Osage Nation

The Osage Nation (/ˈoʊseɪdʒ/ OH-sayj) (Osage: 𐓏𐓘𐓻𐓘𐓻𐓟 𐓁𐓣𐓤𐓘𐓯𐓣‎, lit. 'People of the Middle Waters') is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma.

They are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains historically from the Midwestern United States. The tribe began in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 1620 along with other groups of its language family, then migrated west in the 17th century due to Iroquois incursions.

The term "Osage" is a French version, from "eau sage", of the tribe's name, which can be roughly translated as "calm water". The Osage people refer to themselves in their Dhegihan Siouan language as (𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷‎, Wazhazhe, 'Middle Waters'). By the early 19th century, the Osage had become the dominant power in the region, feared by neighboring tribes. The tribe controlled the area between the Missouri and Red rivers, the Ozarks to the east and the foothills of the Wichita Mountains to the south. They depended on nomadic buffalo hunting and agriculture. The 19th-century painter George Catlin described the Osage as "the tallest race of men in North America, either red or white skins; there being ... many of them six and a half, and others taller than seven feet [198, 213 cm]." The missionary Isaac McCoy described the Osage as an "uncommonly fierce, courageous, warlike nation" and said they were the "finest looking Indians I have ever seen in the West". In the Ohio Valley, the Osage originally lived among speakers of the same Dhegihan language stock, such as the Kansa, Ponca, Omaha, and Quapaw. Researchers believe that the tribes likely diverged in languages and cultures after leaving the lower Ohio Country. The Omaha and Ponca settled in what is now Nebraska; the Kansa in Kansas; and the Quapaw in Arkansas.

In the 19th century, the Osage were forced by the United States to move from modern-day Kansas into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), and the majority of their descendants live in Oklahoma. In the early 20th century, oil was discovered on their land. They had retained communal mineral rights during the allotment process, and many Osage became wealthy through returns from leasing fees generated by their Osage headrights. During the 1920s and what was known as the Reign of Terror, they suffered manipulation, fraud, and numerous murders by outsiders eager to take over their wealth. In 2011, the nation gained a settlement from the federal government after an 11-year legal struggle over long mismanagement of their oil funds. In 2025, the federally recognized Osage Nation has approximately 25,000 enrolled citizens, 6,780 of whom reside in the tribe's jurisdictional area. Citizens also live outside the nation's tribal land in Oklahoma and in other states around the country. The present tribal lands are bordered by the Cherokee Nation to the east, the Muscogee Nation and the Pawnee Nation to the south, and the Kaw Nation and Oklahoma proper to the west.