Welcome to another episode of Blood and Dust podcast. We have been off for
a little bit. We don't want to talk about the Curse of Blood and
Dust because for the last two or three weeks we've been trying to record the
first part of this episode. We do have a new co host to introduce
as well, and it's one of those situations where we're trying to give you
guys content, make sure it's on time and out weekly and everything like that,
and with everybody's schedules, everybody living in different states, having different lives,
it's summertime, our kids are out of school, all that good stuff.
We wanted to bring in another person by the name of Cammy, who
I personally have known for years upon years. She helped me a lot with
the research of Wyatt earp on mysterious circumstances, and the research that she provides
is pretty phenomenal. And yeah, so I'm joined tonight by Julie and Cammy.
So, Cammy, would you like to introduce yourself to everybody? Hi,
guys, I'm Cammy. I'm just jumping in. I can't this is
stupid. I can't do this. Justin Yes, you can. You're doing
great, all right? How about this. Cammy is stupid nervous right now,
she literally has her own podcast, and I'm not going to edit this
out. I'm going to keep this in the episode because I'm sorry, Cammy,
I love you to death. But I find this so amusing because you
were like so scared right now, let's let's do this. What got you
into the wild West and why do you like it? So? What really
got me into the wild West? Actually is my dad, of course,
watch all the wild West movies, all the Young Guns and Tombstone of course.
And then listening to podcasts while I was at work, ran across Justin's
podcast and he does some really great biographies and really in depth research. So
that got me going. So then I branched out a little bit. I
tried to do my own podcast. That kind of fizzled out a little bit.
It's a whole lot of work and a lot of commitment that was just
a little bit much for me at the time. So I'm hoping with a
group of friends it'll be a lot easier to manage. But I live over
here in eastern Washington more or so, like towards the Canadian Board, so
there's a lot of history over here wild West style. I actually have family
property where Wyatt Earp and his family were said to traversed around like Eagle Creek,
Idaho area. And I just really really enjoy doing the research and just
learning new things about history. So I guess to really enjoy the history.
And see, it's that easy. Now we got Cammy introduced to everybody.
Welcome Cammy. You're gonna do awesome, which I'm already amazed at your personality
and humor. Your friend Adjustin's you're awesome anyways, so and your notes are
fantastic. So welcome to the club. I guess if this is a club,
Yeah, it definitely is. If first off, I'm joining late in,
Like this topic had already been chosen and introduced before I got brought into
this episode, and I gotta ask, like what was appealing? I think
Julie, I think the nurse might have voted on this, or it was
Julie that chose it. Julie, did you choose it? Yeah? I
did, I don't know. I think it was in history class. I
went to a private school, so I had the same twenty kids for like
eight years and every grade, and you know, I got to know all
these kids, I got to know everything about history. There was nobody shy
enough to ask questions like we were just asking all these questions constantly, and
one topic got brought up of this woman with this tattoo and going to school
in a strict religious church school. Tattoos were like a bad no no,
which ironically, you know, as an adult, I have tattoos and it's
nothing now, But I think it was just looking at her, Yeah,
looking at her face as a young child with like a bad thing on her
face, you know, as a child, believing that was just fascinating to
me. And now when I'm approaching the subject and the topic of her as
a woman in this present day and as an adult, I just fell in
love with her even more so. I just really wanted to show her life
to everybody and just see what she was all about. She was actually the
first photographed white woman with a facial tattoo. Yeah, yeah, it's just
amazing. And there are so many misconceptions about that as well, which is
why I found it personally interesting because you'll see the picture and then you know,
you'll see it on Facebook, and then you read through the comments and
it's just almost I don't want to say ignorance, but people obviously do not
know, like what was going on and don't know the full story. They
just see that and then they you know, they have that preconceived notion.
It's just such an interesting story. It is, well you'll see in her
memoir, which we'll talk about, but with all of like you know,
the racism and the culture of the time that I think a lot of people
back in the day I mean even less now probably, but back in that
time, you know, having a woman in her situation, you know,
coming back into society, and then especially with the reminder that you can't erase
off your face for everyone to like judge you not only for your ink,
but for your history and the rumors. It's just I felt so bad for
her, and I shouldn't, you know, she was happy and she had
to live without the rest of her life, you know, absolutely well.
