MOHAVE COUNTY, ARIZONA
INDIAN RAIDS AND OUTRAGES.
The Oatman Massacre—Capture Of Olive And Mary Ann Oatman—Death Of Mary Ann Oatman—Efforts Of Lorenzo Oatman And Henry Grinnell To Rescue Oatman Girls
Rescue Of Olive Oatman—Maricopas Attacked By Yumas And Mohaves—Death Of Chief Francisco—Death Of Olive Oatman.
During this time many outrages were committed by the Indians upon those emigrating into California, upon what is now Arizona soil, the most notable of which is known as the Oatman Massacre, which occurred at what is now known as "Oatman Flat," about a hundred miles east of Yuma. Royce Oatman with his wife and seven children, left Independence, Missouri, with a company of some fifty persons, in August 1850. Part of the company remained in Tucson, and the rest at the Pima Villages. Oatman left the latter place with his family in February, 1851, to make the trip alone down the Gila and into California. They were short of provisions and their cattle were in bad shape, consequently their progress was very slow. A man by the name of John Le Count who had passed over the road several times, told them that he had encountered no Indians, and considered the road safe, which probably was the reason why Royce Oatman undertook this perilous journey alone. The party encountered no Indians until after passing what is now Gila Bend, and reaching the place now known as Oatman Flat. Here a party of Indians, nineteen in number, armed with clubs, bows and arrows, came into their camp, and demanded food. Oatman protested, saying that he would be robbing and starving his children if he gave the Indians food, but he finally gave them some bread. They asked for more, which he steadily refused. Retiring a short distance, they held a brief consultation, and then, with eavage yells, set upon their victims. All of the Oatman party were killed with the exception of two daughters, Olive, aged 16, and Mary Ann, aged 10, and a son, Lorenzo, aged 14. The latter, being taken for dead by the savages, was thrown over an embankment twenty feet deep, and left for dead. Finally regaining consciousness, he found his way back to the Pima Villages and there joined an expedition into California. Olive and Mary Ann were held by their captors, the Tonto Apaches, for something over a year, when they were sold to the Mohaves. The price paid for them is said to have been two horses, a blanket or two, some vegetables and some beans. The youngest girl died while a captive among the Mohaves, and Olive remained with them in captivity for about five years.
In the meantime her brother, Lorenzo, using every means at his command, was endeavoring to rescue his sisters from their terrible fate. In October, 1854, he went to Los Angeles, intent upon this object. He joined several parties of prospectors to search for gold beyond the Colorado, and one of the parties penetrated the country bordering on Bill Williams' Fork in
1855, without getting any trace of the captive girls. In December of that year he searched through Southern California for them, but with no success. He then tried advertising in the newspapers, and in this way succeeded in arousing public sympathy, and learning that his sister, Olive, was reported to be a captive among the Mohaves, he preferred a petition to Governor Johnson of California, for men and means to recover her, which was signed by many people of Los Angeles County. The Governor replied that he had no authority to grant the request, and referred him to the Indian Department. He prepared a memorial to the Indian Department, and forwarded it in the month of February, 1856.
During this time a humanitarian was at work in his behalf and in that of his sisters. There came to Fort Yuma in 1853, one Henry Grinnell, a nephew of Henry Grinnell, the philanthropist who fitted out the Advance and Rescue for De Haven's search for Sir John Franklin's party in the Arctic Sea. Grinnell was an humble carpenter, but took a lively interest in the fate of the Oatman girls, and questioned emigrants and Indians alike for tidings of them. One night, in January, 1856, a friendly Indian, by name Francisco, came to him and asked him: "Carpenter, what is this you say so much about two Americans among the Indians?" Grinnell informed him that the Americans knew of two white girls who were captive among the Indians, and that unless they were surrendered, the whites would certainly make war upon the tribe. Pretending to read from a copy of the Los Angeles Star, in which Lorenzo had made his first appeal for assistance, and translating as he read, he told Francisco that a large army was being prepared that would annihilate the Mohaves and all tribes that assisted them in concealing the captives. Francisco was much impressed. He remained in Grinnell's tent that night and the next morning Grinnell took him to Colonel Burke, the commander of the fort. Francisco said: "You give me four blankets and some beads, and I will bring her in just twenty days, when the sun is there," indicating about four o'clock in the afternoon. Colonel Burke thought it some trickery on the part of the savage, but Grinnell told Burke to give him the goods and charge them to him. The goods were furnished and Francisco departed.
