Synopses & Reviews
In 1851 Olive Oatman was a thirteen-year old pioneer traveling west toward Zion, with her Mormon family. Within a decade, she was a white Indian with a chin tattoo, caught between cultures.
The Blue Tattoo tells the harrowing story of this forgotten heroine of frontier America. Orphaned when her family was brutally killed by Yavapai Indians, Oatman lived as a slave to her captors 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 Oatmanand#8217;s friends and relatives, The Blue Tattoo is the first book to examine her life from her childhood in Illinoisand#8212;including the massacre, her captivity, and her return to white societyand#8212;to her later years as a wealthy bankerand#8217;s wife in Texas.
Oatmanand#8217;s story has since become legend, inspiring artworks, fiction, film, radio plays, and even an episode of Death Valley Days starring Ronald Reagan. Its themes, from the perils of religious utopianism to the permeable border between civilization and savagery, are deeply rooted in the American psyche. Oatmanand#8217;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.
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Review
and#8220;At a time when western historians have rediscovered the borderlands to great effect,
Chiricahua and Janos presents a valuable new framework for thinking about Spanish-Indian relations in the American Southwest. It is a substantial contribution to the fields of Borderlands and Native American history.and#8221;and#8212;Karl Jacoby, author of
Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of Historyand#160;
Review
“The story this book has to tell will prove important and compelling.
Chiricahua and Janos reflects trends in a burgeoning historiography of the Spanish-Indian borderlands, especially with its scholarly attention to Indian communities as independent political actors in larger narratives of imperial, national, and international expansion and conflict.”—Juliana Barr, author of
Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands Karl Jacoby
Review
"Blyth's argument, as well as his narrative and use of traditional and non-traditional sources, is impressive and provides a framework for understanding the permeating role of violence in two borderlands communities."and#8212;Brandon Jett, Southwestern American Literature
Review
"Chiricahua and Janos represents a valuable addition to the growing literature examining violence in zones of intercultural contact, both in the Americas and around the globe."and#8212;Paul Conrad, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"Built on solid archival research and making good use early on of Chiricahua oral tradition, Chiricahua and Janos adds to the growing body of United Statesand#8211;Mexico border lands studies focused on indigenous autonomy of action."and#8212;Jesand#250;s F. De La Teja, Hispanic American Historical Review
Review
"This is an intriguing and welcome addition to the literature on the conflict between Apaches, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans."and#8212;Robert K. Watt, Journal of Arizona History
Review
"Thoroughly researched and clearly and concisely written. . . . This book is recommended for anyone, even the more casual reader, interested in the earlier frontier history of the Greater Southwest."and#8212;Dennis Reinhartz, Terrae Incognitae
Review
"A thesis driven book backed by detailed narratives."and#8212;Wayne E. Lee, American Historical Review
Review
and#8220;[An] example of the violent peace that cultural differences and local goals can produce.and#8221;and#8212;Robert C. Galgano, The Journal of American History
Review
and#8220;This inaugural contribution to a new borderlands and transcultural series from the University of Nebraska Press provides a compelling microhistory while addressing big-picture questions about the region.and#8221;and#8212;Carla Gerona, Western Historical Quarterly
Review
and#8220;This revisionist approach is applicable to border areas around the world, as well as any place where violence is endemic.and#8221;and#8212;J. A. Stuntz, Choice
Review
"This book deserves a close read and a place on every Arizona historian's bookshelf."and#8212;Victoria Smith, Journal of Arizona History
Synopsis
Borderlands violence, so explosive in our own time, has deep roots in history. Lance R. Blythand#8217;s study of Chiricahua Apaches and the presidio of Janos in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands reveals how no single entity had a monopoly on coercion, and how violence became the primary means by which relations were established, maintained, or altered both within and between communities.
and#160;and#160;For more than two centuries, violence was at the center of the relationships by which Janos and Chiricahua formed their communities. Violence created families by turning boys into men through campaigns and raids, which ultimately led to marriage and also determined the provisioning and security of these families; acts of revenge and retaliation similarly governed their attempts to secure themselves even as trade and exchange continued sporadically. This revisionist work reveals how during the Spanish, Mexican, and American eras, elements of both conflict and accommodation constituted these two communities, which previous historians have often treated as separate and antagonistic. By showing not only the negative aspects of violence but also its potentially positive outcomes, Chiricahua and Janos helps us to understand violence not only in the southwestern borderlands but in borderland regions generally around the world.
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Synopsis
From 1886 to 1913, hundreds of Chiricahua Apache men, women, and children lived and died as prisoners of war in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma. Their names, faces, and lives have long been forgotten by history, and for nearly one hundred years these individuals have been nothing more than statistics in the history of the United Statesand#8217; tumultuous war against the Chiricahua Apache.
Based on extensive archival research, From Fort Marion to Fort Sill offers long-overdue documentation of the lives and fate of many of these people. This outstanding reference work provides individual biographies for hundreds of the Chiricahua Apache prisoners of war, including those originally classified as POWs in 1886, infants who lived only a few days, children removed from families and sent to Indian boarding schools, and second-generation POWs who lived well into the twenty-first century. Their biographies are often poignant and revealing, and more than 60 previously unpublished photographs give a further glimpse of their humanity.
This masterful documentary work, based on the unpublished research notes of former Fort Sill historian Gillett Griswold, at last brings to light the lives and experiences of hundreds of Chiricahua Apaches whose story has gone untold for too long.
About the Author
Margot Mifflin is an author and journalist who writes about women, art, and contemporary culture. The author of Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo, she has written for many publications, including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, the Believer, and Salon.com. Mifflin is an assistant professor in the English Department of Lehman College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and directs the Arts and Culture program at CUNYand#8217;s Graduate School of Journalism, where she also teaches.and#160;