The novel is based on the true story of "The Lone Woman of San Nicholas Island," a Nicoleño Native Californian who lived alone for 18 years on San Nicolas Island, one of the Channel Islands off the California coast.[2][3]
Around 1835, the Nicoleño people were taken aboard a ship headed for California, with the intention that missionaries would convert them upon arrival on the mainland.[2] Once aboard the ship, it was realized that Juana Maria was not among them. By that time, a strong storm arose, and the crew of "Peor es Nada," realizing the imminent danger of being wrecked by the surf and rocks, panicked and sailed toward the mainland, leaving her behind.
A more romantic version tells of Juana Maria diving overboard after realizing her younger brother had been left behind, although archaeologist Steven J. Schwartz notes, "The story of her jumping overboard does not show up until the 1880s ... By then the Victorian era is well underway, and literature takes on a flowery, even romantic flavor."[4] Due to inclement sea-faring weather, the ship could not return and she lived on the island for nearly two decades before being discovered and taken to the mainland in 1853 by sea otter hunter Captain George Nidever and his crew.[2] According to Nidever, the Lone Woman lived in a structure supported by whale ribs and stashed useful objects around the island.[2] She was baptized and given the Christian name Juana Maria, assigned to her by the Santa Barbara Mission where she eventually was brought. No one alive at that time spoke her language, so she struggled to communicate using a form of sign language.[2] Just as the other Nicoleño Natives, who had previously been brought to the mainland, the Lone Woman died of dysentery after seven weeks.[2][3]
In 2009, the University of Oregon archaeologist Jon Erlandson found two old redwood boxes eroding from an island sea cliff, with whalebone placed on top of them. With colleagues René Vellanoweth, Lisa Barnett-Thomas, and Troy Davis, Erlandson salvaged the boxes and other artifacts before they were destroyed by erosion. Vellanoweth and Barnett-Thomas examined the contents in a San Nicolas Island laboratory, documenting nearly 200 artifacts of Nicoleño, Euro-American, and Native Alaskan manufacture.[5] The boxes appear to have been cached intentionally sometime between 1725 and 1743. It was also believed the Lone Woman lived in a cave on the island.[6]
In 2012, Naval archaeologist Steve Schwartz believed he discovered the buried location of that cave based upon a century old map and began an investigation, working with archaeologist René Vellanoweth and his students from California State University, Los Angeles.[7][3] The team’s work resulted in the opening of the cave being excavated, but Commanders at the Navy base on the island ordered Schwartz to halt the dig in 2015.[3] The following year, Professor Patricia Martz started an online petition to stop the Navy’s plans to move artifacts from San Nicolas Island to a further facility in China Lake as there would be inadequate climate controls to preserve the integrity of the artifacts and allow them to remain close to where they were excavated.[8] Despite gaining over 390 signatures, representatives from the Navy responded to the petition and formally expressed the safety and regulatory requirements met by China Lake.[8] As such, the articles from San Nicolas were moved.[8]
