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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from hot

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Speaker 1: works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Holly Froy. I don't like Tracy V. Wilson, and today's

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Speaker 1: topic is one that I have kind of been dancing

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Speaker 1: around for a while. Uh. She was a media sensation

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Speaker 1: long before the concept of reality TV came around, and

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Speaker 1: long before TV. Even her story sounds adventurous and incredible

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Speaker 1: because it was she was a frontier girl when in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one she was captured by Native Americans who

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Speaker 1: attacked her family's wagon. And her story is full of

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Speaker 1: twists and turns. So I'm not going to do the

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Speaker 1: usual um. You know, usually we do a little bit

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Speaker 1: more intro, but I don't want to in this one

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Speaker 1: because I want to just let it unfold because it

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Speaker 1: really is quite an amazing story. We were talking today

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Speaker 1: about Olive Oatman, so I love was the daughter of

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Speaker 1: Royce and Mary Anne Sperry Oatman, and she was one

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Speaker 1: of seven kids. She was born in Eleanor in eighteen

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Speaker 1: thirty seven, although there are some records that indicate that

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Speaker 1: it might have actually been eighteen thirty nine. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder if that wasn't one of those cases

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Speaker 1: of poor penmanship where a nine and a seven looked

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Speaker 1: kind of similar, because you'll see it written both ways.

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Speaker 1: And in May of eighteen fifty, uh, the Oatman family

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Speaker 1: joined a wagon train with several other members from their

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Speaker 1: Mormon church to strike out for the West. And the

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Speaker 1: Oatman's first traveled from Illinois and then they met up

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Speaker 1: with the larger group in Independence, Missouri, and that's where

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Speaker 1: they all set out with nine wagons in a plan

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Speaker 1: to travel to California. But not long after the journey began,

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Speaker 1: the Oatman's, along with a couple of other wagons, separated

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Speaker 1: from that group, and by the time they and the

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Speaker 1: remaining families got to Arizona, a famine there made the

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Speaker 1: prospect of staying kind of a daunting idea. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: had always intended to keep going west, but you know,

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Speaker 1: they weren't sure where they were going to stay at

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Speaker 1: various points. Um. But they really did not want to

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Speaker 1: linger in Arizona. Uh. But there was also this fear

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Speaker 1: that if they continued west that they were going to

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Speaker 1: be attacked on the road by native tribes. This was

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Speaker 1: apparently the problem that was going on. It was pretty

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Speaker 1: common with settlers. Uh And after they had had a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a reassurance from a fellow traveler that

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Speaker 1: he had not seen any immediate threats on the road,

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Speaker 1: the Oatman's decided that they were going to take sort

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Speaker 1: of the more daring path, and they left behind those

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Speaker 1: remaining traveling companions to continue towards California. And during this

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Speaker 1: they followed the Heila River, which at the time was

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Speaker 1: the border between the US and Mexico, and they were

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Speaker 1: traveling along what's called Cook's Wagon Road. So they had

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Speaker 1: really hoped that this path was going to be clear

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Speaker 1: of any attacks. But on February eighteen fifty one, the

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Speaker 1: Oapmans were met on the road by a group of

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Speaker 1: nineteen Native Americans, and this was near HeLa Bend, Arizona.

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Speaker 1: According to an account that was written later based on

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Speaker 1: olives recollection, the last thing Roy said to his family

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Speaker 1: was do not be alarmed. The Indians won't harm you. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He's generally characterized as a man who actually believed that

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Speaker 1: most Native American violence was born of poor treatment from

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Speaker 1: white settlers, and that if you treated people kindly, they

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Speaker 1: would treat you kindly in return. But unfortunately this did

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Speaker 1: not play out in this particular interaction. After that, the

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Speaker 1: natives that they had come in contact with first asked

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Speaker 1: for tobacco and other supplies, which the Oatman's handed over.

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Speaker 1: The interloper started rummaging through the Oatman's wagon, and when

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Speaker 1: Royce Oatman finally told them he just could not give

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Speaker 1: them any more food without damning his family to starvation,

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Speaker 1: things turned violent. The group of men attacked the Oatman's

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Speaker 1: They killed both Royce and Marianne and four of the children.

