When otter hunters returned to Santa Barbara from California’s most remote island in 1853, they carried more than cargo and a diverse crew. Also aboard was a 50-year-old woman—a passenger who spoke a language they could not understand. More astounding, she apparently had spent 18 years alone on the island. A striking, romantic figure, the woman soon became an object of national fascination and romantic speculation— fueling tales of a surviving castaway. “Undoubtedly,” a correspondent wrote, “she is the last of her race.” Nameless. Silent. Courageous. Her story had all the makings of a fascinating historical yarn—and inspired not just lengthy newspaper articles but also Scott O’Dell’s Newbery Medal–winning Island of the Blue Dolphins, a staple of elementary school curricula nationwide. A red abalone is pictured Red abalone were a key food source for native populations on California’s Channel Islands. DAVID LIITTSCHWAGER/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGES But the details of the Lone Woman’s life, historians and archaeologists are now discovering, were built on a foundation of shifting sand. Today scholars believe that nearly everything they thought about the enigmatic figure was wrong—and that the Lone Woman was anything but alone. (Explore 13,000 years of human history on California’s Channel Islands) Channel Islands castaway About 60 miles off the California coast in chilly waters, San Nicolas Island is the most remote of the Channel Islands, an archipelago with a tormented history of Indigenous use and environmental exploitation. Today five of the eight islands make up the Channel Islands National Park, but San Nicolas is used for weapons testing by the U.S. Navy. In the 19th century it was home to Native Americans who had inhabited it for thousands of years. Spanish colonizers dubbed them the Nicoleño. Details of the Lone Woman’s life, historians and archaeologists are now discovering, were built on a foundation of shifting sand. The secluded, dune-covered island was largely ignored by early European explorers, who did little more than name it. In the early 19th century, though, that changed—and so did the fate of its roughly 300 Native inhabitants. Beginning in 1814, Russian otter hunters landed on San Nicolas in search of valuable furs. Mayhem ensued. Contemporary documents suggest that in retaliation for the murder of one of the hunters, the group massacred up to 90 percent of the Nicoleño. When in 1835 the remaining Nicoleño boarded a schooner to Los Angeles, the island’s abundant otter population had been hunted nearly to extinction. (The surprising way sea otters enhance ecosystems.) THE CHANNEL ISLANDS Archaeological and genetic evidence shows two waves of Nicoleño on San Nicolas Island, which was occupied for roughly 8,000 years. Their culture seems to have been closely linked to the ocean—a testament to the lack of land animals. Remnants include everything from bone arrowhe…Show more About this map The Nicoleño had left their ancestral home. But one remained. Cut to 1853, when newspaper accounts of the discovery of a “female Robinson Crusoe” began to flood out of California. After years of rumors that someone still lived on the island, an American-led trapping expedition found and “rescued” a resourceful woman in a greenish cormorant-feather skirt. She had lived in both a whale bone hut and a cave and subsisted on island wildlife—seal blubber, plant bulbs, abalone, birds. Though the woman apparently enjoyed her new life in an adobe home in Santa Barbara, her trip to the mainland was lonely too. The communication barrier seemed insurmountable and mainland diseases took their toll. She died within seven weeks of her “rescue.” Before her death, a Catholic missionary christened her “Juana Maria.” That story—one of wild solitude, natural beauty, native grit, and the tragic fate of the “noble savage,” caught the attention of author Scott O’Dell, whose 1960 Island of the Blue Dolphins is based on the story. The book fictionalized the Lone Woman as the resilient teenager Karana, creating a portrait of a girl’s coming of age in the face of overwhelming difficulty. (See America’s parks with Indigenous peoples who first called them home.) BASED ON A TRUE STORY The cover of “Island of the Blue Dolphins” shows an illustration of the lone woman Island of the Blue Dolphins won the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1961. Born Ordell Scott in Los Angeles in 1898, Scott O’Dell worked in the silent film industry before becoming a respected author of books for adults. A typographic error on an early work resulted in his pen name, and O’Dell’s 1960 Island of the Blue Dolphins resulted in a new career as an award-winning author of children’s historical fiction. When O’Dell died in 1989, he had written 26 children’s books. Fact finding It would seem there’s no more to learn about the woman who, stranded by herself on her home island, hunted, fished, and withstood the elements as her people died out. But recent research suggests there’s more—much more—to the story. In the 20th century archaeologists began to return to San Nicolas in search of more information about Juana Maria and her people. They would find up to 500 archaeological sites on the island. Some, like the remnants of a whale bone hut, do appear to be linked to the Lone Woman herself, while others provide more documentation of the rich history of the Nicoleño. Still others refute nearly every dramatic highlight of Juana Maria’s supposed solitary life on San Nicolas Island. Archaeological and genetic evidence shows two waves of Nicoleño on San Nicolas Island, which was occupied for roughly 8,000 years. Their culture seems to have been closely linked to the ocean—a testament to the lack of land animals. Remnants include everything from bone arrowheads to a cave marked with images of whales. The tribe appears to have coexisted peaceably with a variety of visitors—hunters from Mexico, Russia, Alaska, and elsewhere—from the 17th century on. (North America’s Native nations reassert their sovereignty: ‘We are here’.) Independent historical researcher Susan Morris fell in love with the Lone Woman in fourth grade after she read Island of the Blue Dolphins in school. “I was completely inspired by her lessons of courage and resourcefulness,” she says. Morris is one of a team of researchers who has spent years dismantling the myths and misunderstandings that still surround the Lone Woman’s place in history. A cliff on the coast of Santa Barbara Island is pictured Santa Barbara Island is one of the closest islands to San Nicolas. Archaeologists believe that the Nicoleño and other peoples may have seasonally visited it to fish and harvest mollusks but did not settle there.