The Untold Truth Of Olive Oatman

After surviving the massacre, the time of servitude with the Yavapai, and being welcomed to Mohave life, Mary Ann Oatman (and everyone else in the tribe) was faced with an equally serious issue: starvation.

The 1855 harvest was especially poor for the Mohave, according to "The Blue Tattoo." Everyone in the tribe was reduced to foraging and parceling out increasingly meager reserves to make it through the difficult times. Even so, numerous people in the village died, including children. Mary Ann herself eventually realized that she, too, was growing close to death. She eventually died of malnutrition. At that point, Olive believed that she was the last member of her family alive. In "Captivity of the Oatman Girls," she wails that Mary Ann was "the last of our family dead, and all of them by tortures inflicted by Indian savages."

However, other accounts maintain that Mary Ann was mourned not only by her biological sister but by other members of the tribe, too. Aespaneo, the wife of Espianole, began grieving for Mary Ann alongside Olive, per "The Blue Tattoo." Both she and Topeka comforted the older girl as well and ensured that Mary Ann was properly buried. What's more, Aespaneo is credited with saving Olive's life, feeding her from a cache of cornmeal intended for future use before the older Oatman girl suffered the same fate as Mary Ann.

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