The Blue Tattoo

2019 Tucson Weekly "40 Essential Arizona Books" pick
2014 One Book Yuma selection
2010 Best of the Best from the University Presses (ALA) selection
2010 Caroline Bancroft History Prize Finalist
2009 Southwest Book of the Year

"The Blue Tattoo is well written and well researched; it re-opens the story of white women and men going West and Native people trying to survive these travels."—June Namias, Pacific Historical Review

In 1851, Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year-old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was caught between cultures, living with the Mohave and assimilated into their culture. The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was killed by who were believed to be members of a Western Yavapai tribe during what became known as the “Oatman Massacre,” Oatman was enslaved for a year before being traded to the Mohave, who tattooed her face and raised her as their own. She was fully assimilated and perfectly happy when, at nineteen, she was ransomed back to white society. She became an instant celebrity, but the price of fame was high and the pain of her ruptured childhood lasted a lifetime.

Based on historical records, including letters and diaries of Oatman’s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinois—including the massacre, her captivity, and her return—to her later years as a wealthy banker’s wife in Texas.

Oatman’s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan.

Oatman’s blue tattoo was a cultural symbol that evoked both the imprint of her Mohave past and the lingering scars of Westward Expansion. It also served as a reminder of her deepest secret, fully explored here for the first time: she never wanted to go home.

• ISBN-13: 978-0-8032-3517-5
• Genre: History
• Format: Paperback
• Trim: 5 1/2" x 8 11/16"
• Page count: 288 pages
• Published by Bison Books in 2011
• Written by Margot Mifflin
• Audience: Adult