The Second Osage Minerals Council sent a letter to non-Osage shareholders with one request: please return your share of the Osage Minerals Estate.
“You are receiving this letter because the records of the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs show that you are (1) are the current owner of a headright interest, which is the right to receive the proceeds of the Osage Minerals Estate; and (2) are not an Osage Indian,” according to a 2-page letter mailed Jan. 31, 2014 and signed by Andrew Yates, chairman of the OMC.
The letter gives a brief history of the 1906 Act, federal law, and history on how headrights sometimes passed out of ownership of individual Osages and into the hands of non-Osages through charity, trickery, violence or murder. The letter asks that in light of learning the history of the headright system and what happened to the Osage people to please call the Osage Minerals Council office to return their shares.
“Headrights may be transferred only to an Osage Indian or to the Osage Minerals Council, and then only with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. In accordance with this federal law, the Osage Minerals Council is asking all persons of goodwill who are not Osage and who have come into possession of such interests to voluntarily return or sell them to the Minerals Council,” according to the letter.
Those who are receiving a life estate or who are legally adopted children of Osages are exempt.
For more information about the letter or the OMC’s efforts to regain shares of the Osage Minerals Estate from non-Osages, please call (918) 287-5346.
By
Osage News
Original Publish Date: 2014-03-03 00:00:00