A lot of the misconceptions about the tattoo that she carries I think actually stem
from her memoir, which we'll quote later and explain. But the newer information
and the newer interpretations kind of conflict with what she said. As far as
what we know with the Mohave tribe, so it's really interesting to kind of
see what the culture of the time actually influenced in the memoir. Yeah,
exactly. I know Justin said in the past from when I worked with him,
like, you have to take consideration the author and their political viewpoints versus
you know, what they're trying to gain from it. And you know,
obviously for Stratton it was fame, but financial purposes as well, and it's
just I don't know, the whole Stratton situation will discuss a horrible taste in
my mouth. Well, and all of actually couldn't even write. So everything
that's in that memoir is a quotation or you know, dictation from her when
they were talking to write this book. And you can't even imagine the flowery
words that are used in Western writing, right, Yeah, it gets pretty
at times. As the kid, when I saw her face and my history
class, being in a religious class, you know, being raised in a
private school, Lutheran school, I probably had the same viewpoint of her as
a child that her society had of her, which is horrible to think about
and totally just made me flinch. All of them. So sorry, when
we're all young and we're still learning about the world. I mean, we're
all we're all naive to a certain extent, you know, because there's a
lot of misconceptions that I you know, when I was a kid too,
and I saw that and I would read like a little header and I'm like,
oh man, that's horrible, and then actually digging into it, I
was like, Wow, this is totally different than what a lot of people
think. Yeah, well, your perceptions are very much environmental, absolutely absolutely.
I just her as a whole person is just it's more than just a
couple paragraphs, like it's like probably a couple episodes worth of history. This
is going to be more than likely a three or even possibly a four part
episode. So you listeners, just be ready and we're going to get them
out week by week. We're going to keep you coming back from more because
there is a lot of information that we have to go over. And speaking
of which, do you ladies care if I go ahead and get us started?
Go ahead? Outstanding. In eighteen thirty seven or thirty nine, Olive
was born into the family of Mary Anne and Royce Oatman, who were practicing
Mormons. Olive was one of seven siblings. She had three sisters three brothers.
There were Lorenzo, Mary Anne, Charity Anne, Lucy Olive and then
Roland and Royce and Olive. Ann Oatman was roughly an eleven year old girl
in the summer of eighteen forty nine when her father, who happened to be
a former farmer and a store owner from New York, he decided to relocate
their family to the New Mexico Territory which is now Arizona. He was trying
to provide them with a better life, and he and his family had joined
a colony of Brewster wrighte Mormons. Is that right, Brewster Wright, That's
the way I heard it, all right, I'm taking it all right.
Well, they were planning to settle in the Yuma area, and it was
roughly fifty to ninety colonists, and that included the Oatman family. And they
gathered at Independence, Missouri in the spring of eighteen fifty and they organized a
wagon train under James Brewster, and on August tenth they went out to start
their journey and they took the Santa Fe trail. And it didn't take long
for a lot of confusion and conflict among the people to cause the group to
split. So eight of the wagons followed the Rio Grand Gila route, with
Royce Oatman heading the whole path. All right, he was blazing the path.
If people are unfamiliar with how a wagon train worked, something to kind
of watch. I guess. I fell in love with the eighteen eighty three
series of the prior version of Yellowstone from HBO. I think it is or
paramount. It's highly fascinating and they did a really good job with depicting the
kind of things that they were encounter on the wagon trails. So if you
want to see it visually, check it out. Definitely. I've personally never
seen it, but I hear it's pretty popular, so it's amazing. They
did a great job. Royce has a whole new objective at this point,
and he's determined to go to California, and he is leading his party and
he is forging this path with no mercy at all. They had long,
hard days there under the sun that he it's rough to rain out there.
He at one point had several of his oxen collapse from exhaustion, and the
members of his crew wanted to stop and rest, and oh man, he
said, we're going. So him and his family just kept on going and
he figured that all of his oxen and everything else. He's like, they're
going to die before we get to California, so we need to get as
far as we can. Now. The other version that is out there is
that Royce was frustrated with the constant fighting and he decided to go alone with
their wagon, which, in all honesty, if you think about it,
with all of the variables, it would have been pretty dumb and it really
would have been dangerous. You're basically asking to die. Yeah, that's exactly
right. And I mean he's traveling by himself. You got robbers, outlaws,
thieves, illness, rough terrain, food and water shortage, you got
weather elements, you have all kinds of stuff going on. Well, not
only like if their wagon breaks, what if one of their oxen or mules
side like have something wrong. I mean you're basically left, you know.
