May 14, 2025 • 19 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1851, Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year-old pioneer traveling west with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. Here to tell the story is the executive of True West magazine, Bob Boze Bell.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. In eighteen fifty one,
Olive Oatman, who's a thirteen year old pioneer traveling West
with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a
white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. Here
to tell the story is the executive editor of True
(00:31):
West magazine, Bob bose Bell. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I needed to start this with a confession and a disclaimer.
Some of the things I'm about to tell you are
going to be very hard to believe, Okay, And I
must say that I had a hard time believing much
of this research myself. But here we go. This is
a tragic tale that all started with a bold and
(00:58):
crazy philosophy. In eighteen forty eight, a young Latter day
Saints excommunicated prophet made a bold prediction that would impact
a beautiful young girl named Olive Boldman. James Collins Brewster
was twenty four years old, and he came up with
this prophecy, and that was that there was this place
(01:21):
in the West called which he called Land of Bishon,
and it was going to be the Edenesque place that
they would live happily ever after here's a quote from him.
Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring
your people from the east and gather you in the west.
The wilderness and the wasteland will fall away, and the
(01:42):
desert will rejoice and blossop as the rose. It shall
blossom abundantly, and the glory of Bashon shall be given
to it. Now, the place he was predicting for the
land of Bashon was actually at the influence of the
Colorado River and the Healer River. Today that area is
(02:05):
known as hume Arizona, and in the eighteen fifties this
was probably one of the most godforsaken spots on earth.
He didn't apparently know that, because in his prophecies he
said that there will be pine trees growing on the
banks of the river there. And so. On August tenth,
eighteen fifty ninety, three Brewster Wites, including the Royce Oatman
(02:30):
family of nine, took off from Independence, Missouri, and forty
three wagons headed for the land of the Shop. One
of the participants on the wagon train Susan Thompson. She
said that the journey in the beginning was a continuous picnic,
and when they had stored goods, they would stop for
(02:51):
lunch and have just a delightful time. The men would
block hunting, and in the evenings they would gather around
the campfires and they would and the young people would dance,
and she said that there was plenty of frolic quote
and plenty of love making. Well, of course, the good
times did not last, and by the time the wagon
(03:13):
train reached SoCoRo, New Mexico, the number of wagons had
been cut in half, and petty infighting, alternate visions, just
all the usual human conditions that would take place on
a long trip like this happened. And so by the
time the wagon train reached Maricopa Wells, which is south
(03:35):
of President Day Phoenix, Arizona, the number of wagons had
been cut down to three. Now this is where the
story starts to get a little bizarre. The Royce Oltman,
his wife was pregnant at even a half months, and
so he was anxious to get to the land of
beishon Yuma, and it was only one hundred and twenty
miles away, And as every day went by, they were
(03:58):
there for a month, and then a strange thing happened.
Two riders came in from the west. One of them
was a twenty five year old entomologist who was out
looking for beatles as in the bugs Okay. And he
had a guide who we called Juan the Sonorian as
in Sonora, Mexico. And he had traveled from the east
(04:22):
coast all the way around San Francisco. He had taken
a packet down to San Diego, and him and another
physician had been out on a dry lake east of
San Diego looking for beatles, and then him and that
physician traveled to Yuma Uma crossing it was known then,
and they went all the way down to the Gulf
(04:43):
of Mexico, that's forty miles looking for beatles. And at
one point he sent home to his father, I believe
was in Baltimore, ten thousand beatles stuck and primed and
shipped them to his father. So doctor Lecante it was
his name, And he said to Royce Oatman that he
(05:04):
never encountered any Indians on the path from Yuma all
the way to Mercuple Wells, and that he didn't even
see any sign of Indians. So Royce made the decision
to continue on his own. The other two families declined
because of safety reasons, and so Royce Oatman took off
for this family of nine as wife's eight and a
(05:25):
half months pregnant, on their own, and they went around
the big bends called HeLa Bend, and they came back
around the other side, and they were overcome by doctor Lecanti,
who had been down to Tucson, that's one hundred mile
run from mer Copple Wells probably the Cushing Street bar,
had a great time, found some beetles, then came back
(05:47):
and now he's like the road runner Peep Peep, coming
up behind the Oltman family, and he finds the Oatman
family very distraught. They're going slow, their oxen are not
fit for the trip, and they're very depressed. And so
Gryce asked doctor Lecante if he would take a note
to General Heitzman at fort Yuma Campium at the time
(06:08):
to come back and send somebody out to help them. Well,
then a weird thing happens. Doctor Lecante and Juana Scenorian
take off and they encounter about six Indians on the trail,
and they made a feint to fight, and then they
took off and disappeared. Well, turns out that the Indians
that were facing them were just doing that as a
(06:30):
ruse so that the other Yavapies that were with them
could steal their horses. So he sold their horse and
their mule and they took off down the trail. So
now Lecante feels bad about telling the opmens that he
didn't encounter any Indians, because he just about had a
fight with some, and so he leaves a note and says,
you know, be careful, we went into these Indians. And
(06:51):
he leaves a note. But they're too late, because here's
what happened. Those same Indians came walking up the trail.
