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In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures. 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. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime.
Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white society—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas.
Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of westward expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.
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Technical Details
- ISBN13: 9780803211483- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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By Richard Gordon (Wilmington, DE USA)
Mifflin's book is fascinating. The story it tells is such a wonderful slice of American history--revolving around the capture of Olive and Mary Ann Oatman, their sale from one tribe to another, the sale of Olive BACK to the whites, then the exploitation of her story, her lecture series, and finally, her attempt to lead a life as a married Anglo woman. I could just envision this story being made into a movie--of course, I fear the story would get distorted by Hollywood--but if I were Prof. Mifflin's agent, I'd be on the horn to Hollywood. This solid piece of scholarship tells a fascinating story -- lots of insight into western expansion -- all by focusing on the story of this one woman. 5 stars.
By Eric S. Ludwig (Pasadena,CA)
Maybe 15 years ago I found a used reprint copy of the 'Captivity of the Oatman Girls' while on a trip through the Mother Lode country with my wife and kids. The prose was turgid and the story heated up; the author's provocative sexual elisions made for a rollicking if only partially believable tale. I couldn't stop wondering what Olive's life was like after she returned to "civilization". Since then, I always shiver a bit when I drive under the freeway sign on the Arizona border that says "Oatman exit". Wow. Here is the real place where her family was massacred and her brother left for dead by the local indians.
This book is exactly the kind of scholarship that needed to be done on the topic. Although the girls were kidnapped and their family destroyed, Olive Oatman ended up living for four years with the Mohave indians in a land-locked paradise of cool water and abundant food. She was not a captive but an adopted daughter and her return to 19th century 'civilization' was anything but a rescue. The book is a sweeping review of the widely dispersed resources available to a trained researcher: archives, secondary literature, ethnographic studies, newspaper articles and eyewitness accounts. The author has assembled an extremely readable account of Olive's life and the historical period of Western expansionism. This is not a biography. It is a very interesting story; fascinating and immanently readable. I particularly liked the fact that the author dealt with Olive's twofold cultural assimilation at an impressionable age, first to a Native American culture at age 14 and then back to the Anglo world five years later. Rather than declaim on the effect it had on her personality, the author allows friends and relatives to share their impressions from letters and first hand accounts. Naturally, it would have been incredibly hard to remain true to BOTH cultures at the time; I understand why Olive had a air of constant melancholy about her. Her life with the Mohave had been free and casual; her life back in 'society' was stilted and austere.
The book is amply researched but immanently readable. Altogether an insightful picture of a young woman whose life was profoundly uprooted two times over. If you are looking for a lurid and exploitative adventure, read "The Captivity of the Oatman Girls". If you are interested in real history and the human condition where the stone age meets the Age of Expansion, read "the Blue Tattoo."
By Ruth P. Price (Burnsville, NC United States)
After tribe members murdered her parents and most of her siblings, the Yavapai Indians kidnapped Olive Oatman and her younger sister Mary Ann. Brutally treated as slaves by their captors, Olive and her sister were later traded to the Mohave Indians who eventually adopted them into the tribe where they were treated as family. Mary Ann died of starvation during a bleak winter, but Olive survived and was later traded by her Mohave family to whites. A brother who the Yavapai left for dead survived and later reconnected with Olive.
Interviews during her first days back into white society show that Olive grieved her Mohave family and spoke of them as being kind and caring. Later, under the influence of a minister who hated Indians, Olive lectured throughout the East about her terrible treatment from both tribes. Olive received an excellent education and was a spell-binding speaker. She later married and her husband made every effort to erase her captive past.
The book is well-written and thoroughly researched, but I had difficulty with the author laying the entire blame for Olive's shifting position toward her Indian life entirely on the preacher. Olive was clearly an intelligent and independent woman who could have taken a more even-handed approach in her lectures about her treatment. Certainly some white women who were former captives and then integrated back into white society were able to speak more fairly about their captivity. I was left with many questions about why Olive was both able to seek out, in her later life, a meeting with one of the members of the Mohave tribe in Washington, D. C., as a seemingly fond gesture and yet also took part through her lectures in promoting the annihilation of the Indians.
By Frankie Sutton
Most books about women captured by the Indians are filled with how awful life was. This book shows that not all Indians were brutes and often times the women that were captured were not mistreated. Great read, remarkable courage .
By Bertha Nolan (Portland, OR)
I loved the "Blue Tattoo." It was written well enough to have my attention from start to finish. I know the Oatman story but Margo Mifflin's research did add even more information and was very accurate. I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the lives of pioneers.
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