their life among the “Apache” (Yavapai) as harsh. As with most of Olive testimony it is influenced by the racist ideologies of her time making it impossible to know if the girls did became integrated into their captor's’ society. The girl’s uncertain treatment is also highlighted in Olive’s own description of being traded to the Mojave tribe. Olive claims that she and Mary Ann refused to state which tribe they preferred to reside with and that the children in the village wept when the girls departed to live with the Mojave. Olive claims that the trade occurred in 1851, and that she and her sister were traded by the “Apache” (Yavapai) to the Mojave tribe for a couple of horses and bags of beans. Once the sisters arrived in the Mojave village they were taken in by Espaniola, his wife Aespaneo, and their daughter Topeka, who belonged to the Owich clan. Although Olive later identified Espaniola as the chief he was most likely the Kohot who was a “religious leader.” During their time with the Mojave, according to Olive, the girls were given a plot of their own land and seeds to plant. Mojave’s who were later interviewed about the girls shared that the sisters were also paid to sign hymns. Both girls also received facial tattoos codifying their place in the Mojave afterlife. In Olive Oatman’s narrative of her and Mary Ann’s experiences, co-written with Methodist minister Royal Stratton, she highlights her unhappiness as well as a deep desire to escape. Historian Brian McGinty suggests that Olive’s complaints and negative reflections need to be read within the context of the colonial themes common to similar literature of the time. Her supposed desire to escape raises questions given that the sisters apparently had opportunities to leave and did not. According to military commander Amiel Weeks Whipple, he and a group of his men had been in the area in February and March 1854 to survey a railroad route, and the sisters had not communicated with them. It is unknown exactly how long Mary Ann resided with the Mojave before her death, but historian Brian McGinty argues that she died after three to four years from starvation during a famine. Olive gave many different dates for the death of her sister, but McGinty claims that the first interview Olive gave of her experiences is the most trustworthy. In the first interview,