tulsa Race Massacre began. The two-day riot brought on white supremacists is now considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history.

Both sets of tragedies put a spotlight on white people using violence in Oklahoma to seize wealth owned by minority populations.

Oklahoma's oil boom: Osage gained wealth, Black Wall Street prospered

The discovery of oil in the Osage Nation's reservation gave the group a key to growing wealth, but oil was also found closer to Tulsa at Glenn Pool in 1905.

This spurred the growth of the city as people of all backgrounds came to the area in search of wealth. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Tulsa served as the base for over 400 petroleum companies by 1920, earning the moniker "the Oil Capital of the World."

Oklahoma was known for having strict Jim Crow laws after becoming a state, limiting the mobility of Black residents. Because of this, a section of land in Tulsa bought by O.W. Gurley became a thriving area for Black business owners, creating what's now known as Greenwood - one of the wealthiest Black communities in the country.

Osage Murders began just days before the Tulsa Race Massacre

In May 1921, the Osage 'reign of terror' began as Osage headright holders began dying through suspicious circumstances. Historians attribute the murders to the greed of men attempting to obtain the Osage's valuable property and mineral rights allotted to them from the oil boom.

On May 27, 1921, the body of Anna Brown was discovered in a rural ravine, which was the same day her cousin, Charles Whitehorn, was found dead after he had been shot between the eyes in another part of Osage County. These murders are some of the first federal investigators looked into.

Three days later, the Tulsa Race Massacre began on May 30 after Dick Rowland, a Black teenager, was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, a white woman. He fled home to Greenwood and was later arrested but never charged with a crime.

Newspaper columns in the next day's newspapers called for the teenager to be lynched, spurring a white mob to demand Rowland be released. A group of Black men arrived to assist law enforcement, but fighting between the two groups began, leading to the bloody conflict in Black Wall Street.

As many as 300 people are believed to have died in the Tulsa Race Massacre. Businesses and homes were looted and property damaged at a cost estimated at $1.5 million, which is close to $37 million today.

The film depicts Osage County residents watching newsreel footage of the Tulsa tragedy at the time, and makes other glancing mentions to the massacre.

In Osage County, 60 people were murdered between 1921 and 1925. Several Osage were either shot, poisoned, or in the case of Rita Smith, bombed.

While some cases went to trial and saw convictions, both tragedies possess several cases that have yet to hold the perpetrator accountable.

Osage settled for $380 million; Tulsa Race Massacre survivors hoping for reparations

Eleven years after filing a lawsuit, the Osage Nation reached a settlement with the federal government in 2011 over the "United States’ accounting and management of the tribe’s trust funds and non-monetary trust assets."

The $380 million awarded was divided between those who own headrights, or shares, of the tribe's subsurface mineral estate that lies beneath all of oil-rich Osage County.

As part of the settlement, new rules for leasing oil and gas owned by the Osage were instituted and non-Osage are prohibited from inheriting headrights.

While the settlement was not reparations for the murders, the settlement is a gesture that survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre have yet to receive.

Currently, the Oklahoma Supreme Court is slated to consider a reparations case from the remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre after a lower court judge dismissed the case. But the state has said that it won't consider a settlement with the two women, Lessie Benningfield Randle, 108, and Viola Fletcher, 102.

The impact of the Tulsa Race Massacre on Leonardo DiCaprio, "Killers of the Flower Moon"

While filming the movie in Osage County, DiCaprio told "British Vogue" magazine that he stayed in Tulsa and witnessed the anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. He said being there on the 100 years after both events was "a complete coincidence."

"It was very important to me to realize these were two sides of the same coin," DiCaprio told the magazine. "People of color that were independently wealthy amid a massive population of incredibly racist white people who want to extract those resources at any cost. Look at Standing Rock. Look at what’s going on in Indonesia, in the Amazon. These places that are home to incredible resources are also places that are most drenched in blood.”

DiCaprio went further to see more needs to be done in his own industry to address how historical stories are told.

“Hollywood has a long history and checked past in its depiction of Native American people,” DiCaprio said. “We need to do more. You know, we are coming towards a great reckoning of our past. The more that these stories can be told in a truthful way, the more it can be a healing process.”

Clarification: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Tulsa Race Massacre was not mentioned in the film, Killers of the Flower Moon. The film made several mentions of it.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Osage Murders and Tulsa Race Massacre: Parallel Oklahoma tragedies