Now in the movies, an Indian attack is at dawn.
They come right in there, yip yippin' in they're shooting
arrows and they're they're packing, and they're underneath their horses
and stuff. No, Lorenzo Oltman later wrote that they came
walking up the trail and said hi in Spanish and
(07:16):
profuse the most eloquent terms of friendship. And they wanted
some tobacco, which he produced, and then they wanted meet,
and he said he didn't have enough, just had enough
for his family. And when he said no, he couldn't
do that, they all stepped off to the side. And
started talking among themselves, and what they were literally doing
(07:37):
was you kill her, I'll kill him. You know. They
were divving up who they were going to kill, and
they decided to save the two girls because they could
use them for slaves or whatever. And so with a
war whoop, they brandished their war clubs and they killed
everybody right in front of Olive w Oltman and her
(07:57):
sister who is seven. And they hit Lorenzo, her brother,
in the head four times, should have killed him, and
he staggered over to an edge and fell over the side,
so they probably got out of the reach where they
could hit him anymore. And so then they grabbed the
two girls. They took the wheels off the wagon, they
(08:19):
knifed all the fleece pillows and took a stripped to
all and they had to watch this the two girls.
And then they took them with a bunch of food
off to about a mile north of there, and they
made some of the food and then offered them some
in a derisive way and mocking them. And Lorenzo woke
up he had a bloody head. And in the meantime
(08:41):
they took the bonnets and their shoes of the two
girls and made them walk ninety miles to their encampment,
and the girls were treated as slaves, and they were beaten,
and it was a pretty awful existence.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you've been listening to True West Magazine executive editor
Bob bows Bell tell one heck of a story about
this family led by Royce Oatman and their quest to
get from Missouri to this new sacred land of Theirs
somewhere out west around the area of Yuma, what would
now be known as Yuma, Arizona. And by the time
(09:23):
they reach Arizona cut down to three, but Royce Oatman
and his family they kept heading towards their new home,
relying on information about this area being Indian free. And
what a truth to learn that that information you relied
upon would cost you everything, your family and more, and
(09:45):
your two daughters being captured and treated as slaves by
the local Indian tribe. When we come back, what happens next,
we'll find out here on our American stories, And we
(10:09):
continue with our American stories and with the executive editor
of True West Magazine Bob bose Bell telling the story
of the Oatman's and the two remaining daughters. Let's pick
up where we last left.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Off, and so with a war whoop, they brandished their
war clubs and they killed everybody right in front of
Olive Woltman and her sister who is seven. And they
hit Lorenzo, her brother, in the head four times, should
have killed him. And so that they found the bodies.
The alarm went out and Lorenzo was taken to fort
(10:47):
Yuma where he was helped back to his wounds. And
he went on to California and he spent every single
day trying to find authorities who would go and find
his sisters. Well about a year into their captivity, they
were not found. The Mahaves came of traders with the
(11:08):
Yava pie and they traded for the two girls and
they left, I believe, two horses and some vegetables and whatever.
