Olive Oatman Fairchild
Mohave Adoptee
1837 – 1903

When John Brant Fairchild and his wife Olive moved to Sherman, Texas in 1872 they appeared to be an ordinary family. However, Mrs. Fairchild seemed to be unusual since she was often reclusive, and if she did go out she wore a face veil. However, the few neighbors who had briefly caught a glimpse of her said that she had marks on her face, particularly on her chin. Marks that looked like something rare at the time for a “lady”—tattoos! And that’s exactly what they were, since Olive Oatman Fairchild had been marked that way some years before, when she had lived among the Mohave tribe.

Accounts of White children being abducted by Natives and then adopted or assimilated into the tribe were not unusual on the frontier—Cynthia Ann Parker in Texas is a major example. But the life of Olive Oatman was unique, since after she left the tribe she was the subject of a bestselling book, and a lecture tour where she described her experiences. Until, that is, she married and retired to a very private life, though very likely it still affected by her past.

Olive was born in 1837 in Illinois as the third of seven children of Royce and Mary Ann Oatman. She was still very young when her family joined the newly formed Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) in 1839. Many members, along with the Oatmans, began heading west to resettle. But unlike many LDS pioneers who made Utah their destination, the Oatman family joined others to travel further south. Eventually dissention split the group, so the Oatmans and others decided to settle in what is now the area near Tucson, Arizona. However, they had to move on when the land there was not suitable for their purposes. But the new route they took was through a dangerous area due to possible Native attacks.

Then some 80 miles east of modern day Yuma, the family—now traveling alone—met 19 Natives asking for tobacco and food. However, when Royce Oatman didn’t have all the tribesmen wanted, they attacked the family. Killing all except Lorenzo, 15, who was left for dead, as the attackers made off with 14-year-old Olive and her younger sister Mary Ann. Eventually, as Lorenzo recovered he joined other settlers since he assumed his family was now gone.

Though later accounts described Olive’s captors as Apaches, they were actually members of the western Yavapai tribe. Then when they arrived at their village, the girls were treated as slaves—lugging water, firewood and foraging for food.

After a while a group of the nearby Mohave tribe visited Olive’s captors and expressed concern about the treatment of the Oatman girls. As a result, the Mohave visitors offered to trade horses and other items for them, and after much discussion the deal went through. Olive and Mary Ann left with the visitors, now to receive better treatment, particularly from several high ranking women who became personally interested.

So were the girls were actually captives or adoptees? Also, did they ever seek to leave the tribe which seemed possible since occasionally they met other White people?

As to the girls’ status in the tribe, it’s interesting that in a later interview, a tribesman stated that Olive was adopted because she was given a Mohave nickname—in 1839 something only tribe members received. As to leaving the tribe, a later scientist writing about the girls’ situation, stated that Olive was told by the Mohaves, that she could approach White settlements. But they could not accompany her. since they feared White retaliation, because they were holding an American woman. Also, it is possible that because she believed that her family had been killed, and since the Mohave treated her fairly, she decided to remain where she was.

One indication they were adoptees is that the girls were both tattooed on their chins and arms according to Mohave custom. Though in later publicity, she stated that the marks indicated her being a slave the Mohave custom, the tattoos marked only tribe members. This was because the purpose was to indicate their tribal membership in the afterlife so they could be identified there. Logically the tribe would not be concerned about slaves reaching the afterlife so they did not bother to tattoo them.

Sadly, Mary Ann died during a drought, and it is likely that Olive survived because the tribal matriarch who was particularly fond of her, provided her with the nourishment necessary to survive.

Then in 1856, when Olive was 19 local military officials heard that the Mohave’s were holding a White girl, and the authorities sought her release. After much discussion it was agreed that in exchange of valuable trade goods Olive was returned to the American community. Soon after she learned that Lorenzo had survived and they were soon reunited. Olive then traveled to California and southern Oregon to stay with other relatives. During this time she met Royal Byron Stratton, a minister who wrote a rather fanciful book about the death of Olive’s family, and then her experiences living with the various tribes. It was initially titled Life Among the Indians but later re-titled Captivity of the Oatman Girls. Originally published in 1857 in San Francisco, the book became a bestseller since such Native captivity narratives were immensely popular at the time.

At a time before the television and the Internet, the main way of publicizing a new book was to travel, giving lectures about the subject and Olive began to do this. As she appeared before audiences, she would describe her experiences living among the Mohave. Her tattoo marks on her face were particularly attention grabbing—an exotic witness of her life at the time.

In 1864 while touring she met John Brant Fairchild, a cattleman/farmer and they were married in Rochester, New York in 1865. After that Olive retired from the lecture circuit, while her husband seemed to want to erase any memories of his wife’s experiences, as he purportedly tried to locate and destroy as many of Stratton’s books as he could.

In 1872 Olive and her husband moved to Sherman, Texas, where they adopted a daughter and resided in a large home. Mr. Fairchild became a prominent member of the community, yet Olive became known as a recluse, leaving her home only occasionally in 1839—and when she did she attempted to hide her marks with long sleeves and makeup or wearing a veil. She was also known to leave Sherman often to seek remedies for various physical and nervous ailments—sometimes going as far as Canada. According to one source, letters discovered after her death revealed the emotional and psychological scars she had endured in her early life. As the writer put it: “Often ascribed to mistreatment by the Indians, her emotional problems were just as likely due to the loss of her family members and the bittersweet memories she left behind in the Mohave Valley.”

Olive Oatman Fairchild passed away in Sherman in March, 1903 at age 65 and her husband followed in death four years later in 1907. Both are interred in ornate graves that John Fairchild bought in Sherman’s West Hill Cemetery. There is a Texas Historical Marker at the Fairchild’s grave sites, placed there in 1969.

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Anne Adams is a retired church staffer. She lives in East Texas and has an historical column for a local newspaper. She has published in Christian and secular publications for more than 40 years.

References:
Wikipedia
Texas State Historical Association