Massacre of the Oatman Family by Indians. 1851

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Colorized photo of Olive Oatman with the facial tattoo given to her by her Indian captives.

The attack of the war-clubs from 'Captivity of The Oatman Girls' (1856).

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From Wikipedia

Olive Ann Oatman (September 7, 1837 – March 21, 1903) was an American woman celebrated in her time for her captivity and later release by Native Americans in the Mojave Desert region when she was a teenager. She later lectured about her experiences.

In 1850, while traveling from Illinois to California with a company of Brewsterites, her family was attacked by a small group from a Native American tribe. Though she identified them as Apache, they were most likely Tolkepayas (Western Yavapai). They clubbed many to death, left her brother Lorenzo for dead, and enslaved Olive and her younger sister Mary Ann, holding them captive as slaves for one year before they traded them to the Mohave people. While Lorenzo exhaustively attempted to recruit governmental help in searching for them, Mary Ann died from starvation and Olive spent four years with the Mohave.

Mary Ann died from starvation while in captivity.

Five years after the attack, she was repatriated into American society. The story of the Oatman Massacre began to be retold with dramatic license in the press, as well as in her own memoir and speeches. Novels, plays, movies, and poetry were inspired, which resonated in the media of the time and long afterward. She had become an oddity in 1860s America, partly because of the prominent blue tattooing of her face by the Mohave, making her the first known white woman with Native tattoo on record. Much of what actually occurred during her time with the Native Americans remains unknown.

Early life ~

Oatman was born in La Harpe in Hancock County, Illinois. She was the daughter of Mary Ann (née Sperry) and Roys (aka Royce) Oatman. She had six siblings. In 1839, her parents left the Methodist church for the Mormon religion under Joseph Smith. When Smith was killed in 1844, Mary Ann and Roys Oatman did not follow Brigham Young, but instead chose to become Brewsterites, a dissident group of Mormons under the leadership of James C. Brewster.

August 5, 1850, the Oatman family joined a wagon train led by Brewster from Independence, Missouri, to the border of Arizona and California. There, Brewster claimed was the "intended place of gathering" for the Mormons. The wagon train numbered between 85 and 93 people. Dissension caused the group to split near Santa Fe in New Mexico Territory with Brewster following the northern route. Royce Oatman and several other families chose the southern route via Socorro and Tucson. Near Socorro, Roys Oatman assumed command of the party. They reached New Mexico Territory early in 1851 only to find the country and climate wholly unsuited to their purpose. The other wagons gradually abandoned the goal of reaching the mouth of the Colorado River.

The party had reached Maricopa Wells, when they were told that not only was the stretch of trail ahead barren and dangerous, but that the Native Americans ahead were very hostile and that they would risk their lives if they proceeded further. The other families resolved to stay. The Oatman family, eventually traveling alone, was nearly annihilated in what became known as the "Oatman Massacre" on the banks of the Gila River about 80–90 miles (130–140 km) east of Yuma, in what is now Arizona.

Oatman Massacre ~

Mary Ann and Roys Oatman had seven children, and Mary Ann was pregnant with their eighth during their journey from Illinois to the Gila River. The Oatman children ranged in age from one to 17, the eldest being Lucy Oatman. On the Oatmans' fourth day out from Maricopa Wells, they were approached by a group of Native Americans who were asking for tobacco and food. Due to the lack of supplies, Royce Oatman was hesitant to share too much with the small party of Yavapais. They became irate at his stinginess. During the encounter, the Yavapais attacked the Oatman family. The Yavapais clubbed the family to death. All were killed except for three of the children: 15-year-old Lorenzo, who was left for dead, and 14-year-old Olive and 7-year-old Mary Ann, who were taken to be slaves for the Yavapais.

After the attack, Lorenzo awoke to find his parents and siblings dead, but he saw no sign of little Mary Ann or Olive. Lorenzo attempted the hazardous trek to find help. He eventually reached a settlement, where his wounds were treated. Lorenzo rejoined the emigrant train, and three days later returned to the bodies of his slain family. In a detailed retelling which was reprinted in newspapers over the decades, he said, "We buried the bodies of father, mother and babe in one common grave." The men had no way of digging proper graves in the volcanic rocky soil, so they gathered the bodies together and formed a cairn over them. It has been said the remains were reburied several times and finally moved to the river for re-interment by early Arizona colonizer Charles Poston. Lorenzo Oatman became determined to never give up the search for his only surviving siblings.