The arrival of Francisco with his message to the Mohaves created no little consternation in their camp, and they ordered Francisco to leave and not to return under penalty of torture, but the Indian, after much persuasion and many powwows, succeeded in his mission. On the twentieth day, Grinnell, who, in the meantime, had been made the object of many jests by his comrades who believed that Francisco had cleverly worked upon his sympathies to the extent of the goods furnished him, was rewarded for his patience and faith in the Indian. At noon three Yumas appeared, and announced that Francisco was coming. "Is the girl with him?" asked Grinnell, eagerly. "Francisco will come when the sun is there," replied the Indians, indicating the point that Francisco had indicated, and no more satisfaction could be had from them. As the hour indicated approached, Grinnell, watching with strained eyes, caught sight of three Indian men and two women approaching the ferry on the opposite side of the river. "They have come," he cried, "the captive girl is here." Olive, not wishing to appear in public in her scanty bark dress, was quickly furnished with clothing by an officer's wife, and soon presented to the commander amid wild enthusiasm. Men cheered, cannon boomed, and the shrill whoops of the Yumas joined in the general acclamation of joy.
Two days after sending his memorial to the Indian Department, Lorenzo Oatman saw in the Los Angeles Star a brief statement of Olive's recovery. Hastening to the editor he was told the report was reliable, as it had been based upon a letter from Colonel Burke. A friend furnished him with transportation and accompanied him to Fort Yuma, which place he reached after ten days' riding across the Colorado desert. The brother and sister were united and clasped in a fond embrace. Strong men wept, but their tears brought to them no dishonor. Brother and sister returned to Los Angeles, and went thence to southern Oregon to live with an uncle who had heard of their trials, and invited them to share his home. Afterwards they attended school in Santa Clara Valley in California, and, in 1858, removed to New York. Francisco, the Indian, being held in high esteem by the whites, was made chief of their tribe by the Yumas. He was known thereafter as El Sol Francisco, was arrogant in his new station, but was always friendly thereafter with the whites.
In 1857, the Yumas and Mohaves organized a joint expedition against the Maricopas. They raised a large band and attacked the Maricopa villages about the first of September. They burned some houses, and killed some women and children, which was speedily avenged. The Pimas and Maricopas were reinforced by the Papagoes until their numbers were equal to those of the invaders. At Maricopa Wells, about four miles west of the present station of Maricopa, on the Southern Pacific, they fought a great battle, in which the Yumas were defeated with the loss of over two hundred warriors. Out of the Yuma warriors only three returned alive. Francisco fell in this fight, killed, it is said, by his own men who thought he had brought disaster upon them by defending the whites.
Olive Oatman, it is said, died in an insane asylum in New York before or during the year 1877.
History of Arizona Volume 1 By Thomas Edwin Farish
MASSACRE OF THE OATMAN FAMILY.
In the drama of blood that cursed Arizona when the Apache ruled supreme, and when the Territory was about to enter the Union, a subdivision as now established, one of the most ghastly of the many massacres for which the unmerciful Indian was responsible was that of the slaughter of James Oatman and family while en route to California from Texas via the Butterfield stage route that then traversed Southern Arizona.
This wanton murder of a fine family occurred in 1861 at a point midway between what is now Phoenix, the capital of Arizona, and Yuma, on the Colorado river. The spot where the lives of fourteen human beings were wiped out is to this day known as Oatman Flat. This route of travel was the only highway taken by pilgrims to the Pacific Coast in that era, for in the northern portion of Arizona there was no regular or established line, neither were there any wagon roads for vehicles, horsemen being the only travelers, as a rule. As a result of this favorable condition, the old Butterfield stage route was the means usually taken to reach the Coast, and all parties who carried house-hold goods naturally selected it, and particularly so in the winter months. Officially speaking, Arizona at this time was not created, and there were practically no white men living north of the Gila and Salt rivers. Consequently Tucson was the military seat of Arizona, or that zone bordering close to it, and hither all immi-gration was directed, coming or going.
