Slavery was a major cause of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and other unrest among the indigenous people of northern Mexico. Following the revolt, the business of providing enslaved people for the New Mexico market passed into the hands of the Navajo, Utes, Comanches, and Apaches.
Apache Captives’ Ordeal
Suddenly, like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, the Apache gave a bloodthirsty yell. Jumping up from where they sat, they drew short, thick clubs from beneath their wolfskins and rushed the astonished family. Lorenzo took the first blow, falling headfirst to the ground. His father was surrounded and beaten to death in an instant. Two attackers seized Olive and Mary Ann, holding them to one side while their companions quickly finished the work. In less than a minute, the rest of the Oatmans were beaten down and slain, Mrs. Oatman dying with her youngest son still clasped in her arms.
The Apache dubbed the Oatman girls the ‘Onatas,’ and soon made them understand their status in the tribe: they were slaves. ‘You have been fed too well,’ the Indians taunted; ‘we will teach you to live on little.’ The Apaches’ favored food was meat–deer, ground squirrel or snake–boiled into a kind of mush. This however was reserved for the men. The women of the tribe, and most especially female prisoners, were expected to spend every waking hour in quest of edible vegetation, such as yucca buds, wild onion, cactus root and prickly pear fruit. It was a miserable diet for the Oatman girls, requiring terrible labor to maintain a bare subsistence, and it was made all the more bitter by the taunting behavior of the Apache. ‘They invented modes,’ recalled Olive, ‘and seemed to create necessities of labor, that they might gratify themselves by taxing us to the utmost, and even took unwarranted delight in whipping us on beyond our strength.’
Do you have a source for this, a book that I can research or purchase. It is a hobby of mine as my Grandfather was there during the Modoc wars. He was what you would call a Scout, a trader and actually an original Teamster when it used horse and wagons.