WEBVTT - Olive Oatman 0:00:01.080 --> 0:00:04.160 Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from hot 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:11.760 works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.560 Holly Froy. I don't like Tracy V. Wilson, and today's 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.560 topic is one that I have kind of been dancing 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:22.520 around for a while. Uh. She was a media sensation 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.400 long before the concept of reality TV came around, and 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:30.320 long before TV. Even her story sounds adventurous and incredible 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.400 because it was she was a frontier girl when in 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.400 eighteen fifty one she was captured by Native Americans who 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.400 attacked her family's wagon. And her story is full of 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:41.680 twists and turns. So I'm not going to do the 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.159 usual um. You know, usually we do a little bit 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:45.839 more intro, but I don't want to in this one 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:48.360 because I want to just let it unfold because it 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:50.760 really is quite an amazing story. We were talking today 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.320 about Olive Oatman, so I love was the daughter of 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.279 Royce and Mary Anne Sperry Oatman, and she was one 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.560 of seven kids. She was born in Eleanor in eighteen 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.400 thirty seven, although there are some records that indicate that 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.840 it might have actually been eighteen thirty nine. Yeah, it 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:08.880 makes me wonder if that wasn't one of those cases 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.119 of poor penmanship where a nine and a seven looked 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.119 kind of similar, because you'll see it written both ways. 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.360 And in May of eighteen fifty, uh, the Oatman family 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.880 joined a wagon train with several other members from their 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.319 Mormon church to strike out for the West. And the 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.160 Oatman's first traveled from Illinois and then they met up 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.720 with the larger group in Independence, Missouri, and that's where 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.720 they all set out with nine wagons in a plan 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:37.120 to travel to California. But not long after the journey began, 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.320 the Oatman's, along with a couple of other wagons, separated 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.960 from that group, and by the time they and the 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:48.360 remaining families got to Arizona, a famine there made the 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:53.360 prospect of staying kind of a daunting idea. Yeah, they 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.200 had always intended to keep going west, but you know, 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.040 they weren't sure where they were going to stay at 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:02.240 various points. Um. But they really did not want to 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:06.480 linger in Arizona. Uh. But there was also this fear 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.160 that if they continued west that they were going to 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.320 be attacked on the road by native tribes. This was 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.919 apparently the problem that was going on. It was pretty 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.040 common with settlers. Uh And after they had had a 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.440 little bit of a reassurance from a fellow traveler that 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:21.960 he had not seen any immediate threats on the road, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.240 the Oatman's decided that they were going to take sort 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.200 of the more daring path, and they left behind those 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:33.200 remaining traveling companions to continue towards California. And during this 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:35.720 they followed the Heila River, which at the time was 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:38.120 the border between the US and Mexico, and they were 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:42.040 traveling along what's called Cook's Wagon Road. So they had 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:44.240 really hoped that this path was going to be clear 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.560 of any attacks. But on February eighteen fifty one, the 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:50.520 Oapmans were met on the road by a group of 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.680 nineteen Native Americans, and this was near HeLa Bend, Arizona. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.680 According to an account that was written later based on 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.000 olives recollection, the last thing Roy said to his family 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:05.480 was do not be alarmed. The Indians won't harm you. Yeah. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:10.200 He's generally characterized as a man who actually believed that 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.960 most Native American violence was born of poor treatment from 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.440 white settlers, and that if you treated people kindly, they 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.520 would treat you kindly in return. But unfortunately this did 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:25.400 not play out in this particular interaction. After that, the 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.520 natives that they had come in contact with first asked 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.560 for tobacco and other supplies, which the Oatman's handed over. 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:35.200 The interloper started rummaging through the Oatman's wagon, and when 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.720 Royce Oatman finally told them he just could not give 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:41.040 them any more food without damning his family to starvation, 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.120 things turned violent. The group of men attacked the Oatman's 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.200 They killed both Royce and Marianne and four of the children. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.160 Olive fainted and when she regained consciousness, she heard her 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:55.880 mother groaning and tried to go to help her, but 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.520 she was held back by their attackers. She and her sister, Marianne, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.720 who were both was terrified, watched while the men looted 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:06.760 the wagon and the bodies. One of the other children, 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:10.800 Lorenzo Oatman, was fifteen at the time, and he had 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.040 been clubbed and left for dead, and in fact he 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.599 had been tossed over this kind of raveneage. But he 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.320 did eventually regain consciousness sometime after the event had happened, 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.080 and when he did, he quickly realized that most of 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.359 his family had been murdered, but his sister's Olive and 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.520 Maryanne were simply gone. Lorenzo tried to make his way 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:33.960 back to the wagon train that the family had originally 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:38.240 split off from. They were at Maricopa Wells, Arizona, which 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.719 was a little less than fifty miles or eighty kilometers away. 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:44.840 This was a really long and slow journey, and he 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:49.360 was extremely injured. Fortunately, he was found by two men 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.520 from a nearby village who recognized him and got him 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.520 to America a Wells. Lorenzo received treatment for his wounds 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:02.080 there before going back to bury his family. And in 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.320 sort of a cruel twist to this story, I mean, 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:08.000 the whole thing is extremely cruel, but Royce Oatman had 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.520 actually sent word ahead to fort Yuma that the family 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.560 supplies were running low, that he had seven children with him, 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.440 and that they really needed assistance. And an entomologist that 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.320 they had met on the road named John Lacante had 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.479 been carrying that request to fort Yuma, and on his 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.480 way there, he and his guide encountered a band of 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.720 Native Americans on the trail uh and that group stole 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.159 the horses that Lacante and his guide had been riding, 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:35.880 And so those two men decided that they were going 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.960 to continue towards fort Yuma on foot, but they also 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.479 knew that they may not get that note delivered in 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.920 a particularly timely manner since they no longer had horses, 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.479 and so Lacante had actually posted a warning card on 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.840 the tree for the Oatman's that there were hostile Native 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.760 Americans in the area. We don't know if Royce ever 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:56.600 saw that warning or not. Uh there has been some 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.080 speculation that the same men that stole Lacante and his 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.359 guide's horses were part of this party that eventually attacked 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:07.920 the Oatman's. Meanwhile, the two surviving Oatmen girls were basically 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.599 starting a new life as captives of the people who 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:14.039 had left them orphaned. Olive was fourteen at the time 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:17.400 and Marianne was seven. After the attack, the two girls 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.040 were forced to walk barefoot for four days over approximately 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:27.080 sixty miles or kilometers worth of terrain. Olive would later 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.000 tell people that their captors had been apaches, but that 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.240 has largely been dismissed. The more likely group to have 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.480 captured these girls and attacked the family would have been Yavapaie. 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:39.800 They had a village much closer to the side of 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.440 the attack. It just made more logical sense, and it's 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.400 highly likely that they were Tolka Paias, which is a 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.680 specific small branch of the Yavapaie. They kind of identified 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:54.240 by geographic location, so we don't think it was Apache's. Initially, 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.680 Olive was afraid that her kidnappers are going to burn 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.400 them alive. She also feared that as they arch, they 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.240 would try to leave Maryanne behind because she was struggling 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:06.520 to keep up. Maryanne, who was suffering from shock, was 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:09.479 beaten when she refused to go any further because she 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.560 was basically exhausted. However, the two girls were both kept alive, 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.400 and while the Yavapie had dabbled in ceremonial cannibalism on occasion, 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:22.880 that was apparently a fairly rare occurrence, and that is 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.200 not the fate of the Oatman girls. For a year, 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.320 these two girls were basically kept as slaves. They were 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.840 doing the bidding of the Yavapaie women and children. Before 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.520 we get to the next event, which really shifts the 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.640 fortune of the Oatman sisters, let's pause for a word 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.960 from some sponsors. So back to the story of Olive 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.280 and Maryanne. In the fall of eighteen fifty one, So 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:52.640 at this point. The girls were with the Yavapaie for 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.560 a number of months. Uh the Yavapaie and the Mojabbs 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.560 engaged in a trading summit of sorts. This was an 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:01.800 annual event that they did every year, and it was 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.520 during this trading ritual that the Mojave tribe first offered 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.640 to trade for these two white girls. And initially the 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.320 Yavapie refused, and these girls remained with their captors through 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.040 that winter. But in the spring, the Mojave chief sent 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:18.680 his daughter and five men to once again try to 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.559 make a deal for the girls. After a lot of debate, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.600 the Yavapai took the deal, although the Mojave were really 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.840 insistent that they were acting out of kindness and concern 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.080 for these white children. The java Pie, though, told Olive 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.360 