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Hanna Vance

Dr. Michaele Smith

October 8th, 2020

Olivia Oatman

There is so much history that is unknown, or there is just too much to cover in just a

history class. That’s why there is an amazing podcast channel called, “Stuff You Missed in

History Class” that has hundreds of different stories that most of us have never heard about. If

you are studying history, learning about history, or that you are simply just eager to learn new

things, then podcasts are the way to go. In my search to find an attention-grabbing story about

history, I stumbled upon the story of Olivia Oatman being captured by Native Americans who

held her captive for 5 years.

Before I get to what happened at the moment of her release, I want to share details of

what I learned happened to her in that 5-year span. It was the year of 1851, Olivia and her family

were participating in a Mormon trek that started out in Illinois, with the goal of reaching their

final destination of California. Unfortunately, along the way, in Arizona, they encountered

Native Americans who attacked and looted her family's wagon. This resulted in her mother and

father passing away and in the deaths of her 4 other siblings. Her other sister Mary Ann was the

only one who survived other than Olivia. This tribe was what they believed was the Yavapai

Tribe. They enslaved the both of them and marked them with tattoos. Sadly, her sister passed on

when the tribe had a shortage of food one year due to starvation.
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It wasn't until around 1854 that there was a rumor going around of a white girl who was

living or being held captive by the Indian tribe. Especially back then this was unheard of. People

really wanted to know the truth and they found what they looked for. They discovered that she

had been part of the tribe and she became almost like one of them. The settlers requested that she

be released from their custody. They bargained and the ransom was offered by the negotiators.

They gave them 2 horses and beads in trade so they could have Olivia back. When they brought

her back, she was crying, and some say that it is because she had grown close to the Indians who

had treated her like family. Others argue that she was embarrassed because she was revealing a

lot of her body up top which was super immodest back then.

There is a division of people who are on one side or the other. Did she want to be

ransomed or not? Well, oddly enough the Chief had previously told Olivia that she was free to

leave at any time. Most believe that she just was conformable where she was, but also that she

really didn't know how to get back to the white settlements. But later on in Olivia's life after

adapting back to her normal life, she went on tours telling the story of her enslavement by the

Indians. It is said that as she went around telling of her experiences that she changed a lot of

what happened to be normalized with the perceptions of how settlers viewed Indians back then.

People have debated on why she would change what she originally said right after she was freed

as compared to what she was telling later on, and some even claimed that she has PTSD when

she came home which of course could have resulted in her changes of memories.

There is a book that was written about her experiences and that gives details and facts

that record what really happened to her in those 5 years. So many people wanted to read this
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book. I know that if i was living back then I too would love to get my hands on this book. It was

extremely taboo for a white girl to be associated with native Indians. But the fact that they kept

her alive and raised her really says a lot to me. I know that in my history classes we briefly go

over native Americans and their culture. Many depictions of Native Indians claim that Indians

are savages or that they are not very peaceful. But as I listened to this podcast and heard the

retelling of Olivia's interactions with the tribe, it changed a lot of how people would or should

think of natives. I think it would've been interesting to learn about in one of my previous history

classes, but I also feel like it really isn't that significant of an event to cover when there are so

many other topics to learn about. I would most definitely listen to other unique stories like

Olivia’s to learn more about cool history that I hadn't ever heard about.