And now they took the young girls to their incamment,
which is on the Colorado River about where Needles, California is.
In fact, some believe that the encampment was on the
ninth green of the Needles golf Course. I'm not sure
(11:28):
that's true. But as I said, so many things of
this story are just so crazy and so Olive and
our sister. They move in with the chief's family, and
it's debated to this day were they were they slaves
and captives or were they treated as family. Well, then
a strange thing happens. There's a railroad survey that's coming through,
(11:50):
and they come through and they spend two weeks in
that area talking to all the tribes and stuff, and
Olive does not appear. Now, what happens is that someone
comes through fort Yuma and they say, I've heard that
there's a woman up in the Mahabi camp. And so
he sends a courier named Francisco with a bluff and
(12:13):
he says, if you don't give up those girls, you're
going to be at war with the US army. And
so they said that they're not giving her up. So
Francisco goes across the river to the Arizona side and
talks to the chiefs over there, and they said, no,
we don't want any trouble, let's give her up. So
(12:33):
this is a critical juncture because this is five years
in So now Francisco and with his two of his
cousins they take Olive Oltman and they have to go
down the Colorado River two hundred and fifty miles to
fort Yuma and the commander there Heinzman. Again, he doesn't
believe that she's a white woman. She's that assimilated. And
(12:55):
she's wearing a branch you know, bush skirt kind of
a thing, topless of course, care tattoos on her chin.
Only when one of his aides holds her hair back
behind her ear and there's a white spot behind her
ear does he believe that she's a white person. So
they call her brother, Lorenzo, who arrives at the fort,
(13:17):
and they sit in a room for an hour and
they can't talk to each other, and he can't believe
it's his sister. And she's forgotten how to speak. She's
probably mortified, she's probably traumatized. Now. They gave her some
clothes to wear, and they sent her across the river,
the Colorado River over to the Arizona side, and they
(13:38):
put her in care of the Great Western. This is
Sarah Bauman, who is one of the most incredible, over
six foot tall, the biggest leg in Mexico. Probably ran
a brothel, but they knew that Sarah would take care
of her. Sarah Brobs. She was also known as the
Great Western, named after one of the biggest ships on
the seas at that time because she was so big.
(14:00):
She takes care of Olive is only she could, and
nurses her and helps her make the transition back into
Anglo society life or whatever. And so now Lorenzo and
Olive they take a stagecoach into California and they land
(14:20):
at Susan Thompson's hotel in Monte, California, which is Elamonte today.
And Susan Thompson was the one on the wagon train
who was seventeen at the time and knew the oldman's
very well. And they made it successfully safely to California
and they started a hotel there. Now this is a
(14:41):
critical juncture in our story because Susan Thompson says that
Olive Oapman was very distraught and she admitted to Susan Thompson,
Olive Oltman did that she left two of her children behind. Now,
Olive and her other go and she she's in Wyrika, California,
(15:04):
which is way up north Okay. And she runs into
a minister Stratton is his name, and he is amazed
at her story, and he writes up a book of
her life story, and he admits in the beginning that
much of what actually happened to her has been left
out and thankfully will probably never be known. And the
(15:24):
book takes off. It was put off as a religious
book in California, as a local press, small kind of thing,
and it becomes a national bestseller. They cannot keep it
on the shelves, and she becomes a celebrity on the
speaking tour. You know, she has those tattoos. And by
(15:45):
the way, she claimed that the tattoos marked her as
a slave, but we now know that married women have
the vertical blue tattoos on their chin. That's what designated
them as a wife. So she has these tattoos, and
she's giving talks all over the country, and she claims
a couple of things. Once is she claimed that they
(16:05):
were never unchased towards her. They always respected her on
that level, because in that time and era, you could
not that they called it in Victorian times, you know,
faate worse than death, that you would, you know, actually
have relations with a Native Americans. Seems a little radical today,
but at the time that was exactly how they positioned it.