that they were going to be sold or killed, so 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.040 as she and Marianne were traded to their new owners, 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:41.640 they were completely uncertain of whether their situation was improving 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:45.320 or getting worse. In the end, the Mojave paid two horses, 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.000 three blankets, and an assortment of vegetables and beads for 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.160 the two captives, and initially the Mohave might have seemed 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.439 just as cruel as the Yavapaie had been uh. This 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.319 is a tribe that normally traveled very quickly, and as 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.320 had been the case with their kidnapper, the girls struggled 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.640 to keep pace as they traveled. However, unlike the Yavapaie, 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.840 the Mojave saw that these girls were struggling and they 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.839 made adjustments to try to accommodate the situation. So they 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.520 actually made the girls some foot coverings, kind of ad 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.520 hoc foot coverings, out of some animal skins that they had, 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:21.920 and they decided that they were going to shorten the 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:24.120 distance that they traveled each day, like they would just 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:26.880 let the journey take longer, so that these girls could 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.679 actually make the journey and not be you know, potentially 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.880 physically harmed by the grueling schedule they were trying to keep. 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.920 It ended up taking eleven days of travel for this 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.000 party to reach the Mojave Valley. While they were with 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:44.120 the Mohave, the Oatman girls were treated as tribe members 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:46.679 rather than as slave. They were fed, and they were 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.920 cared for, neither of which had seemed routine during their 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.040 time with the Yavapaie. It seems like they were adopted 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.520 by a leader and his wife. And that this family 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.559 is probably also who are who arranged for the two 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.960 of them to be traded for the tribe that had 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.880 kept them as slaves. They wound up being raised as 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.280 part of the family, and during this time, the girls 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.000 were tattooed, and this is often what you see all 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.200 of Oatman kind of referred to as the woman who 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.040 lived with Native Americans and returned with this tattoo on 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.200 her face. So this was a pattern of lines and 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.400 triangles on their chins, and it was blue. And while 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.160 these were pretty common markings in the Mohave culture and 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.160 they served as symbolic sort of passports into the land 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.360 of the dead, it was really quite a spiritual marking. 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:37.440 All of would later tell people that this inking marked 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:40.720 them as slaves, and we'll get to why that may 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.800 have played out later, But regardless of how all of 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.720 would have eventually painted it, and even taking into account 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.280 that this is likely something that the Mojave did believing 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.400 it was going to benefit the girls, this marking did 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.480 change them permanently in a way that was going to 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.960 forever set them apart if they were ever to return 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.160 to the life they had once known. So it was 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:04.480 one of those things that really kind of became a 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.520 significant demarcation of like you can never go back from this. 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.120 There's still a lot of uncertainty about how indoctrinated Olive 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.160 would have become into the tribe's customs, especially as it 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:20.440 related to sexual practices. So the Mojave are said to 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.920 have been very sexually pretty liberal, especially compared to the 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.000 upbringing that Olive had had. It was common for them 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.120 to encourage young people to be sexually active, but there 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.840 they also had a fear of having sexual activities with 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:40.079 other races. So Olive categorically denied any sexual activity during 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.720 her time with the Mojave, but the debate among historians 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.920 really continues. Uh, Polly and I were talking before we 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.400 started about how a lot of the biographies of Olive 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.479 opmen Um from earlier in the past are really highly sensationalized. 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.840 So I have a feeling that that plays a part 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.400 in all of that as well. It does. And what's 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.520 actually interest sting in this particular instance and on this 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:10.000 particular issue, is that there are believers and detractors in 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.560 terms of like whether or not she was ever uh 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.840 married or sexually active within the tribe on both sides, 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:20.240 both on the sensationalist angle and the more kind of 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:25.400 um measured and historically researched angle, because there are some 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.720 experts in this tribal culture that say, look, the odds 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.920 of her getting marked that way and not having been 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.120 part of the tribe's full culture are pretty low. But 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.040 then there are others who point out, no, they had 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:41.080 this fear of sexual intermingling with other races. And then, 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.400 of course on the sensational side, it was very exciting 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.400 to kind of, you know, think about the horrible things 