Olive Oatman, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetOlive Oatman
American living in Mormon, Tolkepaya, and Mohave societies after childhood kidnapping
Date of Birth: 07-Sep-1837
Place of Birth: Illinois, United States
Date of Death: 20-Mar-1903
Profession: explorer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Olive Oatman
- Olive Ann Oatman (September 7, 1837—March 21, 1903) was a woman born in Illinois.
- While traveling from Illinois to California with a company of Mormon Brewsterites, many members of her family were killed in 1851, in present-day Arizona by a Native American tribe.
- The town of Oatman, Arizona is named after the Oatman family and the massacre which occurred therein.
- Though she identified her family's attackers as Apache, they were most likely Tolkepayas (Western Yavapai).
- This small group of Native Americans clubbed Olive's family to death.
- They captured Olive and her younger sister, Mary Ann, and enslaved them for one year.
- The girls were later traded to the Mohave people.
- Olive spent four years with the Mohave.
- During her time with the Mohave tribe her sister, Mary Ann, died from starvation.
- Olive returned to white society five years after the Oatman Massacre, wearing a blue tattoo on her chin as a reminder of her time with the Mohave people. Following her repatriation into American society, Olive's story began to be retold with dramatic license in the press, as well as in her own memoir and speeches.
- Novels, plays, movies, and poetry have been inspired by Olive's story, which resonated in the media of the time and long afterward.
- She had become an oddity in 1860s America, partly owing to the prominent blue tattooing of Oatman's face by the Mohave, making her the first known tattooed American woman on record.
- Much of what actually occurred during her time with the Native Americans remains unknown.
Read more at Wikipedia