(16:29):
So now she's a celebrity and going all over the
country making a lot of money actually from her speaking
fees and the book is a huge success. So then
what happens is she marries a rich Texan. She goes
to Sherman, Texas, and she retires from speaking, and she
(16:49):
adopts a daughter, and the daughter dies unexpectedly does not
live well.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
One other thing that I've got to tell you is
okay at Brewster, Remember he claimed that he was going
to send them to the land of Bishon, where the
crops would grow and the wine would meet the sea,
and blah blah.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Blah, irony of ironies. In nineteen oh two, Teddy Roosevelt,
Yes that Teddy Roosevelt. He minted the Bureau of Reclamation
and the Yuma Project diverted the Colorado River to irrigate
more than fifty eight thousand acres along the river all
the way to Mexico. The water turned the harsh desert
(17:33):
into a lush tableland, supporting two hundred and seventy five
farms and ninety thousand residents farming year round. Today, those
farms produced one hundred and ninety six million crops every year.
The Chamber of Commerce and Yuma claims that ninety percent
of all the wintertime leafy vegetables in the United States
come from this area, an area that was once prophesied
(17:58):
as the land of Bashan. Let's end with a quote
from Brewer, the wilderness and the wasteland shall fall away,
and the desert will rejoice and blossom as the rose
A man.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, And a special thanks to
Bob Bo's Bell. And he's the executive editor of True
West magazine. And what a story he told about Olive
Oatman and her family, none of whom she'd grow up with,
but her sister and her older brother. And my goodness,
(18:37):
what happened to him? I mean, he survives this assault,
He has seen this, and now he's got to go
describe to American authorities, the American military, what happened. And
can you imagine that sit down when it finally happens.
You seeing your sister and you can barely recognize her,
and nobody, nobody believes the story, and they don't believe
(18:57):
she's white. But she survived and survived witnessing the butchery
of her own family. And I don't know how you
survived that. Perhaps the best way to survive it is
to put it behind you, or forget it. The story
of Olive Oatman, the story of her family, the story
of hope, suffering and redemption and in the end, transcendence.
(19:18):
Here on our American stories.
And we continue with our American stories. In eighteen fifty one,
Olive Oatman, who's a thirteen year old pioneer traveling West
with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a
white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. Here
to tell the story is the executive editor of True
(00:31):
West magazine, Bob bose Bell. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I needed to start this with a confession and a disclaimer.
Some of the things I'm about to tell you are
going to be very hard to believe, Okay, And I
must say that I had a hard time believing much
of this research myself. But here we go. This is
a tragic tale that all started with a bold and
(00:58):
crazy philosophy. In eighteen forty eight, a young Latter day
Saints excommunicated prophet made a bold prediction that would impact
a beautiful young girl named Olive Boldman. James Collins Brewster
was twenty four years old, and he came up with
this prophecy, and that was that there was this place
(01:21):
in the West called which he called Land of Bishon,
and it was going to be the Edenesque place that
they would live happily ever after here's a quote from him.
Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring
your people from the east and gather you in the west.
The wilderness and the wasteland will fall away, and the
(01:42):
desert will rejoice and blossop as the rose. It shall
blossom abundantly, and the glory of Bashon shall be given
to it. Now, the place he was predicting for the
land of Bashon was actually at the influence of the
Colorado River and the Healer River. Today that area is
(02:05):
known as hume Arizona, and in the eighteen fifties this
was probably one of the most godforsaken spots on earth.
