4/11/1873 - Proving they can be as duplicitous and murderous as the white men that have pushed them into war by encroaching on their lands in southern Oregon and northern California after yet another gold discovery (this time by a mule train packer named Abraham Thompson near what will become the California community of Yreka), forcing a treaty upon them that requires their sharing a reservation with their ancestral enemies, the Klamath Indians, and then attacking the Modoc tribe when a small band of men, women, and children return to their Lost River homes, a group of Modoc leaders led by Kintpuash (or Captain Jack) respond to a peace commission from the American government, led by Brigadier General Edward Canby, with violence.
Captain Jack
Once a small tribe of around 2,000 individuals populating one of the wildest regions of the Pacific northwest near Lost River, Tule Lake, and Lower Klamath Lake, by the time of the American Civil War, disease, war with the Klamath people, and unfriendly encounters with white settlers moving into the area over the Applegate Trail reduce the Modoc tribe to around 350 individuals. Beleaguered, the tribe in 1864 becomes a party, along with the Klamaths and the Yahooskin band of Northern Paiutes, in signing the Great Treaty of Council Grove, which cedes more than 6 million acres in territory to the American government for the bargain price of a lump sum payment of $35,000, annual payments over 15 years totaling $80,000, and creation and staffing of a reservation in the Upper Klamath Valley. There are immediate problems as mired in the Civil War, the United States Senate takes five years to ratify the treaty, during which time funds for food and shelter for the Modocs are withheld, and there are soon clashes with the Klamath over lumber and other resources belonging to the Modocs. Reduced to eating horses for food, request for their own reservation seemingly denied, a small band of 200 individuals led by Captain Jack leave the reservation for their former homes along Lake River, and uncover another problem when they arrive there and discover in their absence, many sites now are occupied by white settlers. A recipe for disaster, in November of 1872, when 40 troopers of the 1st U.S. Cavalry (commanded by Captain James Jackson) and militia from the town of Linkville (now Klamath Falls, Oregon) seek to evict the Modocs from a small village on the east bank of Lost River and escort them back to the Klamath reservation. Trouble of course ensues and sparked by an argument between 2nd Lt. Frazier A. Boutelle and a Modoc named Scarface Charley (Chikchikam Lupatue-latko) in which both men fire on each other, but miss, the United States and the Modoc tribe find themselves at war ... a war which will not go well for either side.
Scarface Charley
Boutelle
In the initial clash which will become known as the Battle of Lost River, one soldier is killed and seven more wounded (and there is one casualty among the militia), while the Modoc have two warriors killed and three wounded before being forced to retreat across Tule Lake to a location within the jumbled magma fissures, ridges, and caves of what will one become Lava Beds National Monument, called "The Stronghold." Meanwhile, enraged that soldiers have fired on women and children, Hooker Jim (Hooka Jim) led a small band of Modocs in a raid on the locals that kills 18 settlers. Commanding military operation in the Pacific Northwest as the Department of the Columbia, Brigadier General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby, a veteran of wars with the Seminoles, Mexicans, and a participant in numerous Civil War clashes responds by having Lt. Colonel Frank Wheaton (his Civil War resume includes the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Williamsburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville, the Battle of Gettysburg, the clashes of Grant's Overland Campaign, the Siege of Petersburg, helping repel Jubal Early's raid on Washington D.C., the Third Battle of Winchester, the Battle of Sailors Creek, and capturing Robert E. Lee's son, Major General George Washington Custis Lee, actions which find him leaving the war as a Brevet Major General) assemble a mixed force of federal soldiers, Oregon and California militia, and Klamath tribe scouts, over 400 men, backed by two 12-pounder mountain howitzers, to put down the Modocs.
War Area
Hooker Jim
Hubris brought on by his sterling record in the Civil War, the firepower he brings to bear, and a 6-1 advantage in men (there are about 50 Modoc warriors), on January 17, 1873, Lt. Colonel Wheaton is so confident in victory that he launches a dawn pincher attack on Captain Jack's Stronghold without reconnoitering the fog-shrouded ground the Modoc's are hiding within (the tribe will give credit for raising the fog to the magic of a medicine man and son-in-law of Hooker Jim named Curley Headed Doctor). A huge error (Wheaton will subsequently be relieved of command by Canby), at the First Battle of the Stronghold, the men of Wheaton's command charge into a major debacle in which they do not spot a signal Modoc (let alone wound one, the Modocs suffer ZERO casualties), but suffer 12 deaths themselves (left on the battlefield for the Modoc to later recover their weapons) and have an additional 30 men wounded before retreating back to their camps (the only positive for the federal troops takes place when Major John Green inspires his reluctantly attacking command by standing to their front and pacing back in forth in front of them until he is wounded). Wheaton sacked, Canby moves south and takes command of the military force himself which is expanded to 1,000 men and now also can fire ordinance at the Modocs from the howitzers and four additional Coehorn mortars. Meanwhile, U.S. Interior Secretary Columbus Delano convinces President Ulysses S. Grant and General of the Army, William Tecumseh Sherman, to declare a truce in the war and see if a group of peace commissioner can resolve the conflict without any further bloodshed. It is yet another error what is now being called the Modoc War by American newspapers.
