Oatman Massacre

Gazing outward from the lonely bluff above the Gila (hee-lah) River, watching a hawk riding the currents, and looking down the rock-clogged grade cut into the bluff, I couldn't help but think:  "What a lousy place to die."

Oatman Massacre Site

Just over a century and a half ago, the Roys Oatmans, one of a number of Mormon dissident families, travelled through here enroute from their Illinois digs to a new home in the perennial "promised land" of California.  What I see here today--virtually unchanged from what their eyes saw--is the last thing Roys and his wife and three of their children saw that 21st day of March, 1851.

The crude grade cut into the bluff by the Morman Battalion is still there.  Getting out of my air-conditioned truck and stepping onto the hard ground, I slammed the door on the twenty-first century and stepped onto what was then northern Mexico.  Nary a rock has moved in those 150 years.  Your ears strain to hear the nothing noises of now-distant modern life.  Just the wind and the heat and the witness of those damned rocks--they're all here just as on that awful day so long ago.

Ruts Worn Into the Rock by Many Wagon Wheels Long
Ago

The Oatmans weren't naive--they'd been on the trail heading west for months in the company of their fellow travelers.  It had been difficult.  At every hard grade and sandy wash they had to unload their wagon to ease the load on their team, but they were anxious to get to where they were going.  Against the good advice of others who warned them not to go it alone from their last stop near present-day Gila Bend, Roys made the decision for his family to press on.  And Roys was the boss.
And so for maybe the fiftieth time since they left their home, they unloaded the wagon at the base of the bluff, gee-hawed their starving oxen forward, and hand-carried everything they owned up the hill.

Maybe they were just dog-tired, too weary to think straight when the Indians approached.  Or maybe they saw them too late.  They'd encountered Indians before, never had any real problems, so when they came seeking food, the Oatmans obliged them from their meager stores as best they could.  But it quickly went from cordial to pushy, the Indians becoming more demanding.  They began rummaging through their wagon, helping themselves to the precious supplies, and Roys got more threatening.  Finally the Indians withdrew, talking among themselves.  Maybe the Oatmans thought it was over--but it wasn't.

Suddenly the Indians rushed forward and attacked.  They beat Roys to death, and stabbed his pregnant wife repeatedly.  Their son Lorenzo was clubbed and tossed off the bluff, left for dead.  The three youngest children were murdered as well,  but little Mary Ann and fourteen-year-old Olive were captured and carried off by the Indians.  The bluff was quiet again.

The kidnappers took them miles away to their camp and the harsh fate of slavery.  Mary Ann, being the weaker of the two, died from starvation after a couple of years (it was a time of famine for the Indians as well).  Olive survived, and was traded to another tribe, who received her and treated her well, even as a daughter of the chief.  Her brother Lorenzo, left for dead that day, survived, and by his efforts Olive was eventually rescued after five years in captivity.  Her story is well chronicled in several books.

It's not a hard place to find, and the road's a good one except the last 3/4 mile.    It's worth the trip just to experience something that was as newsworthy in its day as any sensational incident is in ours.  A bit of scratching about and you can still find the nails that held the horseshoes to the feet of the  Butterfield Stage Lines teams which later used the road, the ruts still evident where their iron wheels ground into the rocky path.  And of course the rocks.  Nobody moved the rocks here.  They're the same ones that Roys and his wife and three of their children saw their last day on earth.

To find the Oatman site, take I-8 west from Gila Bend about 30 miles to the Sentinel exit.  Turn right and follow Sentinel Road about 1 mile north, then right on Oatman Road.  Drive 8.8 miles and turn left on the rough road and follow it as it wanders around about 1 mile (keep right at the fork).  A passenger car can make it if you go easy.  You'll see a sign in the distance, that's your goal.  If you rely on GPS, the coordinates are


                                                                   N33* 00.167
                                                                   W113* 09.603

Take plenty of water, and tell someone where you're going:  History under your feet.

The Oatman Massacre Site Monument