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The Modoc War, or the Modoc Campaign (also known as the Lava Beds War), was an armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon from 1872 to 1873. Eadweard Muybridge photographed the early part of the US Army's campaign. Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack, led 52 warriors in a band of more than 150 Modoc people who left the Klamath Reservation. Occupying defensive positions throughout the lava beds south of Tule Lake (in present-day Lava Beds National Monument), those few warriors resisted for months the more numerous United States Army forces sent against them, which were reinforced with artillery. In April 1873 at a peace commission meeting, Captain Jack and others killed General Edward Canby and Rev. Eleazer Thomas, and wounded two others, mistakenly believing this would encourage the Americans to leave. The Modoc fled back to the lava beds. After U.S. forces were reinforced, some Modoc warriors surrendered and Captain Jack and the last of his band were captured. Jack and five warriors were tried for the murders of the two peace commissioners. Jack and three warriors were executed and two others sentenced to life in prison. The remaining 153 Modoc of the band were sent to Indian Territory (pre-statehood Oklahoma), where they were held as prisoners of war until 1909, settled on reservation land with the Shawnee. Some at that point were allowed to return to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon. Most Modoc (and their descendants) stayed in what became the state of Oklahoma. They achieved separate federal recognition and were granted some land in Oklahoma. There are two federally recognized Modoc tribes: in Oregon and Oklahoma. Events leading up to the war The first known explorers from the United States to go through the Modoc country were John Charles Frémont together with Kit Carson and Billy Chinook in 1843. On the night of May 9, 1846, Frémont received a message brought to him by Lieutenant Archibald Gillespie, from President James Polk about the possibility of war with Mexico. Reviewing the messages, Frémont neglected the customary measure of posting a watchman for the camp. Carson was concerned but "apprehended no danger". Later that night Carson was awakened by the sound of a thump. Jumping up, he saw his friend and fellow trapper Basil Lajeunesse sprawled in blood. He sounded an alarm and immediately the camp realized they were under attack by Native Americans, estimated to be several dozen in number. By the time the assailants were beaten off, two other members of Frémont's group were dead. The one dead attacker was judged to be a Klamath Lake native. Frémont's group fell into "an angry gloom." In retaliation, Frémont attacked a Klamath Tribe fishing village named Dokdokwas, that most likely had nothing to do with the attack, at the junction of the Williamson River and Klamath Lake, on May 10, 1846. Accounts by scholars vary, but they agree that the attack completely destroyed the village structures; Sides reports the expedition killed women and children as well as warriors. The tragedy of Dokdokwas is deepened by the fact that most scholars now agree that Frémont and Carson, in their blind vindictiveness, probably chose the wrong tribe to lash out against: In all likelihood the band of native Americans that had killed [Frémont's three men] were from the neighboring Modoc ... The Klamaths were culturally related to the Modocs, but the two tribes were bitter enemies. Although most of the "49ers" missed the Modoc country, in March 1851 Abraham Thompson, a mule train packer, discovered gold near Yreka while traveling along the Siskiyou Trail from southern Oregon. The discovery sparked the California Gold Rush area to expand from the Sierra Nevada into Northeastern California. By April 1851, 2,000 miners had arrived in "Thompson's Dry Diggings" through the southern route of the old Emigrant Trail to test their luck, which took them straight through Modoc territory. First hostilities Although the Modoc initially had no trouble with Americans, after the murders of settlers in a raid by the Pit River Tribe, an American militia unit, not familiar with the Indian peoples, retaliated by attacking an innocent Modoc village, killing men, women and children. (Kintpuash, the future chief also known as Captain Jack, survived the attack but lost some of his family.) To try to end the American encroachment, some Modoc chose to attack the next whites they encountered. In September 1852 the Modoc attacked a wagon train of some 65 men, women, and children on their way to California. One badly wounded man escaped to the Oregon settlements in Willamette Valley and told of the attack. His report spread quickly and Oregon volunteers who later reached the scene, reported bodies of men, women and children mutilated and scattered for more than a mile along the lake shore and their wagons plundered and burned. The location became known as Bloody Point. In another round of retaliation, California militia led by an Indian fighter named Ben Wright killed 41 Modoc at a peace parley. John Schonchin, the brother of the Modoc chief, was one of the natives who escaped. Great Treaty of Council Grove Rounds of hostilities continued in the area as American settlers continued to encroach on Modoc land and urged the government to take over the territory. Warriors of the Klamath and the Yahooskin also attacked settlers and migrants in efforts to repulse them. In 1864 the United States and the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin band—over 1000 Indians, mostly Klamath—signed a treaty, by which the Indians ceded millions of acres of lands and the US established the Klamath Reservation, within the boundaries of present-day Oregon. Under the treaty terms, the Modoc, with Old Chief Schonchin as their leader, gave up their lands in the Lost River, Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lake regions of California, and moved to a reservation in the Upper Klamath River Valley. In return, the Indians would receive food, blankets, and clothing for as many years as would be required to establish themselves. Allen David signed for the Klamath, while Old Schonchin and Kintpuash for the Modoc. Looking around for something to give emphasis to his pledge, Schonchin pointed to the distant butte and dramatically declared, "That mountain shall fall, before Schonchin will again raise his hand against his white brother." The old chief kept his word, although his brother and Kintpuash repudiated signing the treaty and left the reservation with a few followers. Captain Jack While the old Modoc chief remained in the reservation, Kintpuash returned to Lost River and led an abusive harassment against the white settlers who had occupied the area. The small Modoc group of about 43 Indians demanded rent for the occupation of their land, which most settlers paid. After a few attempts to negotiate in behalf of the complaining settlers, including failed atte.... Discover the William F Drannan popular books. Find the top 100 most popular William F Drannan books.