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Speaker 1: Olive fainted and when she regained consciousness, she heard her

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Speaker 1: mother groaning and tried to go to help her, but

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Speaker 1: she was held back by their attackers. She and her sister, Marianne,

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Speaker 1: who were both was terrified, watched while the men looted

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Speaker 1: the wagon and the bodies. One of the other children,

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Speaker 1: Lorenzo Oatman, was fifteen at the time, and he had

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Speaker 1: been clubbed and left for dead, and in fact he

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Speaker 1: had been tossed over this kind of raveneage. But he

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Speaker 1: did eventually regain consciousness sometime after the event had happened,

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Speaker 1: and when he did, he quickly realized that most of

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Speaker 1: his family had been murdered, but his sister's Olive and

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Speaker 1: Maryanne were simply gone. Lorenzo tried to make his way

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Speaker 1: back to the wagon train that the family had originally

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Speaker 1: split off from. They were at Maricopa Wells, Arizona, which

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Speaker 1: was a little less than fifty miles or eighty kilometers away.

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Speaker 1: This was a really long and slow journey, and he

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Speaker 1: was extremely injured. Fortunately, he was found by two men

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Speaker 1: from a nearby village who recognized him and got him

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Speaker 1: to America a Wells. Lorenzo received treatment for his wounds

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Speaker 1: there before going back to bury his family. And in

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Speaker 1: sort of a cruel twist to this story, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the whole thing is extremely cruel, but Royce Oatman had

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Speaker 1: actually sent word ahead to fort Yuma that the family

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Speaker 1: supplies were running low, that he had seven children with him,

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Speaker 1: and that they really needed assistance. And an entomologist that

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Speaker 1: they had met on the road named John Lacante had

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Speaker 1: been carrying that request to fort Yuma, and on his

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Speaker 1: way there, he and his guide encountered a band of

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Speaker 1: Native Americans on the trail uh and that group stole

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Speaker 1: the horses that Lacante and his guide had been riding,

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Speaker 1: And so those two men decided that they were going

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Speaker 1: to continue towards fort Yuma on foot, but they also

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Speaker 1: knew that they may not get that note delivered in

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Speaker 1: a particularly timely manner since they no longer had horses,

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Speaker 1: and so Lacante had actually posted a warning card on

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Speaker 1: the tree for the Oatman's that there were hostile Native

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Speaker 1: Americans in the area. We don't know if Royce ever

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Speaker 1: saw that warning or not. Uh there has been some

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Speaker 1: speculation that the same men that stole Lacante and his

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Speaker 1: guide's horses were part of this party that eventually attacked

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Speaker 1: the Oatman's. Meanwhile, the two surviving Oatmen girls were basically

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Speaker 1: starting a new life as captives of the people who

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Speaker 1: had left them orphaned. Olive was fourteen at the time

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Speaker 1: and Marianne was seven. After the attack, the two girls

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Speaker 1: were forced to walk barefoot for four days over approximately

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Speaker 1: sixty miles or kilometers worth of terrain. Olive would later

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Speaker 1: tell people that their captors had been apaches, but that

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Speaker 1: has largely been dismissed. The more likely group to have

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Speaker 1: captured these girls and attacked the family would have been Yavapaie.

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Speaker 1: They had a village much closer to the side of

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Speaker 1: the attack. It just made more logical sense, and it's

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Speaker 1: highly likely that they were Tolka Paias, which is a

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Speaker 1: specific small branch of the Yavapaie. They kind of identified

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Speaker 1: by geographic location, so we don't think it was Apache's. Initially,

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Speaker 1: Olive was afraid that her kidnappers are going to burn

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Speaker 1: them alive. She also feared that as they arch, they

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Speaker 1: would try to leave Maryanne behind because she was struggling

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Speaker 1: to keep up. Maryanne, who was suffering from shock, was

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Speaker 1: beaten when she refused to go any further because she

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Speaker 1: was basically exhausted. However, the two girls were both kept alive,

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Speaker 1: and while the Yavapie had dabbled in ceremonial cannibalism on occasion,

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Speaker 1: that was apparently a fairly rare occurrence, and that is

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Speaker 1: not the fate of the Oatman girls. For a year,

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Speaker 1: these two girls were basically kept as slaves. They were

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Speaker 1: doing the bidding of the Yavapaie women and children. Before

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Speaker 1: we get to the next event, which really shifts the

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Speaker 1: fortune of the Oatman sisters, let's pause for a word

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Speaker 1: from some sponsors. So back to the story of Olive

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Speaker 1: and Maryanne. In the fall of eighteen fifty one, So

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Speaker 1: at this point. The girls were with the Yavapaie for

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Speaker 1: a number of months. Uh the Yavapaie and the Mojabbs

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Speaker 1: engaged in a trading summit of sorts. This was an

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Speaker 1: annual event that they did every year, and it was

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Speaker 1: during this trading ritual that the Mojave tribe first offered

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Speaker 1: to trade for these two white girls. And initially the

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Speaker 1: Yavapie refused, and these girls remained with their captors through

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Speaker 1: that winter. But in the spring, the Mojave chief sent