Does anybody played the organ trail exactly well? I played it. I very
rarely make it to Oregon, I'll be honest with you. I decided to
play that with my now husband for first Christmas together after many, like three
weeks of dating, and every single time I died, I took a shot.
And let's just say I ended up on the floor with two hangovers.
I couldn't get out of bed. Christmas is ruined. It's basically real life.
Doesn't terry like that's what always. It doesn't terry every single time.
You're justin window about that, right? Bad. Yeah, I'm a little
for the listeners. I'm a little rough today. So it was. It
was a long night and uh, not celebrating anything in particular. But my
favorite animal is me on a Saturday night, and that is not Oh my
gosh, you need a T shirt that you know what? Maybe I'll make
those and it's not a bad idea, all right, So I know you
look, i'd send you one for free. I'm gonna make you buy it,
all right. So the Oatman's had been traveling for almost a year when
it hits March of eighteen fifty one and the family was moving along the Gila
River and this later became known as the Oatman Flat. Nineteen Yavapaie came upon
them, and the Yavapaie wanted food, guns, whatever they could get off
of them, and Royce advised them that if he gave them these items,
he was putting his family at risk. So the Yavapaie got really really mad
about this, and they attacked him. They were eighty miles from fort Yuma,
and Olive watched as her mother, father, and brothers and sisters were
bludgeoned in the head with war clubs until they all died. Her and her
sister, mary Anne, who was seven, they were spared, and her
brother Lorenzo, who was fifteen, was left for dead but managed to escape
and did not die. So after the attack, Lorenzo woke up and he
found his parents in his sibling stead, but he saw no sign of Mary
Anne or Olive. And Lorenzo attempted this trek to find help, and he
eventually reached a settlement. You know, all his wounds got treated and he
ended up being okay, and Lorenzo rejoined the immigrant train, and three days
later he returned to the bodies of his family. In a detailed retelling which
was reprinted in newspapers over the decades, he said, we buried the bodies
of father, mother and babe in one common grave, and the men had
no way of digging proper graves because of the really rocky soil around there,
so they gathered these together and they formed a cairn over them and It has
been said that the remains were reburied several times and finally moved to the river
for reinterment, and this was by early Arizona colonizer Charles Posting. Lorenzo Oatman
became determined to never ever give up searching for his two sisters that were alive.
I heard a rumor, and I don't know if this is actually true
or not, but I remember hearing along the lines that Royce was getting worried
that his food storage was getting low, and he sent for help from the
fort up ahead. And when they were killed, people were coming back to
help with the burial, and then that person delivering the message like passed by
two. So it was just like one after another. They were doomed.
I've you know, it just felt so bad for these people. Yeah.
Yeah, there was actually a note that was pinned to a tree to warn
them of the Indian danger. Yeah, and I and the mother was pregnant
as well, wasn't she was so just all these little babies, you know,
Lorenzo and Olive were I believe the two oldest, so that's why you
know, they were so close. And then mary Anne was the third oldest,
and the rest are just super young children just butchered, yeah, which
isn't uncommon, oh exactly. And speaking of the family, why don't you
ladies give us a little bit more in depth knowledge on, you know,
the mom and dad and a little bit more of their background. There was
the father who was Royce. Mother her name was Marianne, just like the
sister that Olive was taken captive with. There was also Lucy Oatman who was
sixteen, Lorenzo who was fifteen in these were ages at the time of the
massacre, Olive who was fourteen, and Marianne who was seventeen. There were
all so four other miscellaneous siblings. Marianne was seven right, Yes, there
were also four other siblings that I didn't know about, and the unborn child
just so sad. Mister Open was a medium sized man. He was about
five foot in height, so I guess I had four inches on this poor
man. He had black hair, and he had a round face, and
he was in the prime of his life. He was forty one winters quote
and has scarcely begun to plow the first fur of age with his manly upon
his manly cheek. Apparently he was super manly at five feet tall, which
I think most people nowadays wouldn't think of that as very manly. He just
was very healthy. He was super happy. He was apparently pretty disposed to
look twenty six, which okay, so he was manly, but he looked
young. So this is very interesting and humorous. So he was just really,
I guess, in his vigor of life, trying to proceed with his
family and make good choices. He had a really good temperament. He had
no fear, seemed he was pretty exciting from the looks of it. He
just wanted to live his life, and he was an overall round rounded person,
somebody i'd want to meet, not necessarily date, because you know,
can't date a younger, shorter man than me. And him being from New
York too, he had an advantage because he was very well educated. Yeah.
