Bloodland: A Family Story of Oil, Greed and Murder on the Osage Reservation

by Dennis McAuliffe Jr.

Journalist Dennis McAuliffe, Jr. opens old family wounds and ultimately exposes a widespread murder conspiracy and shameful episode in American history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1571780831
• ISBN13: 9781571780836
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Council Oak Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Bloodland - Osage Reign of Terror

This was a very well-written book, very close to accounts of those times in Osage country that I've heard from other Osage families. Dennis starts off his book as a typical middle-class white American, just researching old family stories and geneology. He begins to see things as an Indian, and realizes that his grandmother was one of the thousands of Indian victims of greed here in Oklahoma. Her murder, like so many others, was virtually ignored by the world. On several levels, his family story is the story of Indian Oklahoma. I applaud Dennis for his courage to continue his research, and to write the truth!

We're Still Ashamed of Our Past

I originally bought this book because I thought it sounded like an interesting fiction. It quickly became obvious that it wasn't a fictional story at all, but rather another atrocity in American history that is only known through rumors and campfire stories. This book is a expert mix of personal obstacles for the author and unbiased historical documentation of an Osage tribe and its gift/curse of oil wealth. I doubt many people are strangers to the tales of Native abuses by whites, but I've asked many people if they've ever heard of the Osage murders at the turn of the century when oil was struck on their land. None had. This is a wonderfully wrought piece. I recommend it to anyone with a flare for history, the glorified as well as the darker chapters.

Incredible, fascinating

I read this book with my book club members which culminated with a "speakerphone chat" with the author. I must say that this was a wonderful and powerful novel that gets the reader thinking. I am not an Indian, and I am ashamed to say I had no idea about the Reign of Terror or the prejudices felt by Indians of any tribe. This book opened my eyes. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this true murder mystery was going to turn out. In the meantime, I got an awesome history lesson that I will never forget.

Incredible, fascinating

I read this book with my book club members which culminated with a "speakerphone" chat with the author. I must say that this was a wonderful and powerful novel that gets the reader thinking. I am not an Indian, and I am ashamed to say I had no idea about the Reign of Terror or the prejudices felt by Indians of any tribe. This book opened my eyes. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how this true murder mystery was going to turn out. In the meantime, I got an awesome history lesson that I will never forget.

Good journalism...great insights

Chronicling the Osage Reign of Terror through fiction, as Linda Hogan did exquisitely in Mean Spirit, or factually, as Lawrence Hogan attempted reasonably well in The Osage Indian Murders, is an entirely different effort from telling the true story of your own family, as Dennis McAuliffe succeeded in doing beautifully with Bloodland. Woven into the threads of the story of his Osage grandmother's brutal murder at the hands of her own white stepfather is his own experience of claiming his rightful place in the tribe and passing that proud legacy on to his own son. Contrary to what earlier reviewers have implied, it is completely possible to mourn the loss of a grandparent that you never knew, and that loss becomes even more poignant in its senselessness. Mr. McAuliffe's work tells a story within a story. It is first of all a well-researched documentary of a period in history for which this nation has much to answer. It is also the journal of a period in the author's own life during which he came to discover who he is and what of himself he will give to his child. As an adult who was adopted, I can relate to his occassional silliness as he tries to get a job using his minority "blood quantum" status as well as his more serious and reflective awareness of everything coming together and finally making sense. If you are interested in researching the history of the Osages, there are probably many books that will give you "just the facts." Bloodland will show you not only how those facts impacted on the people who lived them, but also how the events continue to resonate in the lives of those folks several generations removed.