Stronghold Terrain
Based on the composition of the commission, the Modocs are immediately wary that the bargaining will be fair or that they will receive any kind of justice. Named by Delano to chair the group is Alfred B. Meacham, the same man that as U.S. superintendent of Indian affairs for Oregon was in charge when the tribe was reduced to eating horses at the Klamath Indian Reservation. Commissioner Jesse Applegate is also frowned upon as a selection as he is the very individual that blazed the Applegate Trail through Modoc territory and wants to establish a ranching empire in the region. Brigadier General Canby is chosen to be the group's counselor, who uses the truce to move his troops into positions encircling the Stronghold, and has a cavalry patrol capture the Modocs remaining horses and then refuses to return them to the tribe. Other members of the commission are rancher Samuel Chase, and serving as interpreters are white settler Frank Riddle (a Kentuckian who comes to California during the Gold Rush of 1849), and his Modoc wife, Toby (Nannookdoowah) "Winema" Riddle. Back-and-forth taking place at a peace tent established about a mile away from the military base established at Gillem's Camp at the edge of the Lava Beds, the groups clash over a complete pardon being given to the Modocs or Captain Jack turning over named individual for trial in the murder of area settlers, the withdrawal of all troops from the area, going to a reservation selected by the commission, making the Lava Beds a reservation, and the Modocs selecting the reservation they wish to live at. Both sides frustrated, local Judge A. M. Rosborough is added to the commission, while Applegate and Chase resign and are replaced by Methodist minister Reverend Eleazer Thomas and L.S. Dyar, and on the other side, Hooker Jim, Schonchin John, and Curley Headed Doctor apply pressure on Captain Jack to be done with negotiations with the inflexible whites, and foolishly believing successful battle will resurrect the old days of the tribe, call for ending the truce by wiping out members of the commission, an act of stupidity that the chief eventually agrees to (shaming the chief, during a council meeting the warriors present Captain Jack with women's clothing). Too many Modocs in the know, the plan is related to the commission Yreka Judge Elijah Steele, a friend of Captain Jack, and uncovered by the Riddles, but when related to Delano, are disbelieved and the commission is told to keep talking.
Delano
Applegate
Meacham
On the morning of Good Friday, April 11, 1873, Brigadier General Canby, Meacham, Reverend Thomas, Dyar, and the Riddles arrive at the peace tent to find the Modoc delegation of Captain Jack, Boston Charley, Bogus Charley, Schonchin John, Black Jim, and Hooker Jim waiting. Cigars passed out to the Modocs by Canby, the general speaks of trusting him to find the men a good reservation in a warm climate, his troops remaining in the area until the Modoc are moved, and that everything spoken of must also be approved by Washington, when Schonchin John begins clamoring for the Hot Creek area becoming the Modoc's new reservation, words that cause Captain Jack to stand up and shout an order to his men (hiding nearby, Modocs Brancho and Sioiux to begin firing their rifles at the commission members), pull a concealed pistol out of his clothing, and fire on Canby. Dumbfounded that the Modoc leader is firing on him, the general remains seated as Captain Jack's first shot misfires, but is blown to the ground when the chief re-cocks his weapon and puts a second fatal round through Canby's head, and then just to make sure the military man causes no more problems for his tribe, drags a knife across the dead man's throat.
Canby's Cross - Site Of The Killings
An instant after Canby goes down, Boston Charley leaps forward and puts two rounds into the chest and head of Reverend Thomas, killing the minister, as Schochin John puts four bullets into Meacham. Grievously wounded, the chairman is saved from being finished off and scalped by Toby Riddle, who interrupts the warriors closing on Meacham by screaming, "The soldiers are coming!" (though permanently scarred and partially disabled by his wounds, Meacham will go on to work for Indian justice, writing several works about his experiences with the Modocs, and working to bring Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce to Washington D.C. to talk to officials about the plight of his people, and working on finding the Colorado Utes of Chief Ouray a new reservation in Utah). Flight or fight response immediately engaged, with bullets flying all about, Dyar and Frank Riddle escape injury by instantly leaping from their seats and zig-zag running for the safety of Gillem's Camp. Any chance of peace gone in a flash of foolishness that enrages the American public, Brigadier General Canby becomes the highest ranking member of the U.S. Army, and only general, to be killed fighting American Indians in the military's campaign to "civilize" the West.