I think in our notes we reference that he had a store in New
York, so he had a keen sense for business. Hm. So Marianne
Sperry, his wife, She was actually mostly known for being a homemaker and
keeping her husband happy and being an affectionate celebrat in their social accomplishments. And
also she had in her childhood come from wealthy parents. It was boasted that
she never merited a rebuke for any wrong. So it sounds like she was
just a really nice lady who was really attentive to her family and took great
pride in that nuclear unit. Yeah, and he kept his home and an
attraction, which as myself as being a wife, I'm doing a very poor
job at Mister Oatman had collected like a large sum of money and he was
trying to go south to replenish his merchantile establishment. And this is when the
banks began to fail at this period in history. In a few weeks he
found himself just several thousand dollars in debt, and he was disappointed, but
he was like, we can do this. It doesn't matter. So to
him, a reverse was the watchwood for a renewal of energy. And for
two or three years he had been in correspondence with relatives residing in the Cumberland
Valley in Pennsylvania, and in a few weeks he had disposed of the fragments
of a just shattered fortune. The guy had not nothing left the greatest possible
advantage to his creditors, which you know they wanted. It was resolved because
of an immediate removal to that valley. So in two months preparations were made,
and in three months, with a family of five kids, he arrived
there with his friends in the Cumberland Valley and he was trying to make a
permanent settlement there. So I'm going to read it quote real quick, and
it's from a captivity of the Oatman girls, and it said they had spent
but a few months in Pennsylvania, the place of their anticipated abode for life.
Mister Oatman found it and to him an unfit and unsuitable place, as
also an unpromising region in which to rear a family. He sighed again for
the wide, wild prairie lands of the West. There for one year they
supported with toil of head and hand. The father was an experienced school teacher
their growing family, so he probably had it in his ear that he was
going to go out west like everybody else and strike it rich again, you
know, wanting to support his family, and he had a baby on the
way. I think it reads like he has a bit of wander last two
right, Yeah, like he isn't satisfied because it feels like at the time
Pennsylvania was well established, so he wanted to find something new and exciting,
and he had big dreams where he you know, I'm sure at that time
rumors of gold were flying, so he probably had an earful out for that
too, definitely, And like if you look at his a lot of descriptions
of him when he was younger, that's one of the things they said.
He was just a very vigorous guy and like wanted to live and go do
all these things. And well educated. Yeah, extremely yeah, which was
rare for the time. You know. So after a back injury, he
was no longer able to work in the harsh Midwest winters, and he starts
looking towards more temperate climate in which he could more ablely support his family.
It was just absolute torture for him to work with his injury, to the
point where, like I said, he started contemplating moving his entire family somewhere
more healthy, more suitable to his health. That was a big thing back
at those times, especially with like tuberculosis, where they would move former climates
and all kinds of afflictions. I mean, they had all kinds of medical
ideas back then. But don't even get me started on that they were sending
everybody out west. But yeah, so they went in search of a better
climate there. It said something about, you know, with each winter that
would come. You know, I live in Minnesota for those who are just
listening, and I absolutely loath the winters here, like it's horrible. But
I don't know how it is in Pennsylvania when the winters come. I can't
imagine it being worse than what I have. But if it's winter in general,
it just sucks. So it says after receiving this injury to his back
and spine, he would put them in a place a rack of pain and
at times render a life of torture. I can't imagine having something that hurts
so bad that when every month of winter that feels like six seven months,
which in reality is like four. You know, you don't want to live
like that. Every day is just torture and hell. So circulars in eighteen
forty nine were promoting a new settlement in the New Mexican territory at the mouth
of the Rio Colorado and the Gala Rivers. So they were being dispersed through
the northern and western territories of Illinois, and they caught the attention of Royce.