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Speaker 1: his daughter and five men to once again try to

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Speaker 1: make a deal for the girls. After a lot of debate,

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Speaker 1: the Yavapai took the deal, although the Mojave were really

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Speaker 1: insistent that they were acting out of kindness and concern

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Speaker 1: for these white children. The java Pie, though, told Olive

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Speaker 1: that they were going to be sold or killed, so

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Speaker 1: as she and Marianne were traded to their new owners,

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Speaker 1: they were completely uncertain of whether their situation was improving

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Speaker 1: or getting worse. In the end, the Mojave paid two horses,

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Speaker 1: three blankets, and an assortment of vegetables and beads for

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Speaker 1: the two captives, and initially the Mohave might have seemed

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Speaker 1: just as cruel as the Yavapaie had been uh. This

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Speaker 1: is a tribe that normally traveled very quickly, and as

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Speaker 1: had been the case with their kidnapper, the girls struggled

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Speaker 1: to keep pace as they traveled. However, unlike the Yavapaie,

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Speaker 1: the Mojave saw that these girls were struggling and they

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Speaker 1: made adjustments to try to accommodate the situation. So they

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Speaker 1: actually made the girls some foot coverings, kind of ad

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Speaker 1: hoc foot coverings, out of some animal skins that they had,

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Speaker 1: and they decided that they were going to shorten the

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Speaker 1: distance that they traveled each day, like they would just

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Speaker 1: let the journey take longer, so that these girls could

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Speaker 1: actually make the journey and not be you know, potentially

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Speaker 1: physically harmed by the grueling schedule they were trying to keep.

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Speaker 1: It ended up taking eleven days of travel for this

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Speaker 1: party to reach the Mojave Valley. While they were with

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Speaker 1: the Mohave, the Oatman girls were treated as tribe members

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Speaker 1: rather than as slave. They were fed, and they were

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Speaker 1: cared for, neither of which had seemed routine during their

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Speaker 1: time with the Yavapaie. It seems like they were adopted

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Speaker 1: by a leader and his wife. And that this family

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Speaker 1: is probably also who are who arranged for the two

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Speaker 1: of them to be traded for the tribe that had

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Speaker 1: kept them as slaves. They wound up being raised as

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Speaker 1: part of the family, and during this time, the girls

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Speaker 1: were tattooed, and this is often what you see all

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Speaker 1: of Oatman kind of referred to as the woman who

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Speaker 1: lived with Native Americans and returned with this tattoo on

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Speaker 1: her face. So this was a pattern of lines and

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Speaker 1: triangles on their chins, and it was blue. And while

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Speaker 1: these were pretty common markings in the Mohave culture and

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Speaker 1: they served as symbolic sort of passports into the land

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Speaker 1: of the dead, it was really quite a spiritual marking.

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Speaker 1: All of would later tell people that this inking marked

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Speaker 1: them as slaves, and we'll get to why that may

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Speaker 1: have played out later, But regardless of how all of

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Speaker 1: would have eventually painted it, and even taking into account

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Speaker 1: that this is likely something that the Mojave did believing

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Speaker 1: it was going to benefit the girls, this marking did

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Speaker 1: change them permanently in a way that was going to

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Speaker 1: forever set them apart if they were ever to return

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Speaker 1: to the life they had once known. So it was

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Speaker 1: one of those things that really kind of became a

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Speaker 1: significant demarcation of like you can never go back from this.

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Speaker 1: There's still a lot of uncertainty about how indoctrinated Olive

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Speaker 1: would have become into the tribe's customs, especially as it

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Speaker 1: related to sexual practices. So the Mojave are said to

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Speaker 1: have been very sexually pretty liberal, especially compared to the

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Speaker 1: upbringing that Olive had had. It was common for them

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Speaker 1: to encourage young people to be sexually active, but there

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Speaker 1: they also had a fear of having sexual activities with

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Speaker 1: other races. So Olive categorically denied any sexual activity during

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Speaker 1: her time with the Mojave, but the debate among historians

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Speaker 1: really continues. Uh, Polly and I were talking before we

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Speaker 1: started about how a lot of the biographies of Olive

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Speaker 1: opmen Um from earlier in the past are really highly sensationalized.