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:49.160 that these girls might have had to endure, and some 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.040 of that may have been sexual in nature. And so 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.240 it's an interesting area where there are a lot of 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.760 voices and a lot of dissenting opinions, but they come 0:12:56.800 --> 0:13:00.400 from all different directions. Uh. You may have noticed that 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.320 at this point we're talking about Alis specifically, and that 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.000 is because Marianne actually died while they were living with 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.160 the tribe. This happened when she was around the age 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:10.920 of twelve. Uh. This was not something that happened to 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.760 her because she was a captive, though she suffered the 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:15.720 same fate as many of the other members of the 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.000 Majave when a drought in eighteen fifty five caused a 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.079 severe food shortage and it starved many of them to death. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.640 So this was a time when the American West was 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.959 still being colonized and as contact with Native American people's 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.439 was becoming more common. The presence of a white woman 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:37.320 already living with a Native tribe didn't go unnoticed. But 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.200 at the same time, people who were new to the 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:43.720 area tended to just disbelieve this information when it was 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:49.240 circulated as rumor rather than its fact. Yeah, and there's 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:54.160 actually an interesting instant incident that happened in eighteen fifty four. 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.000 So at that point, the Whipple Expedition, which was a 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.280 wagon train of soldiers, servants, herders, and scientist us that 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.880 were assembled to survey a route for a transcontinental railroad, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.880 actually came in contact with the Mohave and they traded 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:11.680 with Olive's tribe for a week. And the presence of 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.640 Olive and her sister, because she would have still been 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.520 alive at this time at the Native American settlement, would 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.760 have been obvious, and this maybe where many of the 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:23.520 stories that spread about white women living there began. But 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.800 it seems that Olive didn't really make an effort to 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.080 approach or reach out to any of the members of 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.800 the Whipple survey. She would later tell people that the 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:33.280 Mojave always told her that she was free to leave, 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:35.560 but that she never knew which way to go from 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.320 the settlement, so she stayed. This seems like an opportunity 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:41.960 for an avenue back to a white settlement, but she 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.360 didn't really seem to ever explore it. Yeah, there's even 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.920 some debate over whether she may have hidden from the 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:54.560 men of the Whipple expedition um so that that remains 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.760 sort of an odd question mark. But eventually, once the 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.400 confirmation of this unusual situation and of a white woman 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.720 living with this tribe was the real deal was actually happening, 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:08.920 there was action taken and a message was eventually sent 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.440 after a lot of political maneuvering to the Mojave village 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.560 asking for Olive's release and uh. This started a very 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.880 long series of negotiations. At one point the chief told 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.960 the negotiators, I would like to raise this girl. We 0:15:25.080 --> 0:15:28.200 traveled far to buy her. We like her, and we 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.000 want to make friends through her. When those who come 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:33.240 by us know how we treat her, they will treat 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.200 us well too. If the officers want to see her. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:39.880 They had better come here and talk with me. Yeah, 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.640 he really wanted he he felt earnestly that if he 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.800 talked to the people in charge they would understand Um 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.920 and more conversations and negotiations continued, because this was sort 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.920 of a big deal. At this point, a ransom was offered, 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.240 and that ransom, we should point out, was not asked 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.920 for by the Majave Uh. It was simply offered by 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.240 these negotiators that were trying to get Alive back uh. 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.160 And Olive was actually present for some of these talks 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:09.360 about her future, though it doesn't seem like she had 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.400 a lot of input. Eventually she was released for a 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.680 negotiated ransom of two horses, blankets, and beads, so very 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.400 similar to the deal that the Yavapae had made with 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.920 the Mohave for Olive and Marianne. And then Olive was 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:28.040 taken to fort Yuma. When Olah was turned over to 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.360 the U. S Army, she wept, but these were not 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:34.160 tears of joy. She grieved the loss of her Mojave family. 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.200 She tried to bury herself in a sand bank by 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.200 the Colorado River, although there's some debate about exactly why 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.920 she did this. Some accounts say that she was trying 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.240 to hide her toplessness, and others claimed that it was 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.920 driven by being reluctant to return to a world of 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.520 white culture and a in a white town. 