What happened to the Oatman family?
In 1851, on route to California in a covered wagon, the Oatman family was brutally attacked by Apache Indians. Six family members were murdered on sight, one boy was left for dead, who escaped afterward, and two young girls, Mary Ann and Olive, were taken captive.
Where is the Oatman family massacre site?
The Oatman Massacre is the location of the 1851 ambush of the Oatman Family as they traveled along the Gila Trail (also known as the Southern Emigrant Route). The attack occurred on a volcanic bluff, overlooking the Gila River in a remote stretch of desert about 26 miles west of Gila Bend.
Where is Olive Oatman buried?
West Hill Cemetery, Sherman, TXOlive Oatman / Place of burial
What happened to Lorenzo Oatman?
Oatman Massacre
On February 18, 1851, a group of Yavapai tribesmen attacked them Oatmans on the banks of the Gila River east of what is now Yuma, Arizona. Royce, Mary and four of their children were killed at the scene, and their son Lorenzo was badly injured.
Why did Olive Oatman have a tattoo on her face?
Olive and Mary Ann were both marked with blue tattoos on their chins, a tattoo that all Mohave women wore. Tattoos were a way of identifying people in the afterlife. “[They] pricked the skin in small regular rows on our chins with a very sharp stick, until they bled freely,” Olive would later write.
How many children did Olive Oatman have?
She claimed her friend Olive was a “grieving, unsatisfied women” who “somehow shook one’s belief in civilization.” Susan also remembered that Olive confessed to being the mother of two children and that having to leave these children behind when she left the Mojaves was the source of her grief.
Why was Olive Oatman tattooed?
Oatman later claimed (in Stratton’s book and in her lectures) that she was tattooed to mark her as a slave, but this is not consistent with the Mohave tradition, where such marks were given only to their own people to ensure that they would enter the land of the dead and be recognized there by their ancestors as …
How old was Olive Oatman when her family died?
Young Olive, now thirteen, watched in horror as her mother, father, brothers and sisters were bludgeoned in their heads with war clubs until they died. Only she and her sister, Mary Ann, aged seven, were spared. Her brother Lorenzo, fifteen, was left for dead but managed to escape.
Is there a movie about Olive Oatman?
The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own.