Olive Oatman: A Life Between Two Worlds

In 1851, fourteen year old Olive Oatman watched her entire family get slaughtered

in the Arizona desert. A Yavapai raiding party left her parents and siblings dead. Only she and her

little sister Mary Ann were dragged into captivity. Her brother Lorenzo, left for dead with

a crushed skull, somehow survived. For a year, the girls lived under brutal conditions.

Then something unexpected happened. The Yavapai traded them to the Mohave tribe.

But the Mohave did not treat them as slaves. They adopted the sisters into their

family. Olive received the sacred blue chin tattoo, the mark of the

Mohave people, a symbol that she belonged. Then tragedy struck again.