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Speaker 1: So I have a feeling that that plays a part

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Speaker 1: in all of that as well. It does. And what's

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Speaker 1: actually interest sting in this particular instance and on this

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Speaker 1: particular issue, is that there are believers and detractors in

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Speaker 1: terms of like whether or not she was ever uh

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Speaker 1: married or sexually active within the tribe on both sides,

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Speaker 1: both on the sensationalist angle and the more kind of

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Speaker 1: um measured and historically researched angle, because there are some

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Speaker 1: experts in this tribal culture that say, look, the odds

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Speaker 1: of her getting marked that way and not having been

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Speaker 1: part of the tribe's full culture are pretty low. But

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Speaker 1: then there are others who point out, no, they had

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Speaker 1: this fear of sexual intermingling with other races. And then,

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Speaker 1: of course on the sensational side, it was very exciting

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Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, think about the horrible things

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Speaker 1: that these girls might have had to endure, and some

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Speaker 1: of that may have been sexual in nature. And so

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Speaker 1: it's an interesting area where there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: voices and a lot of dissenting opinions, but they come

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Speaker 1: from all different directions. Uh. You may have noticed that

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Speaker 1: at this point we're talking about Alis specifically, and that

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Speaker 1: is because Marianne actually died while they were living with

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Speaker 1: the tribe. This happened when she was around the age

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Speaker 1: of twelve. Uh. This was not something that happened to

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Speaker 1: her because she was a captive, though she suffered the

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Speaker 1: same fate as many of the other members of the

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Speaker 1: Majave when a drought in eighteen fifty five caused a

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Speaker 1: severe food shortage and it starved many of them to death.

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Speaker 1: So this was a time when the American West was

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Speaker 1: still being colonized and as contact with Native American people's

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Speaker 1: was becoming more common. The presence of a white woman

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Speaker 1: already living with a Native tribe didn't go unnoticed. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, people who were new to the

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Speaker 1: area tended to just disbelieve this information when it was

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Speaker 1: circulated as rumor rather than its fact. Yeah, and there's

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Speaker 1: actually an interesting instant incident that happened in eighteen fifty four.

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Speaker 1: So at that point, the Whipple Expedition, which was a

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Speaker 1: wagon train of soldiers, servants, herders, and scientist us that

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Speaker 1: were assembled to survey a route for a transcontinental railroad,

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Speaker 1: actually came in contact with the Mohave and they traded

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Speaker 1: with Olive's tribe for a week. And the presence of

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Speaker 1: Olive and her sister, because she would have still been

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Speaker 1: alive at this time at the Native American settlement, would

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Speaker 1: have been obvious, and this maybe where many of the

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Speaker 1: stories that spread about white women living there began. But

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Speaker 1: it seems that Olive didn't really make an effort to

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Speaker 1: approach or reach out to any of the members of

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Speaker 1: the Whipple survey. She would later tell people that the

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Speaker 1: Mojave always told her that she was free to leave,

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Speaker 1: but that she never knew which way to go from

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Speaker 1: the settlement, so she stayed. This seems like an opportunity

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Speaker 1: for an avenue back to a white settlement, but she

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Speaker 1: didn't really seem to ever explore it. Yeah, there's even

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Speaker 1: some debate over whether she may have hidden from the

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Speaker 1: men of the Whipple expedition um so that that remains

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Speaker 1: sort of an odd question mark. But eventually, once the

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Speaker 1: confirmation of this unusual situation and of a white woman

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Speaker 1: living with this tribe was the real deal was actually happening,

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Speaker 1: there was action taken and a message was eventually sent

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Speaker 1: after a lot of political maneuvering to the Mojave village

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Speaker 1: asking for Olive's release and uh. This started a very

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Speaker 1: long series of negotiations. At one point the chief told

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Speaker 1: the negotiators, I would like to raise this girl. We

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Speaker 1: traveled far to buy her. We like her, and we

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Speaker 1: want to make friends through her. When those who come

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Speaker 1: by us know how we treat her, they will treat

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Speaker 1: us well too. If the officers want to see her.

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Speaker 1: They had better come here and talk with me. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he really wanted he he felt earnestly that if he

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Speaker 1: talked to the people in charge they would understand Um

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Speaker 1: and more conversations and negotiations continued, because this was sort

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Speaker 1: of a big deal. At this point, a ransom was offered,

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Speaker 1: and that ransom, we should point out, was not asked

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Speaker 1: for by the Majave Uh. It was simply offered by

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Speaker 1: these negotiators that were trying to get Alive back uh.

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Speaker 1: And Olive was actually present for some of these talks

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Speaker 1: about her future, though it doesn't seem like she had

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Speaker 1: a lot of input. Eventually she was released for a

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Speaker 1: negotiated ransom of two horses, blankets, and beads, so very

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Speaker 1: similar to the deal that the Yavapae had made with

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Speaker 1: the Mohave for Olive and Marianne. And then Olive was

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Speaker 1: taken to fort Yuma. When Olah was turned over to

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Speaker 1: the U. S Army, she wept, but these were not

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Speaker 1: tears of joy. She grieved the loss of her Mojave family.

