Not since the Land Run of 1889 has a white Oklahoman made so much profit off of the stolen land of Native Americans, but, then again, it’s seems as though there’s very little the Pioneer Woman can’t do when she sets her buttery dimples to it.
Mostly famous for popularizing plagiarized recipes from Green Country cookbooks and basing an entire cottage industry around it, according to a recent article in the Land Report—THE magazine of the American landowner, you dumb poor bastards—Ree Drummond and her brood come in at number 23 in terms of American land ownership, claiming over 433,000 acres of property as of 2016. Oddly enough, this is all Land Report had to say about the deal:
“In 2015, Drummond Land & Cattle Co. was inducted into the Sooner State’s Quarter Horse Hall of Fame. The family helped write ranching history in Oklahoma. Clan patriarch Frederick Drummond (1864–1913) emigrated from Scotland and married Kansas native Addie Gentner. All three of their sons became successful cattle ranchers, and their descendants oversee hundreds of thousands of acres in Oklahoma and Kansas.”
Much like Brad Wesley in the film Roadhouse, not only do the Drummonds currently employ the second most people in the town of Pawhuska (and surrounding areas) in the Osage Nation, it has also been reported that they also receive an annual paycheck from the Bureau of Land Management, which pays them about $2 million a year—$23.9 million total over the past decade—to keep wild horses and burros on their “massive property” because, according the receipts, the Drummond’s support “animal protection.”
To hear many of the critics (and obscure social blog commenters) of this deal tell it, however, we the taxpayers are paying the Pioneer Woman millions of dollars a year to house wild horses that already had a free home on land that was legally designated to them by the Government. But, like a shady retirement home that cuts corners to bilk the elderly out of their savings, much of this has little to do with “protection of animals” and everything to with the selling public lands loaded with oil and other resources to the highest bidder.
Either way, even if these accusations were exposed as Gospel, I’m sure that many of Ree’s stirrup-panted fans could care less; as long as she keeps combining Mexican and Italian dishes together and calling it an original creation, they’ll continue to sign their paychecks over to her and say “Yee-haw!” as they do it. Pass the baked Enchilada Sliders with creamy Alfredo Salsa dipping sauce, por favor!
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I couldn't make it as a punker. Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler.
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