Massacre By mid-1851, one year after their split from the main group, the Oatmans’ circumstances had become dire. As the family continued to make their way towards Bashan they faced multiple run-ins with local Native nations, now faced dwindling supplies, and were now alone because they had decided to separate from the group who had joined them in leaving Brewster. On March 18, 1851, a group of “Apache” approached the family near Maricopa wells. Apache is a non-specific name that Olive used to describe the Yavapai. After a short bargaining interaction between Roys and the “Apache,” the Native American party decided they were unable to come to a proper trade agreement with Roys. They clubbed to death nearly the entire family. The only survivors of the Oatman Family Massacre were Mary Ann, her sister Olive, and her brother Lorenzo, who had been injured and left for dead. He is known to have survived after finding a nearby settlement and receiving medical treatment. Olive only referred to the tribe that massacred their family and abducted them as “Tonto Apache's” in all her interviews and in the book, she compiled with Methodist minister Royal B. Stratton entitled Captivity of the Oatman Girls: Being an Interesting Narrative of Life among the Apache and Mohave Indians. Historian Timothy Braatz argues that referring to them as Apaches was most likely a “catch all term for any mountain dwellers at odds with the Pima, and Maricopa...” Braatz, and Brian McGinty further argue that the attackers were most likely members of the Yavapai tribe, not the Apache. McGinty suggests the attackers were of the Tolkepaya, a band of the Yavapai tribe. McGinty argues that this band of the Yavapai most accurately fit the description of the attackers given the location of the attack, Olive’s description of their village, testimony by Dr. LeConte, an individual the family passed on the trail, and interviews from members of the Mojave tribe taken by anthropologist A.L Kroeber in the early 20th century. According to English professor Margot Mifflin, “The Oatman massacre was evidently inspired by the Yavapai's’ typical late winter hardship, exacerbated by the previous year’s bone-cracking drought.” Another possible reason for the attack was that because of the harsh climate Southwestern natives faced many tribes practiced kidnapping as a form of family replacement. The Abduction and the “Adoption” by the Mojave In The Captivity of the Oatman girls, Olive described