Olive Oatman and the Tattoo That Marked a Life Between Cultures
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1851, Olive Oatman was thirteen years old and traveling west with her Mormon family during the era of westward expansion. Along the way, her family was attacked, and Olive and her younger sister were taken captive.
For years, Olive lived among Native American tribes of the Southwest, including time with the Mojave, where she received a traditional chin tattoo that would later make her instantly recognizable. When she eventually returned to white society, she carried with her a story that unsettled the tidy narratives of the American frontier.
Bob Boze Bell of True West magazine shares the life of Olive Oatman, a figure caught between cultures during one of the most turbulent periods in American history.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:13.9 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:17.9 | In 1851, Olive Oatman was a 13-year-old pioneer |
| 0:22.4 | traveling West with her Mormon family. Within a decade, |
| 0:26.8 | she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo |
| 0:29.6 | caught between cultures. Here to tell |
| 0:32.7 | the story is the executive editor of True West |
| 0:35.8 | magazine, Bob Bose Bell. |
| 0:38.5 | Let's take a listen. |
| 0:42.2 | I need to start this with a confession and a disclaimer. |
| 0:46.4 | Some of the things I'm about to tell you are going to be very hard to believe, okay? |
| 0:52.3 | And I must say that I had a hard time believing much of this research myself, but here |
| 0:58.5 | we go. |
| 0:59.3 | This is a tragic tale that all started with a bold and crazy philosophy. |
| 1:04.9 | In 1848, a young Latter-day Saints excommunicated prophet made a bold prediction that would impact a beautiful young girl named Ollie Boltman. |
| 1:17.6 | James Collins Brewster was 24 years old and he came up with this prophecy and that was that there was this place in the west, which he called Land of Bishan, |
| 1:29.6 | and it was going to be the Edenesque place that they would live happily ever after. |
| 1:36.5 | Here's a quote from him, |
| 1:38.1 | Fear not, for I am with you, I will bring your people from the east and gather you in the west. |
| 1:43.7 | The wilderness and the wasteland will fall away and the desert will rejoice and blossom |
| 1:49.6 | as the rose. |
... |
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