He didn't apparently know that, because in his prophecies he
said that there will be pine trees growing on the
banks of the river there. And so. On August tenth,
eighteen fifty ninety, three Brewster Wites, including the Royce Oatman
(02:30):
family of nine, took off from Independence, Missouri, and forty
three wagons headed for the land of the Shop. One
of the participants on the wagon train Susan Thompson. She
said that the journey in the beginning was a continuous picnic,
and when they had stored goods, they would stop for
(02:51):
lunch and have just a delightful time. The men would
block hunting, and in the evenings they would gather around
the campfires and they would and the young people would dance,
and she said that there was plenty of frolic quote
and plenty of love making. Well, of course, the good
times did not last, and by the time the wagon
(03:13):
train reached SoCoRo, New Mexico, the number of wagons had
been cut in half, and petty infighting, alternate visions, just
all the usual human conditions that would take place on
a long trip like this happened. And so by the
time the wagon train reached Maricopa Wells, which is south
(03:35):
of President Day Phoenix, Arizona, the number of wagons had
been cut down to three. Now this is where the
story starts to get a little bizarre. The Royce Oltman,
his wife was pregnant at even a half months, and
so he was anxious to get to the land of
beishon Yuma, and it was only one hundred and twenty
miles away, And as every day went by, they were
(03:58):
there for a month, and then a strange thing happened.
Two riders came in from the west. One of them
was a twenty five year old entomologist who was out
looking for beatles as in the bugs Okay. And he
had a guide who we called Juan the Sonorian as
in Sonora, Mexico. And he had traveled from the east
(04:22):
coast all the way around San Francisco. He had taken
a packet down to San Diego, and him and another
physician had been out on a dry lake east of
San Diego looking for beatles, and then him and that
physician traveled to Yuma Uma crossing it was known then,
and they went all the way down to the Gulf
(04:43):
of Mexico, that's forty miles looking for beatles. And at
one point he sent home to his father, I believe
was in Baltimore, ten thousand beatles stuck and primed and
shipped them to his father. So doctor Lecante it was
his name, And he said to Royce Oatman that he
(05:04):
never encountered any Indians on the path from Yuma all
the way to Mercuple Wells, and that he didn't even
see any sign of Indians. So Royce made the decision
to continue on his own. The other two families declined
because of safety reasons, and so Royce Oatman took off
for this family of nine as wife's eight and a
(05:25):
half months pregnant, on their own, and they went around
the big bends called HeLa Bend, and they came back
around the other side, and they were overcome by doctor Lecanti,
who had been down to Tucson, that's one hundred mile
run from mer Copple Wells probably the Cushing Street bar,
had a great time, found some beetles, then came back
(05:47):
and now he's like the road runner Peep Peep, coming
up behind the Oltman family, and he finds the Oatman
family very distraught. They're going slow, their oxen are not
fit for the trip, and they're very depressed. And so
Gryce asked doctor Lecante if he would take a note
to General Heitzman at fort Yuma Campium at the time
(06:08):
to come back and send somebody out to help them. Well,
then a weird thing happens. Doctor Lecante and Juana Scenorian
take off and they encounter about six Indians on the trail,
and they made a feint to fight, and then they
took off and disappeared. Well, turns out that the Indians
that were facing them were just doing that as a
(06:30):
ruse so that the other Yavapies that were with them
could steal their horses. So he sold their horse and
their mule and they took off down the trail. So
now Lecante feels bad about telling the opmens that he
didn't encounter any Indians, because he just about had a
fight with some, and so he leaves a note and says,
you know, be careful, we went into these Indians. And
(06:51):
he leaves a note. But they're too late, because here's
what happened. Those same Indians came walking up the trail.
Now in the movies, an Indian attack is at dawn.
They come right in there, yip yippin' in they're shooting
arrows and they're they're packing, and they're underneath their horses
and stuff. No, Lorenzo Oltman later wrote that they came
walking up the trail and said hi in Spanish and
(07:16):
profuse the most eloquent terms of friendship. And they wanted
some tobacco, which he produced, and then they wanted meet,
and he said he didn't have enough, just had enough
for his family. And when he said no, he couldn't
do that, they all stepped off to the side. And
started talking among themselves, and what they were literally doing
(07:37):
was you kill her, I'll kill him. You know. They
were divving up who they were going to kill, and
they decided to save the two girls because they could
use them for slaves or whatever. And so with a
war whoop, they brandished their war clubs and they killed
everybody right in front of Olive w Oltman and her
(07:57):
sister who is seven. And they hit Lorenzo, her brother,
in the head four times, should have killed him, and
he staggered over to an edge and fell over the side,
so they probably got out of the reach where they
could hit him anymore. And so then they grabbed the
two girls. They took the wheels off the wagon, they
(08:19):
knifed all the fleece pillows and took a stripped to
all and they had to watch this the two girls.
