The book describes at length the racism of white people toward Indigenous people, which presented both through official governmental policy and through more informally demonstrated attitudes.

While the book focuses on the period in the early to mid-20th century when many Osage people were killed, Grann’s overview of the history of the Osage Nation shows the extent of past and contemporary policies that saw Indigenous residents of North America as second-class citizens. From the repeated reneging on the terms of treaties, to the forcible relocation of Osage tribe members onto smaller and smaller parcels of land, the US federal government had long used bigotry to support unfair treatment. In Mollie Burkhart’s lifetime, other policies came into effect that attempted to disrupt Indigenous hierarchies, culture, and power structures. Land allotment broke up communitarian living, and white boarding schools all but kidnapped Indigenous children with the aim of deracinating them. Finally, the system of guardianship, in which white men were assigned legal control over the financial affairs of many Osage people who had come into oil wealth, codified into law the racist stereotype that Indigenous people were too “primitive” to handle their wealth responsibly. Law enforcement and legal institutions were likewise influenced by such racism.