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So if you fall in love with it, 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:03.800 and you probably will, it's going to be as low 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.720 as eight dollars a month to keep your website going, 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.800 and that includes a free domain name if you sign 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.240 up for a year. So remember, if you use the 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:14.119 offer code history, you're gonna get ten percent off your 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:19.399 first purchase. Olives reintroduction to white society was as you 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.919 would probably imagine, a little bit jarring. First, as we 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.879 kind of hinted at a little while ago, her clothing 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:28.960 was inappropriate. It left her upper tor so completely uncovered, 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.280 so she had to be changed into proper clothing, which 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.600 is something she had not worn for at this point years. Uh. 0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.320 She also needed to be bathed, and one of the 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.280 sort of big transition things is that her hair at 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.840 this point had been darkened with mesquite from its normal 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.840 light brown shade to a deep black, so she kind 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.479 of was like literally watching off her majave culture at 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.320 this point. Uh. Second, Yuma at this time is often 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.040 characterized as a sort of hell on earth. It was hot, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.359 which was part of it, but it was always hot. However, 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:06.760 that particular year in there were some extremely violent dust storms, 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.439 and they also had a really serious bug problem at 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:12.920 the time, and just the conditions there at fort Yuma 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.600 were not fabulous. People cheered for her when she arrived, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.639 but she didn't really understand why. She gave a formal 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.480 interview with an officer during which she recounted all that 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.000 she had been through to the best of her recollection. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:29.720 Some of her answers were incorrect, and some of the 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:34.480 timelines were a little off, which is not really surprising. UH. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:37.160 And when she spoke of the Mojave she said, they 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:41.320 saved my life. Yeah. This initial UH interview that she 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:46.240 did is often kind of brought up as as evidence 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.320 against UH many of the later writings about her that, No, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:52.560 this doesn't really line up with the first things that 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.800 she told white people when she started talking to them 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.720 about what she had been through. UH. This is also 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.200 was during that interview that the time that she learned 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.560 that her brother had actually survived the attack by the 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.359 Heiler River, so very quickly she and Lorenzo were reunited. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.240 He had actually been searching for her. In the years 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.240 since their separation. He had been looking for his two 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:16.119 sisters pretty continuously, and he even went on scouting trips 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.000 of his own. He petitioned authorities to take a more 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.639 active role in searching for answers about just what had 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.200 happened to his missing sisters. She basically became famous overnight 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.480 newspapers Sucker story and really ran with it, and soon 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:32.960 everybody knew some version of Olives story. Yeah, and there 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.399 was actually a book that came out the year after 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.800 she Uh left the Majave in seven And this book 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.240 was titled Life among the Indians, and it was written 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.480 by Royal B. Stratton. He was a minister and he 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.560 certainly had an agenda in the writing of it. Uh. 0:20:49.640 --> 0:20:52.760 This book flew off the shelves, and on the plus side, 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.320 it made enough money to put both Alive and Lorenzo 0:20:55.400 --> 0:20:59.399 through school at the University of the Pacific. The book 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.800 was a deep sensationalized and a lot of its content 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.600 appears to have been basically invented. It was not an 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.480 accurate account of Olive's time living with Native Americans. Is 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:14.160 actually probably was its appeal that reinforced a lot of 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:18.280 false beliefs and fears and prejudices that the white colonists 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.040 already had, and this book also launched all of his 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.640 career as a public speaker, so in the years following, 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.320 she would spend a lot of time touring the country 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.320 and relaying her story, although it did seem at this 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.960 point that the story that she was telling was the 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.159 one that people wanted to hear and that lined up 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.120 with Stratton's book, rather than the one that she actually 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.960 lived and had initially described in her interview with the 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:46.280 military officer when she first came back. There's also some 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.480 speculation that one of the reasons that her story shifted 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.359 is that she experienced some degree of post traumatic stress 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.199 disorder while trying to return to white society, and that 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.040 to some degree, her memories and her impressions over time 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.800 with them mojave but game kind of muddled with her 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:05.080 time with her original captors. And it's certainly not unusual 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:07.880 for someone who's been through a trauma, and frankly someone 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.040 who hasn't been through a trauma to experience some degree 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.920 of memory distortion. Uh. And she kind of talked about 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.360