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Speaker 1: She tried to bury herself in a sand bank by

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Speaker 1: the Colorado River, although there's some debate about exactly why

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Speaker 1: she did this. Some accounts say that she was trying

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Speaker 1: to hide her toplessness, and others claimed that it was

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Speaker 1: driven by being reluctant to return to a world of

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Speaker 1: white culture and a in a white town. But before

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Speaker 1: we get to olive life after her time with the Mohave,

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Speaker 1: first purchase. Olives reintroduction to white society was as you

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Speaker 1: would probably imagine, a little bit jarring. First, as we

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Speaker 1: kind of hinted at a little while ago, her clothing

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Speaker 1: was inappropriate. It left her upper tor so completely uncovered,

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Speaker 1: so she had to be changed into proper clothing, which

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Speaker 1: is something she had not worn for at this point years. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She also needed to be bathed, and one of the

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Speaker 1: sort of big transition things is that her hair at

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Speaker 1: this point had been darkened with mesquite from its normal

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Speaker 1: light brown shade to a deep black, so she kind

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Speaker 1: of was like literally watching off her majave culture at

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Speaker 1: this point. Uh. Second, Yuma at this time is often

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Speaker 1: characterized as a sort of hell on earth. It was hot,

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Speaker 1: which was part of it, but it was always hot. However,

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Speaker 1: that particular year in there were some extremely violent dust storms,

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Speaker 1: and they also had a really serious bug problem at

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Speaker 1: the time, and just the conditions there at fort Yuma

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00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:17,600
Speaker 1: were not fabulous. People cheered for her when she arrived,

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00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:21,639
Speaker 1: but she didn't really understand why. She gave a formal

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Speaker 1: interview with an officer during which she recounted all that

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Speaker 1: she had been through to the best of her recollection.

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Speaker 1: Some of her answers were incorrect, and some of the

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Speaker 1: timelines were a little off, which is not really surprising. UH.

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Speaker 1: And when she spoke of the Mojave she said, they

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Speaker 1: saved my life. Yeah. This initial UH interview that she

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Speaker 1: did is often kind of brought up as as evidence

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Speaker 1: against UH many of the later writings about her that, No,

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Speaker 1: this doesn't really line up with the first things that

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Speaker 1: she told white people when she started talking to them

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Speaker 1: about what she had been through. UH. This is also

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00:19:58,920 --> 00:20:01,200
Speaker 1: was during that interview that the time that she learned

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Speaker 1: that her brother had actually survived the attack by the

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Speaker 1: Heiler River, so very quickly she and Lorenzo were reunited.

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Speaker 1: He had actually been searching for her. In the years

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Speaker 1: since their separation. He had been looking for his two

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00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:16,119
Speaker 1: sisters pretty continuously, and he even went on scouting trips

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Speaker 1: of his own. He petitioned authorities to take a more

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Speaker 1: active role in searching for answers about just what had

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Speaker 1: happened to his missing sisters. She basically became famous overnight

368
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: newspapers Sucker story and really ran with it, and soon

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00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:32,960
Speaker 1: everybody knew some version of Olives story. Yeah, and there

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00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:35,399
Speaker 1: was actually a book that came out the year after

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00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 1: she Uh left the Majave in seven And this book

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Speaker 1: was titled Life among the Indians, and it was written

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Speaker 1: by Royal B. Stratton. He was a minister and he

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00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 1: certainly had an agenda in the writing of it. Uh.

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00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:52,760
Speaker 1: This book flew off the shelves, and on the plus side,

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00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:55,320
Speaker 1: it made enough money to put both Alive and Lorenzo

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00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:59,399
Speaker 1: through school at the University of the Pacific. The book

378
00:20:59,480 --> 00:21:02,800
Speaker 1: was a deep sensationalized and a lot of its content

379
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 1: appears to have been basically invented. It was not an

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00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:10,480
Speaker 1: accurate account of Olive's time living with Native Americans. Is

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00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:14,160
Speaker 1: actually probably was its appeal that reinforced a lot of

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00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 1: false beliefs and fears and prejudices that the white colonists

383
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 1: already had, and this book also launched all of his

384
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,640
Speaker 1: career as a public speaker, so in the years following,

385
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:28,320
Speaker 1: she would spend a lot of time touring the country

386
00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 1: and relaying her story, although it did seem at this

387
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:33,960
Speaker 1: point that the story that she was telling was the

388
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 1: one that people wanted to hear and that lined up

389
00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:39,120
Speaker 1: with Stratton's book, rather than the one that she actually

390
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:41,960
Speaker 1: lived and had initially described in her interview with the

391
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:46,280
Speaker 1: military officer when she first came back. There's also some