Lorenzo as illustrated in the 'Captivity of The Oatman Girls'.

Captivity and Conversion ~

After the attack, the Native Americans took some of the Oatman family's belongings, along with Olive and Mary Ann. Although Olive Oatman later identified her captors as members of the Tonto Apache tribe, they were probably of the Tolkepaya tribe (Western Yavapais) living in a village eight miles (13 km) southwest of Aguila, Arizona, in the Harquahala Mountains. After arriving at the village, the girls were initially treated in a way that appeared threatening, and Oatman later said she thought they would be killed. However, the girls were used as slaves to forage for food, to lug water and firewood, and for other menial tasks.

During the girls' stay with the Yavapais, another group of Native Americans came to trade with the tribe. This group was made up of Mohave Native Americans. The daughter of the Mohave Chief Espaniole saw the girls and their poor treatment during a trading expedition. She tried to make a trade for the girls. The Yavapais refused, but the chief's daughter, Topeka, was persistent and returned once more offering a trade for the girls. Eventually the Yavapais gave in and traded the girls for two horses, some vegetables, blankets, and beads. After being taken into Mohave custody, the girls walked for days to a Mohave village along the Colorado River (in the center of what today is Needles, California). They were immediately taken in by the family of a tribal leader (kohot) whose non-Mohave name was Espaniole. The Mohave tribe was more prosperous than the group that had held the girls captive, and both Espaniole's wife, Aespaneo, and daughter, Topeka, took an interest in the Oatman girls' welfare. Oatman expressed her deep affection for these two women numerous times over the years after her captivity.

Aespaneo arranged for the Oatman girls to be given plots of land to farm. A Mohave tribesman, Llewelyn Barrackman, said in an interview that Olive was most likely fully adopted into the tribe because she was given a Mohave nickname, something only presented to those who have fully assimilated into the tribe. Olive herself would later claim that she and Mary Ann were held captive by the Mohave and that she feared to leave, but this statement could have been colored by the Reverend Royal Byron Stratton, who sponsored the publication of Olive's captivity narrative shortly after her return to White society. For example, Olive did not attempt to contact a large group of whites that visited the Mohaves during her period with them, and years later she went to meet with a Mohave leader, Irataba, in New York City and spoke with him of old times.

The captives at the Indian campfire.

Anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber wrote in an article about the Oatman captivity: "The Mohaves always told her she could go to the white settlements when she pleased but they dared not go with her, fearing they might be punished for having kept a white woman so long among them, nor did they dare to let it be known that she was among them".

Another thing that suggests Olive and Mary Ann were not held in forced captivity by the Mohave is that both girls were tattooed on their chins and arms, in keeping with the tribal custom. Oatman later claimed (in Stratton's book and in her lectures) that she was tattooed to mark her as a slave, but this is not consistent with the Mohave tradition, where such marks were given only to their own people to ensure that they would enter the land of the dead and be recognized there by their ancestors as members of the Mohave tribe. The tribe did not care if their slaves could reach the land of the dead, however, so they did not tattoo them. It has also been suggested that the evenness of Olive’s facial markings may indicate her compliance with the procedure.

Olive Oatman 1860s lecture notes tell of her younger sister often yearning to join that better "world" where their "Father and Mother" had gone. Mary Ann died of starvation while the girls were living with the Mohave. This happened in about 1855–56, when Mary Ann was ten or eleven. It has been claimed that there was a drought in the region, and that the tribe experienced a dire shortage of food supplies, and Olive herself would have died had not Aespaneo, the matriarch of the tribe, saved her life by making a gruel to sustain her.

Olive later spoke with fondness of the Mohaves, who she said treated her better than her first captors. She most likely considered herself assimilated. She was given a clan name, Oach, and a nickname, Spantsa, a Mohave word having to do with unquenchable lust or thirst. And she chose not to reveal herself to white railroad surveyors who spent nearly a week in the Mohave Valley trading and socializing with the tribe in February 1854. Because she did not know that Lorenzo had survived the massacre, she believed she had no immediate family, and the Mohave treated her as one of their own.

