Erin H. Turner - It Happened in the Old West: Remarkable Events that Shaped History

It Happened In the West Series

It Happened in the Old West

Remarkable Events That Shaped History

Edited by Erin H. Turner

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ISBN 978-1-4930-2830-6

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Contents

Introduction

These are the stories of what happened in the West as the trickle, then flood, of Easterners and immigrants first began to flow into the plains, deserts, and mountains between the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi River and, finally, far north into the Last Frontier. While some events would have happened regardless of who was thereearthquakes, storms, droughts, and other natural disastersit was because of this influx of humanity that those events were recorded and have become part of Americas history.

The remaining balance of these events happened precisely as a result of these newcomers, and their stories go beyond the archetypal cowboy-versus-Indian battles, gold rushes, saloon shootouts, and stagecoach holdups. Many historians have noted that the communities that formed in this area during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often were more ethnically diverse than many large cities are today. Someone walking the streets of small towns in the Old West likely would have heard as much German, French, or Chinese spoken as English, and witnessed styles of dress ranging from chaps and cowboy boots, fancy dresses and fine suits, and buffalo robes and ornate headdresses to wooden clogs and lederhosen, silk kimonos and wide-brimmed bamboo hats, saris, and burkas.

The merging of these individuals with different religions, tongues, and economic backgrounds understandably created both tension andfor the less short-sightedopportunities. While Native Americans often became victims of this westward expansion, otherssuch as newly freed slaves, immigrants, and Easterners champing at the bit for a stake to claim as their ownshaped the story and landscape of the West with their acts of courage, ingenuity, brazenness, and impudence.

Amid tales of loss and horror are accounts of survival and success. And among the countless adventurers who found the lure of wide-open spaces and untapped resources to be as strong as the Sirens song to Odysseus, many found the determination to thrive in the West. And thrive they dideven better, for what they lacked in resources they made up in resourcefulness, becoming inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, activists, explorers, and more. To them all we owe our gratitude for creating and recording this history as it happened in the Old West.

Arizona

The Ordeal of the Oatman Girls

1851

Royce Oatman must have been a bit uneasy on this March day in 1851. After all, he, his wife Mary Ann, and their seven children had left their farm in northern Illinois far behind them. After months of torturous travel, they had reached the hostile Indian territory of the Southwest, spurred on by the dream of building a utopian community on the banks of the Colorado River.

The Oatmans had left Independence, Missouri, in the summer of 1850, as part of a train of twenty wagons, fifty people, and a herd of cattle. At the direction of the Mormon leader James Brewster, the party planned to establish a New Zion near what is now the border between California and Arizona.

The Oatmans eventually left the wagon train along with two other families, the Wilders and the Kellys. For almost a month, they all lingered at a friendly Pima Indian village on the Gila River, northwest of Tucson. Now, Oatman was anxious to move onso anxious that he chose to begin the last leg of this difficult journey without the Wilders and the Kellys. He was apprehensive about this decision to go it alone.

On March 19, as the Oatman wagons creaked along the Gila River about eighty miles east of its confluence with the Colorado, they met a small party of Yavapai Indians who asked for tobacco and bread. Although the Oatmans had little to spare, Royce complied. But the Indians demanded even more food. Afraid he would not be able to feed his family, Oatman refused.

Instantly, the Yavapai attacked the wagon train and killed everyone except fifteen-year-old Lorenzo, who was left for dead; his fourteen-year-old sister Olive; and a younger sister, Mary Ann. The two terrified girls were taken captive.

At the Yavapai village, the girls were treated roughly by the Indian women and put to work as slaves. Lorenzo was rescued by passing emigrants and taken to Fort Yuma, California, where he recovered from his wounds. Eventually, he gravitated to San Francisco. He worked ceaselessly to free his sisters from the Indians.

Sometime in early 1852, the Yavapai sold Olive and Mary Ann to a party of Mojave Indians, who lived about 150 miles up the Colorado River from Fort Yuma. The Mojaves treated the frightened girls with more kindness than the Yavapai. Olive later recalled:

We were conducted immediately to the home of the chief, and welcomed with the staring eyes of collecting groups and an occasional smile from the members of the chiefs family, who gave the warmest expressions of joy.... The chiefs house was a beautiful but small elevation crowning the river bank, from which the eye could sweep a large section of the valley and survey the entire village, a portion of which lined each bank of the stream.

Even though life was easier with the Mojaves, Olive and Mary Ann still dreamed of being free again. After months of captivity, Mary Ann died of malnutrition. Olive was fully adopted into the tribe, even having her face tattooed in the traditional manner of Mojave women.

In 1855, Henry Grinnell, a civilian employee at Fort Yuma, learned that the Mojaves had a white woman living in their village. He approached Lieutenant Colonel Martin Burke, the commandant of the fort, with a plan to rescue Olive. Grinnell suggested that a Yuma Indian named Francisco, who was friendly with the Mojaves, should go to their village and attempt to ransom the girl. On January 27, 1856, Burke wrote the following letter, which Francisco carried on his mission:

Francisco, Yuma Indian, bearer of this, goes to the Mohave Nation to obtain a white woman there, named Olivia [sic]. It is desirable that she should come to this post, or send her reasons why she does not wish to come.