392
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:49,480
Speaker 1: speculation that one of the reasons that her story shifted

393
00:21:49,560 --> 00:21:52,359
Speaker 1: is that she experienced some degree of post traumatic stress

394
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:56,199
Speaker 1: disorder while trying to return to white society, and that

395
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:59,040
Speaker 1: to some degree, her memories and her impressions over time

396
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,800
Speaker 1: with them mojave but game kind of muddled with her

397
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 1: time with her original captors. And it's certainly not unusual

398
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:07,880
Speaker 1: for someone who's been through a trauma, and frankly someone

399
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: who hasn't been through a trauma to experience some degree

400
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:14,920
Speaker 1: of memory distortion. Uh. And she kind of talked about

401
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:18,360
Speaker 1: this in letters to family as she was settling back

402
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 1: into life among white colonists, where she would be like, oh,

403
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: I'm just from now realizing you know, what I've been

404
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: through and what what's going on. And so we don't

405
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: know how much of the reality shifted during this time

406
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,639
Speaker 1: in her mind, and we'll never know for certain whether

407
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:36,600
Speaker 1: her telling of this story as she did in these

408
00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 1: public lectures was colored by mental anguish or to some

409
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: degree a sense of theatrics. Remember this really was supporting

410
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:45,800
Speaker 1: her at this point, or if it was some mingling

411
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:48,680
Speaker 1: of the two. In eighteen sixty five, all Have got

412
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: married to a cattleman named John B. Fairchild. The two

413
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:54,800
Speaker 1: of them met after one of her lectures, and according

414
00:22:54,840 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: to some accounts, her new husband was really not interested

415
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: in Olive's past, to the point that he seemed to

416
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:03,000
Speaker 1: just want to erase it. He stopped her from going

417
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:05,959
Speaker 1: on lecture tours, he burned all of the copies of

418
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,399
Speaker 1: the Stratton account of her time as a captive that

419
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: he could get his hands on. We don't really know

420
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:12,879
Speaker 1: if he was trying to protect her or if he

421
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: found her past shameful. Yeah, he apparently really went to

422
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: some great effort to procure every possible copy. He could

423
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: have that book and have it destroyed. Uh. And what's

424
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,520
Speaker 1: interesting is that this marriage to Fairchild, and it seems

425
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: like they had really quite a good match. I want

426
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:33,120
Speaker 1: to be careful that we don't sort of just paint

427
00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: this as a man who was very controlling and wanted

428
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: to eliminate her history. But he we don't know what

429
00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: his his motivations were, but we do know that at

430
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:44,119
Speaker 1: this point she pretty much severed all ties with her

431
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:48,359
Speaker 1: biographer Stratton, and Stratton had also been the person responsible

432
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 1: for booking her lectures, and he is really said to

433
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: have strongly encouraged her distorted version of her story. He

434
00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: knew it was going to draw crownds and so he

435
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: was really pretty gung ho on this since they renal

436
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: version and he eventually went mad and ended up dying

437
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 1: in an asylum, but after her marriage to Fairchild, he

438
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:09,879
Speaker 1: was no longer part of all of his life. Seven

439
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,160
Speaker 1: years after their wedding, John and Olive moved to Charman, Texas,

440
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: and four years after that, in eighteen seventy six, they

441
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: adopted a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who they called Mamie. Yeah.

442
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: Her name, Mary Elizabeth was the combination of each of

443
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: their mother's names UH and as she aged, even though

444
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,439
Speaker 1: her life in many ways seemed to be kind of

445
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: settled and really pretty stable, Olive experienced a lot of

446
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: bouts of depression, which is probably not a big surprise

447
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: when you consider what she had endured at a very

448
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 1: early age. She was also frequently troubled with headaches. There

449
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: are rumors that she went into an asylum, although none

450
00:24:44,040 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 1: of that is substantiated, but we do know that in

451
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one she spent several months at a medical

452
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 1: spa in Canada, UH and that most of her time

453
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:56,800
Speaker 1: there was basically spent just on bed rest. In nineteen

454
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: o three, Olive Opmen Fairchild died of a heart attack

455
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,400
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty five. She's buried at West

456
00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:06,120
Speaker 1: Hill Cemetery in Sherman, Texas, and in nineteen sixty nine

457
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 1: a Texas Historical marker was added to the grave site.

458
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: The story of all of Oatman's life has so many

459
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: variations depending on the telling that there are always going

460
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 1: to be a lot of question marks involved in it,

461
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: and the sensational nature of it, even without the Stratton

462
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: biography and the kind of really amped up crazy stories

463
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 1: that he included, actually inspired other performers to adopt some

464
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: of all of story as their own. So there were

465
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 1: actually some circus ladies that would sometimes tell almost identical

466
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: tales of having been adopted by so called quote redskins

467
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: and tattooed to show that they belonged to a tribe.