Peace Tent Murder
Canby Lays In State
Gasoline poured on an already burning fire, the war begins again days later with the Second Battle of the Stronghold (4/15/1873) in which troops cut off the Modocs from their Tule Lake water supply, but the tribe escapes destruction by escaping through an unguarded crevice in the Stronghold. The fight continues with another officer being replaced (Colonel Cullem Gillem, a Civil War veteran and namesake of the war's Gillem Camp is replaced by Bvt. Brigadier General Jefferson C. Davis) when a surprise attack on a reconnaissance force of over 80 soldiers and scouts having lunch at the base of what is now Hardin Butte (the men are under the command of Captain Evan Thomas) causes a whipping called the Battle of Sand Butte (4/26/1873), a defeat at the hands of 22 Modoc warriors led by Scarfaced Charley that results in 18 officers and men being killed, and an additional 17 being wounded. Over, but not quite out, the clash of arms and cultures concludes on May 10, 1873, when another attempted ambush is thwarted and a charge up a bluff by U.S. troops routs the Modocs at the Battle of Dry Lake ... a defeat that splits the tribe into two small groups, one of which, containing Hooker Jim, is captured. Seeking to save his own neck, the Modoc leader agrees to help track down Captain Jack for pardons for the members of his group (among them, Bogus Charley, Shacknasty Jim, and Steamboat Frank) that were involved in the murders of the Tule Lake settlers, and the assassinations of Canby and Thomas. Captain Jack, carrying a single Springfield rifle, his wife, and a single little girl are finally captured by Captain William F. Drannan and Army Scout George Jones on June 1, 1873.
U.S. Troops In The Lava Beds
Firing Pit
Orders received from Washington authorities in the War Department to not summarily execute the captives, Captain Jack, Schonchin John, Black Jim, Boston Charley, Brancho, and Sioiux are taken to Fort Klamath as prisoners of war and in early July are put on trial before a military court as war criminals for their actions in the peace tent killings, the only American Indians to ever be so charged. A show trial with the verdict basically already decided, after four days of testimony and speeches all the men are convicted and sentenced to be hung. Verdicts reviewed by President Grant, the death sentences are approved for Captain Jack, Schonchin John, Black Jim, and Boston Charley, while Brancho and Sioiux are given life imprisonments in the prison in San Francisco Bay at Fort Alcatraz. A public spectacle that takes place before over 2,000 witnesses that include Modoc captives from the war and Klamath Reservation Indians, the four men are hung on October 3, 1873, then suffer the further indignity of having their heads cut off and shipped to the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C., while their bodies are buried in unmarked graves on the Klamath Reservation. Leaders not the only ones to be punished, after the executions, the Modoc survivors of the war, 39 men, 64 women, and 60 children are shipped off to the Quapaw Indian Agency in the northeastern portion of what is now Oklahoma. By the end of the 1880s, there are only 88 Oklahoma Modocs, but happily the tribe undergoes a slight resurgence from total extinction and as of the year 2000, there are 200 in Oklahoma and another 600 living in Oregon.
Captain Jack & Schonchin Jim
Awaiting Execution
Captain Jack
Heroes hard to find in a bad war for both sides, after the fighting stops the Riddles return to the Klamath Reservation, where they have a son who is given two names ... his Modoc moniker is Charka, "the handsome one," while his English name honors the winning military man of the recently over conflict, Jefferson C. Davis Riddle. Impressed that she had tried to warn the commission of the Modoc's murder plans, and that once they took place, she saved lives with her false shouts that "soldiers are coming," Alfred B. Meacham, the man she specifically saves, features Toby, Frank Riddle, and their son in the lecture play he tours through America, "The Tragedy of the Lava Beds," in which the former commissioner writes, "Winema has taken her place besides Sara Winnemucca and Sacajawea in the annals of the early west. The personal daring of these Indian women and the roles they played as negotiators between their people and the palefaces have lifted them above considerations of race into the ranks of the great women of all time. Petitioned by Meacham, in 1891 Congress awards Toby a military pension of $25 a month, which she gladly receives until her death in 1920 at the age of 72. And with us still for people seeking outdoor wonders and peaceful scenery, she becomes the namesake of 1,045,548 acres of protected forestland founded in 1961 on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains in south-central Oregon, on the borders of Crater Lake National Park ... Winema National Forest (the forest will merge with Fremont National Forest and become the Fremont-Winema National Forest in 2002) .
The Riddles - Back Center & Right
Toby
Winema National Forest
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