Oatman was part of this history, part of the settling of the American West. She experienced horrors we will never know because she never really spoke of them. We will never know if she was forced into a tribal marriage, raped, or even if she bore a child in captivity, only to be forced to leave that child behind when she was “rescued.”
My patron ancestress, Hannah Dustin, paid a very high personal and social price in the late 1690s in Massachusetts when it was learned that she was raped during her captivity. She was ostracized from both polite society and her church for the remainder of her life. Mifflin is so woefully ignorant of American history and sociology that she does not even comprehend the fact that the world has changed to the point where the sexual implication of Oatman’s captivity are never even mentioned. In many ways the simple fact that Oatman is not ostracized and not forced to endure Dustin’s social isolation is a remarkable commentary on the sophistication and tolerance of the late Victorian American.
Oatman left a rich cultural and literary legacy, complete with enough remaining letters and newspaper articles. For researchers, writers, and biographers of all things “Wild West,” those primary sources are a treasure. Mifflin basically glosses over them, molding a biography of Oatman that reflects Mifflin’s own view of life.
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