From the beginning, Olive and Mary Ann were well treated by the Mohave. On the first day of the trip to their village, the Indians did push the girls too hard and their feet were nicked and raw. But on the second day, the Mohave, upon realizing this, made shoes out of skins for the girls and covered less ground. Also, Topeka shared the blankets that she carried with the girls each night.
After eleven days, the party reached the Mohave’s valley, which the girls found quite beautiful. They were taken to the house of the local leader, Espaniole, Topeka’s father. (This was to become their house, as well.) After greeting Topeka as if she had been gone for months, Espaniole welcomed the girls to the village. They were taken outside and their arrival was celebrated by singing and dancing. This was not unusual; the Mohave always met strangers with hospitality.
The girls did many of the things that they had done with the Yavapai; they carried water and wood, and helped with the farming. But they also played – they played tag, played dice, swam in the Colorado, and climbed trees. The girls sang their Sunday school hymns, which greatly impressed the Mohave, who had high regard for singers. The Mohave even gave the girls presents for singing.
Their Mormon upbringing, however, did not prepare the girls for some of what they encountered. After a good harvest, there would be a feast. The Mohave would wear masks and paint their faces and dance until midnight. The next day they would eat. At one banquet, Olive “witnessed some of the most shameful indecencies, on the part of both male and female.”
The Mohave considered sex natural and fun. They even encouraged the young to engage in sexual activity, and many Mohave lost their virginity by the time they reached puberty. How much of this, if any, Olive entered into is unknown. She never said. Olive was adopted into the tribe and given a clan name, so the feeling today, is that she probably was sexually initiated into the tribe.
It is also unknown whether she ever married a Mohave or had any children. The mores of the late nineteenth century would have labeled her as hopelessly “damaged goods” if she had. So, again, she never spoke on the subject.
Olive Oatman Fairchild
The Mohave women wore chin tattoos as a passport to the afterlife. Both Olive and Mary Ann were tattooed. This is a further indication of their acceptance into the tribe. The Mohave did not tattoo anyone who did not want to be. (The picture at the right shows the tattoo – it was taken in Rochester, NY.)
In early 1854, Lt. Amiel Whipple, traveling with a group of more than one hundred scientists, soldiers, and guides, was sent to survey a railroad route from the Mississippi to the Pacific. In February he met some Mohave who took him to their village. There was much trading and the two groups freely mingled.
Strangely, he later said that he saw no white women while he was there. He never saw the Oatmans and they never approached him. If Olive was hidden from the survey party, she never mentioned it in her biography. If she was roaming freely among the whites with the other Mohave, why did she not make herself known to Whipple or anyone else? (If she was moving freely among the whites, she might very well not have been recognized as white – she wore only a bark skirt that went to her knees, she was tanned, and her light brown hair was dyed black with the gum of the mesquite tree.)
This episode likely shows Olive’s complete assimilation into the tribe – she might very well not have wanted to return to the white world. She was tattooed. And white society would probably have assumed the worst about her experiences with the Mohave. And, above all else, she had become Mohave.
Mary Ann was never to return to the white world. She had always been frail. At one point in 1853 she became too sick to work. In 1855, after several good years, there was a spring drought, and the Mohave found themselves with very little to eat. (The Mohave only grew what they needed and never put away excess for “a rainy day.”) People, mostly children, were dying. Mary Ann was one of them. When Mary Ann died, Olive had her buried where the two of them had gardened.
During their years with the Indians, the girls were not forgotten. Their brother, Lorenzo, survived the massacre.
After the initial attack, when the Yavapai were removing Lorenzo’s hat and shoes, he moaned. The Indians dragged him to the edge of the mesa and threw him off.
But Lorenzo did not die. The next morning he awoke, hurt and dazed. He managed to climb back up the mesa, and viewed the carnage. He realized that Olive and Mary Ann had been taken captive. He staggered off toward Maricopa Wells.
On the second day he was found by two friendly Pima Indians and escorted toward the town. On the way, they ran into the Kellys and the Wilders, two of the families that the Oatmans had traveled with.
The party returned to Maricopa Wells, feeling that it was too dangerous to continue. Eventually, with the protection of several army deserters who were heading west to look for gold, the two families, along with Lorenzo, headed to California.
At Fort Yuma, Lorenzo told his story. But, using one excuse or another, the commander refused to search for the girls.
Lorenzo stayed at the fort while the Kellys and Wilders pushed on, but eventually he also headed to California.
Through the years Lorenzo continued to try to get the authorities to search for his sisters – writing to the California government and the commander at Fort Yuma. Finally, in 1856, Lorenzo learned from a California rancher that a white woman was living with the Mohave.
In January 1856, Francisco, one of the Indians in the group that had first encountered the Whipple party, appeared at Fort Yuma, said that he knew where Olive was, and offered, for a price, to seek her release.
Negotiations with the Mohave did not go well. Espaniole did not want to let her go – he wanted to raise her. He also stated that the women of the tribe would be sad to see her go.
Francisco eventually became furious and said that millions of whites, hidden in the surrounding hills, would kill the Mohave, if the girl was not freed. The Mohave finally agreed, and for two horses, beads, and blankets, Olive was released. For a second time Olive was torn from her family.
After a trek of eleven days she reached Fort Yuma. Upon her return to civilization, she spoke well of the Mohave and her treatment with them. She was stunned to hear that Lorenzo was still alive.
Several weeks after her release she was reunited with her brother. After her release, much was written about her and she was reunited with other relatives as well.
Unfortunately, she came under the influence of a young reverend, Royal Byron Stratton. With Stratton’s help Olive wrote a book about her experiences. The contents of the book were at odds with Olive’s initial statements about the Mohave and her life with them. Stratton had his own agenda and was not a fan of the Indian.
Olive went on tour, giving lectures about her experiences, and promoting her book.
In 1865, she gave up touring. She was financially secure. And she broke ties with Stratton.
She met a Michigan farmer and rancher named John Brant Fairchild. They were married in Rochester, NY in November, 1865.
They moved to Sherman, Texas in 1872. Fairchild became rich. John was derscribed as handsome and distinguished; Olive as shy and reclusive – apparently never recovering from the sadness of her early experiences.
She did charity work, taking in children from the local orphanage. The Fairchilds adopted a girl that they named Mary Elizabeth. The Fairchilds never had any children of their own.
Olive battled eye trouble, headaches, and depression. She spent months in a sanatorium near Niagara Falls. She died of a heart attack in 1903 and is buried in the West Hill Cemetery in Sherman.
- Oatman AZ, is named for Olive. The name was changed from Vivian to Oatman after Olive’s death through the influence of a man named John Oatman, who claimed to be Olive’s Mohave son.
- For a much fuller account of Olive Oatman, see The Blue Tattoo – The Life of Olive Oatman by Margot Mifflin.