It was but a short time after this route had been opened that thousands of people were swarming across it, and this fact became known to the Apaches in the eastern as well as the western part of Arizona. Many travelers were picked off, and it soon became necessary to escort mail stages by soldiers drawn from Crittenden on the east and Yuma on the west. Several small parties, in numbers of from three to six, were massacred, and this served as a warning for others to combine at Tucson and travel as a unit. By this method the Indians were checked and travel progressed less interruptedly. James Oatman, however, with his family, ventured unattended, thinking that in keeping in close touch with caravans within a few hours ahead of him he would be safe. He made the venture and lost. He had camped for the night in a flat but a few hundred yards off the main road; the ground being coated with a soft growth of green grass. As the preparations were made to go into camp for the night, two men who accompanied him were sent out in different direc-tions to gather wood. This left in the party himself, his wife, his brother-in-law, his sister-in-law, two daughters—Olive, aged seven, and Mollie, aged five and one-half years—his son, aged nine years, and five others, males.
There were no eye witnesses of the tragedy that hurled these people into eternity. The struggle must have been a terrific one to the end, however. One of the men who went in search of wood returned to the camp and staid until he hailed the stage that passed during the night. The other man, who was likewise engaged, traveled to the nearest station and gave the alarm. When the military arrived, three were missing. They were the two young daughters and the son. Every one of the dead was frightfully mutilated. The wagons were burned and the animals taken. The scene, in short, was one of horror, and the only con-soling evidence of the struggle was the bodies of eighteen dead Indians. One of the men sent in search of fuel stated afterward that he saw the Indians ad-vancing on the camp and that they numbered at least three hundred, and were moving on at a rapid rate, some on foot and others mounted. Three days passed before the military and the civilians reached the scene. The bodies were buried near where they fell. The fate of this family was flashed to both the East and the West, and when the sad story became known it aroused new hatred for the Apaches. To secure the captive children was the momentous problem that con-fronted the men who had come on their mission of rescue. Couriers were dispatched to Yuma and to Colonel Crittenden, in command of the military near Tucson. Both these wings got into action, and with volunteers from civil life several detachments were in the field in a few days.
In the meantime the eastern States were aware of the sad ending of this party and the plight of the cap-tive girls and the boy. Mr. Oatman had at one time been a minister of the Gospel, while his wife had also figured prominently in missionary work, and especially so among the Indians. Soon the church took up the work of rescue, and in all the entire nation, de-nominational as well as official, was at fever heat to effect the saving of the captives and the punishment of the murderers. In one of the rescue columns was one of the men of the Oatman party, and in three days after it got into the field the boy was found about twelve miles distant wandering on the desert, in a demented condition. He was sent to Tucson, carefully nursed, but passed away in a few weeks, without regaining his mental faculties. This incident incensed the white people there only the more, and in their frenzy to wipe out the Apaches eight men enlisted in the service of the nation with the explicit understanding that they be sent to hunt the Indians and effect the rescue of the two girls. These men were filled with the spirit of revenge, but nevertheless they were patriots of the purest type. In that day there were less than a score of unemployed Americans in Tucson, and this will give some idea of the difference between those times and these of the frenzied era we are living in at present, when philanthropy is cast aside to make way for "every-thing in sight." After nearly three weeks had passed, one of the military columns returned to Yuma and had in their escort the youngest girl, Mollie. She had not been rescued, but was found about three miles distant from the rancheria of the Indians, wandering along the banks of the Colorado River with a bunch of tule grass in her hand, like poor, crazed Ophelia of old. At the approach of the rescue party she became alarmed and fled. With much difficulty she was captured and sent to the military post. She had been sent adrift by the Indians from their camp and left to wander, and later to die. She had lost her mind, and in her ramblings no coherent statement could be secured from her. Her relatives were living in Waco, Texas, and it was deemed advisable to send her to them via Tucson. At the lat-ter place she was placed under medical care, but the shock of her capture had shattered her young and deli-cate intellect, and after a few months at her old home in the Lone Star State she also passed away.
