“Killers of the Flower Moon” provides clues to Henry Roan’s life story

The film made it clear that Roan was Mollie Burkhart’s first husband, who struggled with alcoholism and “melancholy.” During the Osage Reign of Terror, he was murdered by a man hired by Ernest Burkhart, Mollie’s second husband.

In real life, Roan married Mollie Kyle when he was 15, during a brief break from his time at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

Roan’s great-granddaughter Margo Gray said her family didn’t talk about him much because of his alcoholism, so she turned to Carlisle archives to learn more about his life.

When Gray couldn’t answer a question from Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Ernest Burkart in the film, about what happened to Roan’s land, she researched official documents from the 1920s. In an interview with the Tulsa World, Gray recounted what she discovered while gathering details about her great-grandfather’s life.

Gray thought Henry and Mollie were cousins ​​until David Grann approached her while writing his book Killers of the Flower Moon and told her that they were not blood cousins ​​and had actually married in a traditional Osage wedding.

In the film adaptation of Grann’s book, Ernest mentions the “sky people” in a scene with Mollie. While he was preparing for his role, DiCaprio sat down with Gray and asked her about traditional Osage marriage. On a piece of paper, she drew a line with 29 checkmarks. Above the line she wrote “sky” and below the line she wrote “earth.”

She told him that there are 29 Osage clans and that they are divided into two categories – the sky clans, such as the Eagle Clan and the Sunbearer Clan, and the earth clans, such as the Deer Clan, which Gray belongs to. Gray said that to avoid incest, marriages are arranged between a person from an earth clan and another person from a sky clan.

Mollie was from a sky clan in Gray Horse and Roan was from an earth clan in Hominy, so their marriage was arranged, Gray said.

The young couple’s time together was short. Roan was sent back to Carlisle and Mollie was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Pawhuska.

The U.S. Department of the Interior recently released a full report on federal Indian boarding schools, but there was no mention of the Osage tribe.

Gray said the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was like the “torture chamber” of residential schools. She traces Henry’s alcoholism and depression to trauma in his early childhood.

According to the archives of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Henry came to Carlisle at age 15. He was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds when he arrived; according to Gray, he was 6 feet 7 inches tall when he died.

Before the school changed his name to “Henry,” his Osage name was E-Stah-mo-sah. He graduated from school on June 21, 1904. Records show that he entered school on September 21, 1899, with a “4th grade” diploma and left at age 20 with a “7th grade” diploma.

A photograph of Henry with two other boys is among the Carlisle records. Gray believes the boys were his school friends: Raymond B. Meat, a Cheyenne boy from Kingfisher, Oklahoma, who began school at age 17; and Thomas Perrier, an Osage farmer from Ochelata, Oklahoma, who began school at age 15.

In Carlisle, it was common practice for the administration to send newly enrolled graduates forms asking about their ownership of land and money.

“I have nothing to say about my home,” Roan wrote on the form, which is kept in the Carlisle files. “I have very little property. I have nothing at all to say about my life or any related matter that may interest you. I have a wife and child, a little girl, four years old, and a home of my own.”

Gray said Roan actually owned several parcels of land, each 160 acres, with a gas pipeline running through it. She said Roan’s land was a desirable investment because of the potential for profit from the minerals.

In a scene from “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Mollie introduces herself to an official as “Mollie Kyle, incompetent.” Because Osage citizens with newfound wealth were considered incapable of managing their own affairs, they were assigned a “guardian” by the federal government. When Roan returned from Carlisle, he was informed that Fred G. Drummond would be his guardian.

Land sale documents from May 1910 show Roan’s parcels were sold within 48 hours, Gray said. One of the 160-acre parcels sold for $1. The remaining land was purchased by Drummond, Roan’s guardian, records show.

Roan divorced Mollie after returning to Hominy from Carlisle. He then married Gray’s great-grandmother, Addie James. After Addie died of tuberculosis, Roan married Mary Bunch. It was Roan’s relationship with Mary that was depicted in “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

The film shows Ernest’s anger when he learns from his uncle William Hale that Mollie’s first husband was Roan, which she had never told Ernest.

The account of Roan’s murder is historically accurate, Gray said. She found a 1929 article in the Osage Journal in which John Ramsey speculated that Ernest wanted Roan killed out of jealousy. Ramsey told a reporter that Ernest was afraid Roan would divorce Mary Bunch and “take Mollie away from him.”

In the film, Ernest hired Ramsey to stage Roan’s suicide, but he failed because he shot Roan in the back of the head instead of the front. Roan was found dead on February 6, 1923. This ultimately led to the downfall of Ernest, Ramsey, Hale, and other conspirators.