If you’re a fan of the strong-willed tattooed character, Eva Toole, from TV’s western drama, Hell on Wheels, you may be interested to know that she’s based on a real person from America’s southwest.
In 1851, Olive Oatman was en route from Illinois to California with her family in the search for gold when they were ransacked by natives not far from modern-day Yuma, Arizona. Olive was traded to the Mohave Indians, from whom she received her iconic chin tattoo. Margot Mifflin’s The Blue Tattoo retells the story of Olive’s harrowing capture and eventual reassimilation into the old west’s white society.