Release ~

When Olive was 19 years old, Francisco, a Yuma Indian messenger, arrived at the village with a message from the authorities at Fort Yuma. Rumors suggested that a white girl was living with the Mohaves, and the post commander requested her return, or to know the reason why she did not choose to return. The Mohaves initially sequestered Olive and resisted the request. At first they denied that Olive was even white. Over the course of negotiations some expressed their affection for Olive, others their fear of reprisal from whites. The messenger Francisco, meanwhile, withdrew to the homes of other nearby Mohaves; shortly thereafter he made a second fervent attempt to persuade the Mohaves to part with Olive. Trade items were included this time, including blankets and a white horse, and he passed on threats that the whites would destroy the Mohaves if they did not release Olive.

Arrival of Olive at Fort Yuma.

After some discussion, in which Olive was this time included, the Mohaves decided to accept these terms, and Olive was escorted to Fort Yuma in a 20-day journey. Topeka (the daughter of Espianola/Espanesay and Aespaneo) went on the journey with her. Before entering the fort, Olive was given Western clothing lent by the wife of an army officer, as she was clad in a traditional Mohave skirt with no covering above her waist. Inside the fort, Olive was surrounded by cheering people.

Olive’s childhood friend Susan Thompson, whom she befriended again at this time, stated many years later that she believed Olive was "grieving" upon her forced return because she had been married to a Mohave man and had given birth to two boys.

Olive, however, denied rumors during her lifetime that she either had been married to a Mohave or had been sexually mistreated by the Yavapai or Mohave. In Stratton's book, she declared that "to the honor of these savages let it be said, they never offered the least unchaste abuse to me." However, her nickname, Spantsa, may have meant "rotten womb" and implied that she was sexually active, although historians have argued that the name could have different meanings.

Within a few days of her arrival at the fort, Olive discovered that her brother Lorenzo was alive and had been looking for her and Mary Ann. Their meeting made headline news across the West.

Later life ~

In 1857, a pastor named Royal Byron Stratton sought out Olive and Lorenzo Oatman. He co-wrote a book about the Oatman Massacre and the girls' captivity titled Life among the Indians: or, The Captivity of the Oatman Girls Among the Apache & Mohave Indians. It was a bestseller for that era, at 30,000 copies. Stratton used the royalties from the book to pay for Olive and her brother Lorenzo to attend the University of the Pacific (1857). Olive and Lorenzo accompanied Stratton across the country on a book tour, promoting the book and lecturing in book circuits. Olive was a curiosity. Her boldly tattooed chin was on display and people came to hear her story and witness the blue tattoo for themselves. She was the first known tattooed White American woman as well as one of the first female public speakers. Olive entered the lecture circuit as feminism was developing. Though she herself never claimed to be part of the movement, her story entered the American consciousness shortly after the Seneca Falls Convention.

Both Oatman and Mary Brown, Sallie Fox's mother and Rose–Baley Party survivor, lived in San Jose, California, at the same time. Mary Brown refused a meeting.

In November 1865, Oatman married a cattleman named John B. Fairchild. They met at a lecture she was giving alongside Stratton in Michigan. Fairchild had lost his brother to an attack by Native Americans during a cattle drive in Arizona in 1854, the same time Oatman was living among the Mohave. Stratton did not receive an invitation to the wedding, and Olive never reached out to him again. Though it was rumored that Olive died in a mental asylum in New York State in 1877, it was Stratton who became institutionalized after the development of hereditary insanity and died shortly after.

Olive and John Fairchild moved to Sherman, Texas, a boom town ripe for a businessman like Fairchild to start a new and prosperous life. Fairchild founded the City Bank of Sherman and together they lived quietly in a large Victorian mansion. Olive began wearing a veil to cover her famous tattoo and became involved in charity work. She was particularly interested in helping a local orphanage. She and Fairchild never had their own children, but they did adopt a little girl and named her Mary Elizabeth after their mothers, nicknaming her Mamie. Her husband went on to track down copies of Stratton's book and burn them.

Her brother Lorenzo died on October 8, 1901. She outlived him by less than 2 years. Olive Oatman Fairchild died of a heart attack on March 20, 1903, at the age of 65. She is buried at the West Hill Cemetery in Sherman, Texas.

Legacy ~

The town of Oatman, Arizona, located near her release site, was named in her honor in 1915. It was part of the Oatman Gold District. The once thriving gold rush town is now a tourist stop.