468
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 1: And this, of course, you know, further diluted the truth

469
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: of all of original story in the public mind, and

470
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:52,080
Speaker 1: it led to some you know, sort of legend and

471
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: confusion and some of the more lurid accounts of her life.

472
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: There were even some claims that people made after the

473
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:03,479
Speaker 1: fact that they had rescued Olive from her captors, but

474
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,640
Speaker 1: we're basically really easy to expose as false because they

475
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 1: had a number of inaccuracies. Yeah, there was one guy

476
00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: that claimed that he had walked into the t P

477
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: where these people were keeping her and he had carried

478
00:26:16,520 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: her out, and uh, there were some other elements to it,

479
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: and and someone very quickly was like, hey, those Native

480
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 1: Americans don't use tps. So there were things like that

481
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 1: that just kept coming up that that pretty quickly made

482
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:35,000
Speaker 1: those crazy accounts obviously falsified. But another part of the

483
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 1: mystique of Olive story comes from the vast contrast that

484
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,880
Speaker 1: would have existed at the time, of course, between her

485
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: very ly serious Mormon upbringing up to the time of

486
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: her kidnapping, and then her time in the Mojave culture,

487
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:51,800
Speaker 1: which was so very different in terms of values. Her

488
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 1: family had led a very serious life, whereas Oatman's adoptive

489
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: family would likely have been a much more lighthearted group. Uh.

490
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: It's that that the Mojave's really loved a good joke,

491
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: and that they were very comical, They loved laughter. They

492
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 1: would make some very very off color jokes. Uh. And

493
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: in fact, her nickname when she was with them is

494
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 1: a very dirty word. Basically, we're not sure exactly why

495
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: she got that nickname, but it did not seem to

496
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:22,679
Speaker 1: be in any way derisive. Uh. They also were in

497
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: at that point in a society where women would have

498
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: had a great deal more freedom and a higher social

499
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: standing than that they would have been in you know,

500
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 1: white culture and particularly in this era. Uh So, while

501
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:40,119
Speaker 1: there's always been speculation about this juxtaposition and what it

502
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,200
Speaker 1: meant in terms of olives demeanor, we really don't know though,

503
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: what level of autonomy she may have had in her

504
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: time with the Mojave versus you know what she had

505
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:52,440
Speaker 1: experienced prior or after that. But we do know that

506
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: after she returned to white culture she was consistently stoic

507
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: and serious. There's actually only one written account of her

508
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: ever laughing, and that was during that first interview that

509
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:08,120
Speaker 1: she gave after she had returned. So part of Olive's

510
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:13,040
Speaker 1: mystique undoubtedly also comes from the vast contrast that existed

511
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,159
Speaker 1: between her Mormon upbringing up to the time of her

512
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 1: kidnapping and her time with Native Americans and specifically the

513
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: Majave culture. Whereas her family had led a very serious life, uh,

514
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,159
Speaker 1: all of adoptive family with the Mojave would likely have

515
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: been much more comical and lighthearted. Uh. This is a

516
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:35,840
Speaker 1: culture that at the time certainly was all about jokes.

517
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: They really liked a good joke, including good dirty jokes.

518
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: Laughter was very important. Uh. And at this point women

519
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: in their society would have had a great deal more

520
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:47,400
Speaker 1: freedom and a higher social standing than would have been

521
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 1: the case with the white culture that Olive came from.

522
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: While there's always been speculation about this juxtaposition and what

523
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: it meant in terms of all ofs demeanor, we don't

524
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: truly know what level of autonomy she may have had

525
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: in her time uh with the Mahave, but as a

526
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,719
Speaker 1: woman returned to white culture, she was consistently very stoic

527
00:29:06,760 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: and serious. There's actually only one account on record of

528
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: her laughing, and it was actually during that first interview

529
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: that she did with the military, right after she came

530
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: back from living with the Mahave. As for the Mojave

531
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,240
Speaker 1: version of Olive's time with them, we don't really have

532
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: a lot of documentation because they had no written language.

533
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: The only first person account we have of the Oatman

534
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: children during this time is from an interview that was

535
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,720
Speaker 1: conducted in nineteen o three. Anthropologist A. L. Crowber spoke

536
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 1: with a member of the tribe who knew Olive, and

537
00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: that man's account was really vastly different from the story

538
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: that was put forth in Stratton's book. Yeah, it's um.