When the news reached Southern Arizona that an-other Oatman victim had fallen, the military were roundly and unmercifully censured for not destroying the Indians when their camp was in sight, and when such a favorable opportunity was offered for the con-summation of this work at the time when Mollie Oat-man was rescued. But the brains of the military were working in another avenue—that of the rescue of the eldest daughter, Olive. The spirit of the soldier was to exterminate the Indians, but the men in command were looking ahead to save the last victim, if possible, and later to deal the final blow. The missionary ele-ment by this time had also taken a prominent hand in the work, and they had their representative en route. That was the policy of the church, a policy, in short, to vacillate—sugar coat the Indian—and for the handi-capping of justice that the frontier was blessed with in that day—the bullet—the church would supercede it with a parson on his knees and his head bent heaven-ward. By this time the entire missionary machinery of the East was working, and at the same time the military genius,, and particularly that element versed in frontier warfare and knowledge of the Indian nature, was fighting them at every mark in the road. This policy checked every move made, and soon a year passed, with the girl victim still in captivity. The civil-ians became desperate, and at one time it was the intention to call for general volunteers and petition Presi-dent Lincoln for assistance. Colonel Crittenden be-came exasperated and threatened to resign from the army, but upon the promise that his Indian policy would not be discountenanced in the future, he re-mained and again worked independently. With the assistance of two civilians, veterans of the Mexican War, a plan was outlined to effect the rescue of the girl. A former soldier of the Mexican army had de-generated into a "squaw man" of the Chimevuavis tribe on the Colorado River, and through him it was determined to trace Olive Oatman, whether dead or alive, the medium to be the two veterans of the Mexi-can War. The military was to co-operate, and with this thread to solve the problem, the two ex-soldiers "donned" the apparel, so to speak, of the "squaw man." The play was without a hitch, and in a few months, or nearly eighteen months after the Oatman massacre, the curtain was rung down on the last act of the fright-ful drama. The Indians were betrayed by the three men who had presumably been their friends, Olive was rescued, and three of the chiefs were slaughtered in cold blood, along with thirty-two of the tribe.
The poor girl had been so long in captivity and had become so accustomed to Indian manners and mode of living, that the problem of winning her back to civili-zation was a delicate task, .and discretion had to be exercised to this end, so firmly molded in her young mind had become the life she had led. But in a short time she responded, and when she, too, reached Tucson, she had fully recovered, and with an unimpaired intel-lect. At Prescott the beginning of the end of another tragedy that was to come in later years was in process of incubation. Olive Oatman was met by the repre-sentative of a missionary society, in whose custody the military, authorized by her distant relatives, she was placed. She was taken to Texas and resided with her relatives for some years. When the Oatman massacre passed into history, and shortly after Olive had reached the age of thirteen years, again there appeared on the scene this missionary disciple and asked for the hand of this young and tender girl in marriage, which was readily consented to by her people. She was but a child. After her marriage she was taken to New Eng-land, and presumably her union was approved of by the church, from the fact of the prominence of her husband in the rescue work he was identified with in Arizona. But the man had a black heart. He traveled from pillar to post with his young bride; in short, she was the drawing card that filled his pulpit on each and every occasion. It became a notorious proceeding, and finally the wife rebelled at the elastic manner in which she was being handled and desired to be relieved of any further publicity in either the press or the pulpit. Again did the church come into the work of rescue, and after the eastern and northern fields had been plucked of all possible advantages, the couple left for the South, arriving at Nashville, Tennessee. Here they led for a few months a secluded life, and here also was the final chapter in the woman's life enacted. She was stricken with fever, and in a short period there-after passed away from this earth that she had known for only eighteen years. What became of the man no one cares to know
The white conquest of Arizona: history of the pioneers By Orick Jackson
