author
R. B. (Royal Byron) Stratton
1827–1875
Best known for shaping the early narrative of the Oatman family’s ordeal, this 19th-century Methodist minister wrote with the urgency and moral intensity of his era. His work sits at the crossroads of frontier history, captivity narrative, and American print culture.
1 Audiobook
Captivity of the Oatman Girls Being an Interesting Narrative of Life Among the Apache and Mohave Indians
by R. B. (Royal Byron) Stratton
About the author
Born in 1827, Royal Byron Stratton was an American Methodist minister and writer. He is chiefly remembered for Captivity of the Oatman Girls, the 1850s account based on the experiences of Olive and Lorenzo Oatman after the attack on their emigrant family in the American West.
Stratton’s role was not simply that of a bystander collecting facts. Contemporary and library records describe the book as a narrative given to him by the surviving Oatman siblings, and archival material also links him to lectures on Native Americans in California and the Oatman story. That mix of ministry, public speaking, and authorship helps explain the book’s strongly moral and persuasive tone.
He died in 1875. Although little widely available biographical detail survives compared with the fame of the story he helped publish, his name remains closely tied to one of the best-known captivity narratives connected to the American Southwest.