second-rate white boxer. According to a report from an official at
the Office of Indian Affairs, her new husband proceeded to lock
her in their house, whip her, and give her “drugs, opiates, and
liquor in an attempt to hasten her death so that he could claim her
huge inheritance.” In her case, the government official interceded,
and she survived. An investigation uncovered evidence that the
boxer had not acted alone but had been part of a conspiracy
orchestrated by a band of local citizens. Though the government
official pushed for their prosecution, no one was ever charged, and
the identities of the citizens were never revealed.
Then there was the case of Sybil Bolton, an Osage from
Pawhuska who was under the guardianship of her white
stepfather. On November 7, 1925, Bolton—whom a local reporter
described as “one of the most beautiful girls ever reared in the
city”—was found with a fatal bullet in her chest. Her death, at
twenty-one, was reported by her stepfather to be a suicide, and the
case was quickly closed without even an autopsy. In 1992, Bolton’s
grandson Dennis McAuliffe Jr., an editor at the Washington Post,
had investigated her death after discovering numerous
contradictions and lies in the official account. As he detailed in a
memoir, The Deaths of Sybil Bolton, published in 1994, much of
her headright money was stolen, and the evidence suggested that
she had been assassinated outdoors, on her lawn, with her sixteen-
month-old baby—McAuliffe’s mother—beside her. According to
the log, her guardian had four other Osage wards. They had also
died.
Though the bureau estimated that there were twenty-four Osage
murders, the real number was undoubtedly higher. The bureau
closed its investigation after catching Hale and his henchmen. But
at least some at the bureau knew that there were many more
homicides that had been systematically covered up, evading their
efforts of detection. An agent described, in a report, just one of the