Olive Oatman
A Gallery
Greetings! If you subscribe to this newsletter, you’re probably also a regular listener of The Wild West Extravaganza. That being the case, you likely already know that the most recent episode centered around a young lady named Olive Oatman.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, feel free to listen wherever you consume podcasts (Apple, Spotify, etc)!!!! It’ll be released on YouTube this evening at 6:45 PM Central.
As promised, I thought I’d share a few photos of Olive.
Here’s a very brief summary for those of you who haven’t yet listened to the episode:
Olive was abducted at the age of 14 by Native Americans.
Her parents, along with four of her six siblings, were slaughtered. Olive’s older brother Lorenzo was left for dead as she and her younger sister were taken captive.
Although Olive identified her abductors as Apaches, most historians nowadays think they were Yavapai. Regardless, the Yavapai would trade Olive and her sister to the Mohave about a year later.
As horrific as I’m sure this ordeal was for the Oatman girls, life became much easier with the Mohave. No longer were they forced into slave labor or subjected to regular beatings. The Mohave would even go so far as to adopt the girls and formally initiate them into the tribe, an initiation that included receiving tattoos.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at Olive and a few of the key players in her story!
She looks so young in the above photo. According to author Margot Mifflin's book The Blue Tattoo, this picture was likely taken in San Jose in 1858. If true, Olive was just 20 years old.
Below is a photo of her about a year prior, at age 19, shortly after her release.
Above is a photo of Olive taken when she was 42 years old. If you’ll notice, she’s wearing makeup to conceal her tattoos. Below is an image of her home in Sherman, Texas. Her adopted daughter would play in the yard.
Above, you’ll see a pair of Mohave women, both sporting facial tattoos similar to Olive’s. Although Olive would later claim that her tattoo meant she was a slave, we now know that is not the case. In all actuality, these markings were relegated to Mohave women so their loved ones could identify them in the afterlife. Rather than the mark of a slave, it was proof that Olive was fully integrated into the tribe.
This frightening-looking individual is Irataba, a Mohave chief. Years after Olive’s release, Irataba visited New York City. While there, Olive greeted him as a friend, and they had a long conversation in Mohave. Some think Olive was inquiring about her children whom she left behind. But did Olive really have Mohave children? Listen to the episode to find out!!!!
Below, you’ll see a traditional Mohave dwelling. Olive would have lived in something similar during her time with the tribe. Depending on the season, the Mojave lived in two different kinds of shelters. During the summer, the shelter was wallless and made of brush. The frames consisted of cottonwood poles, and the roof was covered with branches. The winter shelter was rectangular and had walls. They would dig rectangular pits and fit the cottonwood poles into the pits. The walls were made of branches tied to the frame and then were covered with grass, sand, and mud. I don't know about you, but I’ve slept in worse.
Unfortunately, I failed to locate any photos of Sarah Bowman/Borginnissi, aka The Great Western. Here’s a painting of her, though. Sarah would pass away at Fort Yuma in December 1866 after being bitten by a spider. She was posthumously breveted an honorary Colonel and buried with full military honors. Decades later, she’d be exhumed and reinterred in San Francisco.
If The Great Western sounds familiar, she’s featured in Larry McMurtry’s Dead Man’s Walk and Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Although both are works of fiction, Sarah was most certainly a very real (and very colorful) character. When Olive was first released from the Mohave, it was The Great Western who cared for her.
Below is a photo of Lorenzo Oatman, Olive’s brother.
As I mentioned earlier, Lorenzo was left for dead after his parents were massacred. It’s my opinion that Lorenzo, then just fifteen years old, showed quite a bit of nerve trying to locate his sisters. By all accounts, he should have perished in the desert, but her survived and lived till 1901.
Finally, below is a photo of the massacre site.
The site is located several miles north of Highway 8 in southwestern Arizona. I’ve never been there, so I’m not sure how accessible it is, but according to Google Maps, it’s just a little over 8 miles west of the Painted Rock Petroglyph site.
Have you ever been there? If so, what’s it like? Leave me a comment or email me and tell me about it!
Thank you as always for reading and listening and thank you for your support!
Till next time…
Adios!
Many thanks for sharing your interesting writings.
Most excellent as always! Thank you!