And then they took them with a bunch of food
off to about a mile north of there, and they
made some of the food and then offered them some
in a derisive way and mocking them. And Lorenzo woke
up he had a bloody head. And in the meantime
(08:41):
they took the bonnets and their shoes of the two
girls and made them walk ninety miles to their encampment,
and the girls were treated as slaves, and they were beaten,
and it was a pretty awful existence.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
And you've been listening to True West Magazine executive editor
Bob bows Bell tell one heck of a story about
this family led by Royce Oatman and their quest to
get from Missouri to this new sacred land of Theirs
somewhere out west around the area of Yuma, what would
now be known as Yuma, Arizona. And by the time
(09:23):
they reach Arizona cut down to three, but Royce Oatman
and his family they kept heading towards their new home,
relying on information about this area being Indian free. And
what a truth to learn that that information you relied
upon would cost you everything, your family and more, and
(09:45):
your two daughters being captured and treated as slaves by
the local Indian tribe. When we come back, what happens next,
we'll find out here on our American stories, And we
(10:09):
continue with our American stories and with the executive editor
of True West Magazine Bob bose Bell telling the story
of the Oatman's and the two remaining daughters. Let's pick
up where we last left.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Off, and so with a war whoop, they brandished their
war clubs and they killed everybody right in front of
Olive Woltman and her sister who is seven. And they
hit Lorenzo, her brother, in the head four times, should
have killed him. And so that they found the bodies.
The alarm went out and Lorenzo was taken to fort
(10:47):
Yuma where he was helped back to his wounds. And
he went on to California and he spent every single
day trying to find authorities who would go and find
his sisters. Well about a year into their captivity, they
were not found. The Mahaves came of traders with the
(11:08):
Yava pie and they traded for the two girls and
they left, I believe, two horses and some vegetables and whatever.
And now they took the young girls to their incamment,
which is on the Colorado River about where Needles, California is.
In fact, some believe that the encampment was on the
ninth green of the Needles golf Course. I'm not sure
(11:28):
that's true. But as I said, so many things of
this story are just so crazy and so Olive and
our sister. They move in with the chief's family, and
it's debated to this day were they were they slaves
and captives or were they treated as family. Well, then
a strange thing happens. There's a railroad survey that's coming through,
(11:50):
and they come through and they spend two weeks in
that area talking to all the tribes and stuff, and
Olive does not appear. Now, what happens is that someone
comes through fort Yuma and they say, I've heard that
there's a woman up in the Mahabi camp. And so
he sends a courier named Francisco with a bluff and
(12:13):
he says, if you don't give up those girls, you're
going to be at war with the US army. And
so they said that they're not giving her up. So
Francisco goes across the river to the Arizona side and
talks to the chiefs over there, and they said, no,
we don't want any trouble, let's give her up. So
(12:33):
this is a critical juncture because this is five years
in So now Francisco and with his two of his
cousins they take Olive Oltman and they have to go
down the Colorado River two hundred and fifty miles to
fort Yuma and the commander there Heinzman. Again, he doesn't
believe that she's a white woman. She's that assimilated. And
(12:55):
she's wearing a branch you know, bush skirt kind of
a thing, topless of course, care tattoos on her chin.
Only when one of his aides holds her hair back
behind her ear and there's a white spot behind her
ear does he believe that she's a white person. So
they call her brother, Lorenzo, who arrives at the fort,
(13:17):
and they sit in a room for an hour and
they can't talk to each other, and he can't believe
it's his sister. And she's forgotten how to speak. She's
probably mortified, she's probably traumatized. Now. They gave her some
clothes to wear, and they sent her across the river,
the Colorado River over to the Arizona side, and they
(13:38):
put her in care of the Great Western. This is
Sarah Bauman, who is one of the most incredible, over
six foot tall, the biggest leg in Mexico. Probably ran
a brothel, but they knew that Sarah would take care
of her. Sarah Brobs. She was also known as the
Great Western, named after one of the biggest ships on
the seas at that time because she was so big.