So back in the day obviously, they didn't have internet, they didn't
have fast communications, so people would put out flyers, ads and newspapers and
pass them out, and that's what drew thousands of people to go to the
West. That's how these dreams and ambitions and most of the people who live
there now got there. Which seems silly to reiterate, but you know,
you have to kind of. Yeah. So in August ninth, eighteen fifty
is when the family took up with the wagon train that was led by James
Brewster, and he was a member of the Church of Latter day Saints,
and Brewster was going to lead the Brewster Rights to California to what he claimed
was an intended place of gathering for Mormons. I didn't even know this guy
existed for the Mormons, which maybe I'm just uneducated in the Mormon department,
but I had no idea he was even around. His name doesn't sound familiar
at all to me. I didn't. Yeah, he was probably one,
just a follower of the church. I guess that had organized probably a wagon
train. He probably wasn't like a prominent member or anything like that. Yeah,
I guess I'm just more familiar with like the Utah Mormons. Yeah,
but I guess go for it whatever makes shappy. Yeah, well, there
were quite a bit of families going out towards Utah. Yeah, I heard
that there was about fifty to even one hundred plus. So the number varies
obviously with history unless there's something physically saved in form, it all varies,
and you can't be one hundred percent sure. But I've read anywhere from fifty
to one hundred. Oh wow. This wagon train did depart Independence, Missouri
with somewhere between eighty five to ninety three people, So I mean it wasn't
a small wagon train by any means either, So there were a lot of
people involved in that. Yeah, And it looks like in eighteen fifty,
approximately the second week of travel, the wagon trail had its first encounter with
the natives, and they were on the bank of the Arkansas River. I'm
gonna pronounce his name, so correct me if I'm wrong, Cammy. But
a mister Mutrie was checking in the livestock after worship and overheard natives singing and
dancing, and that he thought they were Comanchee, and so the wagoneer fled,
and when he saw the native pointing a gun at him from behind a
tree, which obviously that would give you quite a fright. So the natives
professed good intentions and they were allowed into camp, and they seemed to be
enjoying themselves, but they left abruptly after a terse interaction, which I'm guessing
at the time from reading food was kind of hard to come by, so
maybe he was trying to get food for his family. But if you give
one food, then the rest of the tribe's gonna follow, I'm assuming,
Oh yeah, for sure. And I mean they were actually making good time.
They were traveling. I believe it said one hundred miles every week.
Oh wow. So I mean they were really pushing on. When you got
oxen or horse, that's travel, that's all how to travel in a wagon
train. And it seems like they were there were no evil designs to interact
with each other. They were just kind of trying to be friendly as possible
because I'm guessing each party had their own negative experience with, you know,
each other. So it looks like the Indians were kind of approaching into camp
asking for the privilege, you know, to congregate with each other. Indians
came into the camp, of course, but it looks like they were just
kind of making ready to their arrows, and it made people super uncomfortable.
It's so in August of eighteen fifty, they had traveled like five hundred miles
by this point, and they reached Morro New Mexico, and this is when
they kind of were able to take a little bit of a break. And
from the book Captivity of the Oatman Girls, here's the quote that was said,
during this time, nothing of special interest occurred to break the almost painful
monotony of our way or ruffle the quiet of our sociall save an occasional family
jar, the frequent crossing of pointed opinions, and now and then prophecies of
engines ahead, which is a direct quote. Trust me, I hate that
word. But when they came into the Mexican settlements, their stores of meats
was well exhausted, so they didn't have anything, and they were gratefully surprised
to find that at every stopping place they had a lot of mutton in the
market and it was fresh and it was really good quality. They were really
lucky to get their hands on those good supplies, all right, Oh,
absolutely they were. It was kind of nice because this was kind of like
a breaking point for them because they had been traveling along and hard and they
finally found this spot where it's like, man, this is all right.
You know, so this is kind of like fast food for the pianet.
They're gonna travel at travel until they're about dead and then the next hey,
we get some meat. This this kind of would explain why they ended up
getting killed and h. On that note, I think we are going to
end part one because when we get into part two and obviously part three,
like I said, that's going to be a long series and it's a very
in depth, but it's very interesting. I think now I suppose would be
a great stopping point. What do you ladies think that works for me?
Yeah? I think yeah, because I mean they're here, they're replenishing themselves,
and that's what we're gonna do before we do part two. Nice transition.
Justin well, hey, you know, not my first road on the
side, right, Yeah, And I do a minute. I do like
detailing. When we first started the episode in Justin was kind of detailing their
life briefly, kind of up until everybody died night all right, next and
a little bit more next time. I know, I kind of, I
don't, and I don't and