Named in her honor, the historic town of Olive City, Arizona, near the present town of Ehrenberg, was a steamboat stop on the Colorado River during the gold rush days. Other namesakes in Arizona are Oatman Mountain and the adjacent Oatman Flat. Oatman Flat Station was a stage stop for the Butterfield Overland Mail from 1858 to 1861.

In popular culture

Television and film ~

The character of Eva Oakes, portrayed by Robin McLeavy in the AMC television series Hell on Wheels is very loosely based on Oatman. Outside of being captured by a group of Native Americans, bearing the distinctive blue chin tattoo, and having been raised Mormon, there are very few similarities between the character of Eva and the actual life of Oatman.

In an episode of the series The Ghost Inside My Child: The Wild West and Tribal Quest, a southern American Baptist family claims that their daughter Olivia says she is the reincarnation of Olive Oatman.

A 1965 episode of the TV series Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan recounts the story of Olive Oatman and features her brother Lorenzo’s search for her. In this episode he finds her with the Mojave but she doesn’t want to leave. Episode title: “The Lawless Have Laws.” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0556827/

Fiction inspired by Olive Oatman ~

De Burton, Maria Ruiz. Who Would Have Thought It? J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1872.

Grayson, Elizabeth. So Wide the Sky. Avon, 1997.

Leonard, Elmore. The Tonto Woman and Other Western Stories. Delacorte Press, 1998.

Lawton, Wendy. Ransom's Mark: A Story Based on the Life of the Young Pioneer Olive Oatman. Moody Publishers, 2003.

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The Oatman Massacre ~

By J. Marvin Hunter. From Hunter's Frontier Times Magazine, August, 1944.

During the early days many outrages were committed by the Indians upon those emigrating into California, upon what is now Arizona soil. The Oatman massacre is one of the most notable of these occurrences.

This terrible massacre occurred at what is known as "Oatman Flat," about 100 miles east of Yuma, Arizona. Royce Oatman, with his wife and seven children, left Independence, Missouri, with a company of some fifty persons, in August, 1850. Part of the company remained in Tucson, and the rest at the Pima villages. Oatman left the latter place with his family in February, 1851, to make the trip alone down the Gila and into California. They were short of provisions and their cattle were in bad shape, consequently their progress was very slow. A man by the name of John La Count who had passed over the road several times, told them that he had encountered no Indians, and considered the road safe, which probably was the reason Royce Oatman undertook this perilous journey alone with his family. The party encountered no Indians until after passing what is now Gila Bend, and reaching the place now known as Oatman Flat. Here a party of Indians, 19 in number, armed with clubs, bows and arrows, came into their camp, and demanded food. Oatman protested, saying that he would be robbing and starving his children if he gave the Indians food, but he finally gave them some bread. They asked for more, which he steadily refused. Retiring a short distance, they held a brief consultation, and then, with savage yells, set upon their victims. All of the Oatman party was killed with the exception of two daughters, Olive, aged 16, and Mary Ann, aged 10, and a son, Lorenzo, aged 14. The latter, being taken for dead by the savages, was thrown over an embankment 20 feet deep, and left for dead. Finally regaining consciousness, he found his way back to the Pima villages and there joined an expedition into California. Olive and Mary Ann were held by their captors, the Tonto Apaches, for something over a year, when they were sold to the Mojaves. The price paid for them is said to have been two horses, a blanket or two, some vegetables and some beans, The youngest girl died while a captive among the Mojaves, and Olive remained with them in captivity for about five years.

In the meantime her brother, Lorenzo, using every means at his command, was endeavoring to rescue his sisters from their terrible fate. In October, 1854, he went to Los Angeles intent on this object. He joined several parties of prospectors to search for gold beyond the Colorado, and one of the parties penetrated the country bordering on Bill Williams' Fork in 1855, without getting any trace of the captive girls. In December of that year he searched through Southern California for them, but with no success. He then tried advertising in the newspapers, and in this way succeeded in arousing public sympathy, and learning that his sister, Ohve, was reported to be a captive among the Mojaves, he preferred a petition to Governor Johnson of California, for ways and means lo recover her, which was signed by many people of Los Angeles county. The governor replied that he had no authority to grant the request, and referred him to the Indian Department. He prepared a memorial to the Indian Department, and forwarded it in the month of February, 1856.