(14:00):
She takes care of Olive is only she could, and
nurses her and helps her make the transition back into
Anglo society life or whatever. And so now Lorenzo and
Olive they take a stagecoach into California and they land
(14:20):
at Susan Thompson's hotel in Monte, California, which is Elamonte today.
And Susan Thompson was the one on the wagon train
who was seventeen at the time and knew the oldman's
very well. And they made it successfully safely to California
and they started a hotel there. Now this is a
(14:41):
critical juncture in our story because Susan Thompson says that
Olive Oapman was very distraught and she admitted to Susan Thompson,
Olive Oltman did that she left two of her children behind. Now,
Olive and her other go and she she's in Wyrika, California,
(15:04):
which is way up north Okay. And she runs into
a minister Stratton is his name, and he is amazed
at her story, and he writes up a book of
her life story, and he admits in the beginning that
much of what actually happened to her has been left
out and thankfully will probably never be known. And the
(15:24):
book takes off. It was put off as a religious
book in California, as a local press, small kind of thing,
and it becomes a national bestseller. They cannot keep it
on the shelves, and she becomes a celebrity on the
speaking tour. You know, she has those tattoos. And by
(15:45):
the way, she claimed that the tattoos marked her as
a slave, but we now know that married women have
the vertical blue tattoos on their chin. That's what designated
them as a wife. So she has these tattoos, and
she's giving talks all over the country, and she claims
a couple of things. Once is she claimed that they
(16:05):
were never unchased towards her. They always respected her on
that level, because in that time and era, you could
not that they called it in Victorian times, you know,
faate worse than death, that you would, you know, actually
have relations with a Native Americans. Seems a little radical today,
but at the time that was exactly how they positioned it.
(16:29):
So now she's a celebrity and going all over the
country making a lot of money actually from her speaking
fees and the book is a huge success. So then
what happens is she marries a rich Texan. She goes
to Sherman, Texas, and she retires from speaking, and she
(16:49):
adopts a daughter, and the daughter dies unexpectedly does not
live well.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
One other thing that I've got to tell you is
okay at Brewster, Remember he claimed that he was going
to send them to the land of Bishon, where the
crops would grow and the wine would meet the sea,
and blah blah.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Blah, irony of ironies. In nineteen oh two, Teddy Roosevelt,
Yes that Teddy Roosevelt. He minted the Bureau of Reclamation
and the Yuma Project diverted the Colorado River to irrigate
more than fifty eight thousand acres along the river all
the way to Mexico. The water turned the harsh desert
(17:33):
into a lush tableland, supporting two hundred and seventy five
farms and ninety thousand residents farming year round. Today, those
farms produced one hundred and ninety six million crops every year.
The Chamber of Commerce and Yuma claims that ninety percent
of all the wintertime leafy vegetables in the United States
come from this area, an area that was once prophesied
(17:58):
as the land of Bashan. Let's end with a quote
from Brewer, the wilderness and the wasteland shall fall away,
and the desert will rejoice and blossom as the rose
A man.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hengler, And a special thanks to
Bob Bo's Bell. And he's the executive editor of True
West magazine. And what a story he told about Olive
Oatman and her family, none of whom she'd grow up with,
but her sister and her older brother. And my goodness,
(18:37):
what happened to him? I mean, he survives this assault,
He has seen this, and now he's got to go
describe to American authorities, the American military, what happened. And
can you imagine that sit down when it finally happens.
You seeing your sister and you can barely recognize her,
and nobody, nobody believes the story, and they don't believe
(18:57):
she's white. But she survived and survived witnessing the butchery
of her own family. And I don't know how you
survived that. Perhaps the best way to survive it is
to put it behind you, or forget it. The story
of Olive Oatman, the story of her family, the story
of hope, suffering and redemption and in the end, transcendence.
(19:18):
Here on our American stories.
Host
Lee Habeeb
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