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Thu 08 Aug 2009Digging behind lurid myths of how Red Indians treated enslaved 'white savages'
PATRICK SKENE CATLINGreviews The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive OatmanBy Margot Mifflin University of Nebraska Press 259pp, $24.95
MELODRAMATIC TALES of brutal Red Indians seizing innocent white girls in the days of American westward migration were 19th-century bestsellers. Margot Mifflin has submitted the most popular captivity story of the genre to the systematic scrutiny of investigative journalism and academic analysis, yet its intrinsic gaudiness alluringly endures.
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