During this time a humanitarian was at work in his behalf and in that of his sisters. There came to Fort Yuma in 1853, one Henry Grinnell, a nephew of Henry Grinnell, the philanthropist who fitted out the Advance and Rescue for De Havne's search for Sir John Franklin's party in the Arctic Sea. Grinnell was an humble carpenter, but took a lively interest in the fate of the Oatman girls, and questioned emigrants and Indians alike or tidings of them. One night, in January, 1856, a friendly Indian by name Francisco, came to him and asked him: "Carpenter, what is this you say so much about two Americans among the Indians?" Grinnell informed him that the Americans knew of two white girls who were captives among the Indians, and that unless they were surrendered, the whites would certainly make war upon the tribe. Pretending to read from a copy of the Los Angeles Star, in which Lorenzo had made his first appeal for assistance, and translating as he read, he told Francisco that a large army was being prepared that would annihilate the Mojaves and and all tribes that assisted them in concealing the captives. Francisco was much impressed. He remained in Grinnell's tent that night and the next morning Grinnell took him to Colonel Burke, the commander of the fort. Francisco said: "You give me four blankets and some beads, and I will bring her in just twenty days, when the sun is there," indicating about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Colonel Burke thought it some trickery on the part of the savage, but Grinnell told him to give him the goods and charge them to him. The goods were furnished and Francisco departed.

The arrival of Francisco with his message to the Mojaves created no little consternation in their camp, and they ordered Francisco to leave and not to return under penalty of torture, but the Indian, after much persuasion and many pow-wows, succeeded in his mission. On the twentieth day, Grinnell, who, in the meantime, had been made the object of many jests by his comrades who believed that Francisco had cleverly worked upon his sympathies to the extent of the goods furnished him, was rewarded for his patience and faith in the Indian. At noon three Yumas appeared, and announced that Francisco was coming. "Is the girl with him?" asked Grinnell eagerly. "Francisco will come when the sun is there," replied the Indians, indicating the point that Francisco had indicated, and no more satisfaction could be had from them. As the hour indicated approached, Grinnell, watching with strained eyes, caught sight of three Indian men and two women approaching the ferry on the opposite side of the river. "They have come," he cried, "the captive girl is here." Olive, not wishing to appear in public in her scanty bark dress, was quickly furnished with clothing by an. officer's wife, and soon presented to the commander amid wild enthusiasm. Men cheered, cannon boomed, and the shrill whoops of the Yumas joined in the general acclamation of joy.

Two days after sending his memorial to the Indian Department, Lorenzo Oatman saw in the Los Angeles Star a brief statement of Olive's recovery. Hastening to the editor he was told the report was reliable, as it had been based on a letter from Colonel Burke. A friend furnished him with transportation and accompanied him to Fort Yuma, which place he reached after ten days' riding across the Colorado desert. The brother and sister were united and clasped in a fond embrace. Strong men wept, but their tears brought to them no dishonor. Brother and sister returned to Los Angeles, and went thence to southern Oregon to live with an uncle who had heard of their trials, and invited them to share his home. Afterwards they attended school in Santa Clara Valley in California, and in 1858 removed to New York. Francisco, the Indian, being held in high esteem by the whites, was made chief of their tribe by the Yumas. He was known thereafter as El Sol Francisco, was arrogant in his new station, but was always friendly thereafter with the whites.

In 1857 the Yumas and Mojaves organized a joint expedition against the Maricopas. They raised a large band and attacked the Maricopa villages about the first of September. They burned some houses, and killed some women and children, which was speedily avenged. The Pimas and Maricopas were reinforced by the Papagoes until their numbers were equal to those of the invaders. At Maricopa Wells, about four miles west of the present station of Maricopa, on the Southern Pacific, they fought a great battle, in which the Yumas were defeated with the loss of over 200 warriors. Out of the Yuma warriors only three returned alive. Francisco fell in this fight, killed, it is said, by his own men who thought he had brought disaster upon them by defending the whites.

Olive Oatman, it is said, died in an insane asylum in New York before or during the year 1877.

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Olive Oatman 1838–1903, by Benjamin F. Powelson (1823–1885), Albumen silver print, c. 1863, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.