539
00:29:44,400 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: It's definitely much more in line with the initial account

540
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: that Olive gave Uh. It's certainly characterizes her relationship with

541
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: the tribe as much more of a family situation, in

542
00:29:56,800 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 1: one where she seemed pretty settled, respected and fairly happy,

543
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: So very different from Stratton's book and alive legacy lives on.

544
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: Actually in a number of ways. There's an area near

545
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: where the Oatman family camped right by the Heila River,

546
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: which is called Oatman Flat. And there's actually a mining

547
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: town in western Arizona that was renamed Oatman in nine.

548
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: In two thousand, six hundred and fifty years to the

549
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: day after Olive left the Majave tribe, there was a

550
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 1: gathering in Yuma, Arizona, at the site of the Omen massacre.

551
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,200
Speaker 1: One of Olive's family descendants retold Olive's story to the crowd,

552
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: and uh, kind of to to summarize the nature of

553
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: this story in Margot Mifflin's book The Blue Tattoo, which

554
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: came out in and it's kind of the uh scholarly

555
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: biography done of her that really researched all of the

556
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: various accounts and tried to to sort out the sensational

557
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: from what was really going on. The author sums up

558
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 1: the mythology of all of Oatman kind of perfectly by

559
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: writing quote, in her day, Oatman was freakish enough to

560
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: invite speculation and guarded enough to ensure the speculation never ended. Yes,

561
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: so that is our alive Oatman episode. Like I said,

562
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to do this for a long time, and

563
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: I really could have made it go on for days

564
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: because there's so many details of her story in her time,

565
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: both uh as a in white culture and in Native

566
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: American culture that are so fascinating. Highly recommend that book.

567
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: By the way, do you have some listener mail to

568
00:31:35,440 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: cap this all off? This listener mail is from our listener,

569
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:42,640
Speaker 1: Jordan's and Uh. She sent us a lovely letter, and

570
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: first of all, I have to say, Jordan, your penmanship

571
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: is spectacular. I am not kidding, she says, Hey, Tracy

572
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: and Holly, I was just going to separately mail these

573
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: postcards to you. She included postcards with the letter, but

574
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: decided I did not have enough room to write anything

575
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: of importance, So this is my letter. I have been

576
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: a listener now for a few years, and I have

577
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,440
Speaker 1: recently hooked my mom, dad, and sister on your podcast.

578
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: We spend family trips engrossed in multiple episodes at a time.

579
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: Family discussions have never been so rich and educational. This

580
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: past weekend, my family and I made a trip to

581
00:32:12,800 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: Kansas City, Missouri. The first things we planned were visits

582
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: to two local museums. First was the Negro League's Baseball Museum,

583
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: as I am a huge fan of baseball and the

584
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: history of it has tied to our nation's history. Uh.

585
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 1: The second museum we trecked our way to was the

586
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 1: National World War One Museum at Liberty Memorial. Both were

587
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 1: full of facts I have never heard until now. The

588
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: whole time I was at these museums, I thought of YouTube.

589
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: Hopefully you find some sort of joy and interest from

590
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: these postcards and they spark a desire for future episodes

591
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,959
Speaker 1: p s. I would also like to thank you for

592
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: all of the wonderful episodes on History's Finest Women. I

593
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: have been finding the most joy in these episodes, especially

594
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: Alice Roosevelt. I've been writing the names of these inspiring

595
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: women down in a notebook with a short summary of

596
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: the amazing things they did. I looked at this list

597
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: in times when I'm meeting a little extra motivation or sass.

598
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: Thank you again, sincerely, Jordan Jordan, this is a great letter.

599
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us,

600
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: and your postcards are awesome. I love them. Uh. You know,

601
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: I like knowing that she's sharing her love of history

602
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: with her family and they're getting some good talks out

603
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. It's a good thing. If you

604
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:19,400
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, you can do so.

605
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: Our email is history podcast at how stuff works dot com.

606
00:33:23,320 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 1: You can connect with this at Facebook dot com, slash

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00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 1: missed in History on Twitter, at misst in history, at

608
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Speaker 1: misst in history dot tumbler dot com, at pendriest dot com,

609
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: slash missed in History, and at missed in History dot

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Speaker 1: spreadshirt dot com. If you would like to purchase any

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Speaker 1: missed in History goodies for yourself or your friends and family.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to uh visit our parents site,

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Speaker 1: you can do so. That it's how stuff works. You

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Speaker 1: can search for almost anything your mind can conjure and

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Speaker 1: you will find some very interesting articles, videos, and other

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Speaker 1: in history dot com where we have all of our

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Speaker 1: episodes they are available. We have show notes for any

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Speaker 1: of our episodes since tree See and I became part

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Speaker 1: of the podcast, and the occasional other goodies. So we

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