The Modoc Suppression
The once-peaceful Modoc Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest were decimated and exiled after rebelling against U.S. encroachment on their land.
The Modoc tribe was residing in northern California when the U.S. acquired the region from Mexico in 1848. Because California Indians were generally peaceful, they were highly vulnerable to exploitation by the thousands of white settlers joining in on the California Gold Rush.[1]
Refusing to submit, the Modocs along the Oregon border resisted white encroachment on their land. Whites responded by lobbying the U.S. government to get rid of the Modocs. Modoc Chief Kintpuash, whom white settlers called Captain Jack, reluctantly agreed to settle his tribe at the Klamath Reservation to avoid war with the U.S. But when the Modocs clashed with the Klamath Indians already residing there in 1870, Captain Jack led his tribe off the reservation.[2]
Modoc Indians, courtesy ushistoryimages.com
The Modocs tried returning to their traditional land, but whites had already settled there. Captain Jack refused U.S. requests to return to the reservation. When the U.S. applied military force, Captain Jack responded by withdrawing his Modocs into the California Lava Beds south of Tule Lake. This was a virtually impregnable fortress of hills and caves that enabled the Modocs to repel U.S. attacks for several months.[3]
Meanwhile, a rogue band of Modocs under Hooker Jim killed over a dozen white settlers in the region before joining Captain Jack’s tribe in the Lava Beds. The murders increased pressure on U.S. forces to suppress the Modocs. In early 1873, U.S. troops launched a frontal assault on the Lava Beds, but it was beaten back until the Modocs withdrew to an even stronger position.[4]
Of the 150 Modoc Indians in the Lava Beds, only 51 were warriors. Captain Jack urged surrender, but the warriors forced him to hold a council, which resulted in only 14 of the 51 warriors supporting surrender. On the U.S. side, officials recognized the futility of attacking the Lava Beds and began preparing to negotiate.[5]
The U.S. formed a four-man peace commission headed by General Edward R.S. Canby, commander of the Department of the Columbia. Negotiations lasted over two months. Captain Jack demanded that the U.S. 1) grant amnesty to all Modocs, 2) withdraw all troops, and 3) allow the Modocs to choose on which reservation to live.[6]
The commission refused to grant amnesty because of the murders committed by Hooker Jim’s rogue band. The commissioners proposed that the Modocs 1) move to a U.S.-selected reservation, and 2) surrender Hooker Jim’s rogue band to stand trial for murder. Captain Jack argued that if the rogue Modocs were tried in a U.S. court, then U.S. settlers who had committed crimes against the Modocs should be tried in Modoc courts. A U.S. official responded, “The white man’s law rules the country. The Indian law is dead.”[7]
For the U.S., General Canby was pressured by his superior, U.S. General-in-Chief William T. Sherman, to attack the Modocs so “that no other reservation for them will be necessary except graves among their chosen Lava Beds.” For the Modocs, Captain Jack refused to give up Hooker Jim and his rogue band. At the same time, Hooker Jim was among the warriors pressuring Captain Jack to kill Canby and the peace commissioners if they did not accept the Modoc terms.[8]
When the Modoc demands were rejected on April 11, Captain Jack and fellow warriors killed Canby and another commissioner before fleeing the scene. Canby became the first and only general to be killed in U.S. conflicts with Native Americans. U.S. forces responded by storming the Lava Beds with artillery and infantry, but the Modocs had already escaped and scattered, eating their horses to survive.[9]
Hooker Jim and his rogue band, whom Captain Jack had refused to give up, surrendered to U.S. officials and agreed to help hunt down Captain Jack and his Modocs in exchange for amnesty. The new U.S. commander, General Jefferson C. Davis, reported that the pursuit was “more of a chase after wild beasts than war, each detachment vying with each other as to which should be the first in at the finish.”[10]
After alternating fight and flight for over a month, Captain Jack and three remaining warriors surrendered in June 1873. He told U.S. forces, “Jack’s legs gave out. I am ready to die.” The four Modocs were tried for murder. They had no legal representation, and their limited understanding of English made it difficult for them to cross-examine witnesses. Hooker Jim and his rogue followers testified against them. Soldiers constructed the gallows before the verdict was even decided. Captain Jack declared, “You white people conquered me not; my own men did.”[11]
The trial lasted four days. Captain Jack and six warriors were found guilty and sentenced to death. President Ulysses S. Grant commuted the sentences of three warriors to life imprisonment on Alcatraz. After Captain Jack and three warriors were hanged, Captain Jack’s body was exhumed to serve as a 10-cent carnival exhibit. The remaining 163 Modoc men, women, and children (including Hooker Jim) were exiled to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Only 51 Modocs were left in 1909, when the U.S. government allowed them to return to an Oregon reservation.[12]
[1] Dee Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1970), p. 220
[2] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 220, 221-222
[3] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 222; John S. Bowman (ed.), Almanac of America’s Wars (Hong Kong: Bdd Promotional Book Co., 1989), p. 91
[4] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 225; Bowman, Almanac of America’s Wars, p. 91
[5] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 226; Bowman, Almanac of America’s Wars, p. 91
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modoc_War
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modoc_War; Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 232
[8] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 229-30, 234-35, 236
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modoc_War; Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 238
[10] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 238-239
[11] Brown, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, p. 238-39, 240
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modoc_War
