The Osage Nation’s fee-to-trust application for 41,521 acres is approved. It’s the largest fee-to-trust acquisition in Oklahoma history and the second-largest in U.S. history, according to a press release from the Osage Nation.
The Osage Nation Ranch is the home of hundreds of bison, cattle, grazing land, oil and gas hardware, water features, arbors and is used to share Osage traditions and stories.
Recently, the nation’s fee-to-trust application was approved and Geoffrey Standing Bear, principal chief of the Osage Nation, said this means it has jurisdiction and authority over the land.
“Also, there's pride in knowing that if you're Osage, no matter where you live, you drive through that 1000s of acres,” Standing Bear said. “You own that ranch. You are an owner of this land and the right to it, but through a lot of different turns, a lot of different ups and downs.”
Putting the land into trust, transfers the land title from a federally-recognized Tribe to the U.S., in trust, for the benefit of that Tribe, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Tribal Nations govern trust land and it’s generally not subjected to state laws, but federal restrictions do apply.
The Osage Nation first submitted a fee-to-trust application in 2016 to start the lengthy process. Although in trust lands are common, Standing Bear said this one was a little more complicated.
“I can tell you the size of it made it very tedious to go acre by acre, looking at, particularly the United States is so concerned about environmental damage, as they should have been and should be,” Standing Bear said. “They've had a lot of field work, plus archeological surveys they do all that, etc.”
For Standing Bear, putting land into trust is one of his priorities, along with language and culture preservation. This recent acquisition will not change the use of the land, and he said the nation has other applications processing.
“This is your land, and your children's land, and your grandchildren's land,” Standing Bear said, in a message to other Osage citizens. “And there's no loans on it, and there's no mortgage on it, and that is not going to happen. We're not giving this land up again. We were pushed into that before, but we want to acquire more, and we want to do this again. But land is very expensive.”
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