Olive Oatman

Olive Oatman

The account of Olive Oatman is a story of a child who gets kidnapped by Indians and learns to adapt to her “new normal,” a tale we might be able to associate with our own “new normal.”

          Olive Oatman was born on September 7^th, 1837 in Illinois into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. But, in 1850, when Olive was 13, her family broke with the Church and traveled, with a group of other members of the Brewsterites (people who followed the Mormon rebel James C. Brewster), to southeast California through western Arizona. In the summer of 1850, 90 people left Independence, Missouri, heading into the wild in search of a place where they could safely raise their children and practice their religion.

          At some point, there was a discussion on exactly how to proceed, what direction to go in. The Oatman’s decided to take the Sante Fe route with some other members of the group. They were warned, though, that there were Indian tribes that were hostile to the white man, so they were warned to be careful. But Royal Oatman, his wife Mary and their seven children (ages 1-17) were true pioneers and were not going to let something like an Indian raid stop them. In fact, they believed they could bring their religion to the natives.

          Ninety miles east of Yuma, the party was attacked by the Yavapais tribe. They demanded food and tobacco. When the party refused, the tribe attacked, leaving Royal, Mary, and four of their children dead, with Lorenzo, the 15-year-old unconscious and left for dead.

          When he comes to, he struggles but eventually connects with a Mormon settlement. They tended to his wounds, and when he was well enough, they took him back to the scene of the massacre. He expected to see eight bodies, but there were only six. Where were his sisters Olive and Mary Anne? Olive, who was 13 and Mary Anne, who was seven, was kidnapped by the tribe that had slaughtered his family.

          The girls were taken to the tribe’s settlement 60 miles away. They were tied with ropes and forced to walk the whole way with no food or rest. If they asked for food or to stop and rest for a while, they were poked with sharp lances. The girls learned exceedingly early on in their capture to not ask.

          When they arrived at the village, the girls realized they were going to be slaves. You must remember that many tribes would capture whites to use them as slaves or to replace family members who had died.

          The girl’s main tasks were to forage the forest for food and firewood. The children of the tribe would burn them with fire sticks. They were regularly beaten and thought they would eventually be killed. They had resigned to die.

          When Olive and Mary Anne had been with the Yavapais tribe for a year, they were suddenly traded to the Mojave’s for horses, blankets, vegetables, and trinkets. They again had a long walk to their new home, expecting their situation to be the same with the Mojave’s as it had been with the Yavapais’.

          But they were pleasantly surprised when they came to the settlement and found they were to be cared for and eventually adopted by the tribe’s leader’s wife, Espanesay. The two were no longer asked to work and could do pretty much what they wanted. They were given land and seeds to grow their own crops. They became so assimilated in the tribe that they were each given the traditional tattoos on their chins and arms that the other women of the tribe were given. The Indians felt that with the tattoos, the women were easily identified in the afterlife as belonging to that tribe.

          In fact, the girls became so assimulated that in February 1854, when 200 white railroad surveyors spent a week camping right next to the tribe, the girls never attempted to reveal themselves or to ask for any help.

          When Mary Anne is 10, a drought devastated the crops, resulting in a food shortage. Most children in the tribe died of starvation, including Mary Anne, but not Olive. The tribe leader’s wife, Aespaneo and her daughter Topeka would sneak food to Olive, so she would not suffer the same fate as her sister. It seems there was a preference for the two women for Olive over Mary Anne. After this, Olive was given a clan name, Oach.

          All this time, Lorenzo had been searching for his two sisters. A man named Francisco followed the rumors the government had heard that there was a white girl living with the Mojave. The tribe was told to return the girls or have the girls come to them to state they want to stay with the Indians. At first, they did not even bother to reply, but Lorenzo was persistent, so they next said that they didn’t have any white girl.

          Finally, they figured out they couldn’t win. Olive tried to help her captors and sent a letter:

“I found that they had told Francisco that I was not an American, that I was from a race of people much like the Indians, living away from the setting sun. They had painted my face, and feet, and hands of a dun, dingy color, unlike that of any race I ever saw. This they told me they did to deceive Francisco; and that I must not talk to him in American [sic]. They told me to talk to him in another language and to tell him that I was not an American. They then waited to hear the result, expecting to hear my gibberish nonsense and to witness the convincing effect upon Francisco. But I spoke to him in broken English, and told him the truth, and what they had enjoined me to do. He started from his seat in a perfect rage, vowing that he would be imposed upon no longer.” 

            The Mohave’s were angry; they had believed that Olive wanted to stay with them. At that time, there was even talk of killing Olive.

            Olive was eventually ransomed back to the U.S. Government for a horse, some blankets and some beads. The payment the Mojave’s gave to the tribe that originally kidnapped Olive was more than that. Had she depreciated that much?

            Olive’s adopted sister joined her to make sure that the government did not renege on the deal. It took 20 days to reach Fort Yuma…Olive was on the road again! They finally reached it on February 22, 1856.

            They arrived at Fort Yuma in the traditional garb of the tribe, Mohave skirts with bare chests. Olive washed her face and hair and was loaned western clothes. She was welcomed with a cheering crowd. At this time, Olive became aware that her brother Lorenzo had also survived the massacre. 

           

Minister Royal Stratton wrote a book called Life Among Indians (Captivity of the Oatman Girls.) Olive went around the country talking about her experience.  She claimed that neither tribe raped nor had any form of sexual contact with her. But a childhood friend said Olive had married while with the Mojaves and had two boys. Olive denied she had said that.

            Olive said her tattoos were done so she could be identified as their property if she ever escaped, but all Mojave women were tattooed the same way Olive was.

            After the book came out, Olive was a celebrity and lived her life under a microscope. Her friend said that Olive was very unhappy and wanted to return to the tribe.

            Olive traveled to New York to see Irataba, a Mohave tribal dignitary. She said, “They met as friends.” In November 1865, Olive married John B. Fairchild, a rancher, and banker in Rochester, New York.  She adopted a little girl, Mamie. Throughout the rest of her life, she suffered from depression and severe headaches. In a letter, she wrote some friends that the depression was caused by the massacre of her family, and others she told it was because she was wrenched away from the Mojave. She would try to cover her facial tattoos with make or a veil, but it was not always easy for her to try to have a normal life. In 1903, she died of a heart attack.

            It seems that Olive was not unhappy in her life with the Mohaves, but there is another story of a woman who was kidnapped with a vastly different outcome.

           

On March 15^th, 1697, Hannah Duston (40)  and her neighbor were captured by a group from a native American tribe from Haverhill, Massachusetts. Other neighbors were abducted along with those two. Hannah had given birth to a little boy a week before the abduction, and the infant was brought along. The group started off for Canada. Along the way, one of the members of the tribe killed the infant, thinking he was slowing his mother down.

            After two weeks, the abducted group were left with a Native American family, two men, three women, and seven children along with another captive Samuel Leornardson, who had been with the family for a year and a half.

           

One night, while the family was sleeping, Duston, Neff, and Leonardson slaughtered and scalped most of the family, including the children. The three took one of the family’s canoes and headed down the Merrimack River to Massachusetts where they were haled heroes at first, even getting a fifty-pound reward. But later, as the details of the attack came to light, many began to be disturbed that the group had not only killed the adults but the children, too. This seemed as if it was totally unnecessary 

            I take no political stance on the right or wrong of any of the actions here, just two stories of a time far removed from us to give us a little perspective.