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APRIL 7:

 April 7, 1873:  In a Modoc council in the lava beds, Hooker Jim, Black Jim, Schonchin John and others tell Captain Jack that the peace commissioners are just buying time to bring in more soldiers. They say the commissioners just want to trick the Modocs. They demand that Captain Jack, as tribal Chief, kill Commissioner General Canby during the peace conference. Captain Jack is against the idea, but he agrees to do so.

BACKGROUND:

An excerpt from the writings of Cheewa James on the Modoc Indians, at http://www.cheewa.com/modocart.htm by Cheewa James
 

The frozen lava stretches unrelieved under the northern California sun. An occasional cluster of sagebrush breaks through, but mostly there is tortured black rock and silence.

This was the battlefield more than a century ago as the Modoc Indians fought U.S. government troops in a final desperate effort to avoid being sent back to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon. These warriors have long since been gone. Some rest in Oregon and California, but most lie in a tiny cemetery in northern Oklahoma. A strange set of circumstances took these people nearly 2,000 miles from their homeland.

The Modocs were never a large group. They did not, in fact, live as a tribe but in many small bands. Before 1800 they numbered only 400 to 800 people, occupying an area known as the Lakes District that covered portions of Oregon and California. Using obsidian, or "volcanic glass," to tip their arrows, they hunted and lived off game they found in their 5,000 square miles of hunting range.

The seeds of the wocus, a pond lily, were ground in mortar stones make of lava, and the resulting food was one of their primary staples. Another water plant, the tule, provided material for the skillful hands of the Modoc basket weavers. Wickiups, inverted, bowl-shaped earthen structures entered through a hole in the top, afforded shelter. This, then, was the life of the Modoc people prior to 1880.

The influx of the white man had a monumental impact on the culture of the Modocs, and the Modoc adopted many of the white man's ways. Mingling with the white people of Yreka, California, at the southern end of their hunting range, they began to wear clothing patterned after that of the white man. The white man's religion upset their code of ethics -- challenging, for example, the custom of killing a medicine man who allowed his patient to die. What had once been law to the Indian was regarded by the non-Indian as murder.

Even the names of the Modocs changed, although in many cases the origin of the names has been lost or is only speculative. Ski-et-tete-ko, Left-handed Man, became Shacknasty Jim because, it is said, of his mother's lax manner of housekeeping., Slat-us-locks became Steamboat Frank, named in recognition of his mother's resounding voice. Scarfaced Charley's name came from a large scar extending across his cheek. Black Jim was so-named because even among Indians he was unusually dark.

Thus did such colorful names as Hooker Jim, Black Jim, Ellen's Man George, Curley Headed Doctor and Boston Charley emerge to become recorded on the pages of American history.

But the name destined to stand out above all others was Keintepoos, or Captain Jack, leader of the Modocs.

The case of the Modocs is similar to that of many other Indian tribes of early America. As more and more non-Indians poured into the Northwest, more and more land was needed to accommodate them. In addition, several unfortunate incidents led to animosity between the Modocs and the whites. For one thing, the intrusion of white emigrants' wagons on the Modocs' summer hunting range frightened away game animals.

This, coupled with a tragic error of mistaken identity on the part of the whites in which several Modocs were killed, sparked a Modoc uprising highlighted by a series of Modoc raids and massacres in which whites were killed. In return, the notorious Ben Wright, an Indian fighter whom the Modocs held responsible for many of their misunderstandings with the whites, massacred 41 unarmed Modoc Indians under a white flag of peace.

The problem of the Modocs reached a peak in 1864. The solution, it seemed to the non-Indians of the area and eventually to the government, was to place the Modocs on a reservation where conflict could be avoided and the Modocs could be watched. The Treaty of 1864 was accordingly drawn up. It provided that the Modocs be placed on a reservation located near what is today Klamath Falls.

The Modocs were greatly outnumbered by the Klamaths, and so it followed that they were thoroughly harassed by the Klamaths. The Klamaths demanded that the Modocs turn over a certain portion of their cut timber, and they hampered the Modocs at fishing and struck the Modoc women who gathered seeds at the lake. Moreover, mysterious fires appeared destroying Modoc property. Within the narrow confines of the reservation, the two tribes were on the brink of open warfare.

Captain Jack appeared before the superintendent of the reservation, Captain O.C. Knapp, and demanded that he do something. Captain Jack was, in the days to come, to appear before Knapp three separate times, with no action resulting. In fact, Knapp finally cut off the Modoc's rations, stating that the Indians should start re-establishing their self-sufficiency.

The final meeting, at which time Knapp reportedly swore and cursed at Captain Jack and branded the Indian leader a complainer, prompted Captain Jack to exclaim: "I am not a dog! I am a man, if I am an Indian. I and my men shall not be slaves for a race of people that is not any better than my people. I shall not live here. If the government refuses to protect my people, who shall I look to for protection?"

These words summarized one of the major causes of the Modoc War and the principles for which the Modocs were to fight. On April 25, 1870, some 300 Modocs left the Klamath Reservation to return to their homeland on the Lost River in northern California.

In the following two years, Jack and his band continued to roam free. Finally, in November 1872, an attempt was made to return the Modocs to the reservation. Troops were sent into the Lost River area to bring the Modocs out peacefully if possible, forcefully if necessary. Captain Jack's refusal to surrender signaled the start of the Modoc War.

One of the ironic notes of the war was the fact that a separate band of the Modocs known as the Hot Creek band, under the leadership of Shacknasty Jim, wanting no part of Captain Jack's war, set out for the reservation to live in surrender. En route, however, a lynching party of white settlers caused this band of 45 Modocs, including 14 warriors, to flee in panic and join Captain Jack. It may be said, perhaps, that these 14 warriors tipped the balance in Captain Jack's favor and helped prolong the war. The Modocs, realizing that war had indeed come, selected as their battlefield the northern California lava flows known today as the Lava Beds National Monument. There, Captain Jack, his approximately 53 warriors and their families made their stand.

Considering the number of Indians that the army was fighting, the Modoc War was to prove the single most costly Indian war in American history in terms of both money and human life.

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>From http://www.nativeamericans.com/Modoc.htm
 

Kintpuash ("Captain Jack")

Subchief of the Modoc and leader of the hostile group in the Modoc War (1872-73),  Jack, whose Modoc name was Kintpuash, had agreed to leave his ancestral home and live on a reservation with the Klamath. He found it impossible, however, to live on friendly terms with his former enemies, and after killing a Klamath medicine man, Jack and a group of followers left the reservation. They resisted arrest (Nov 1872) and fled into the lava beds in California. Their strong defensive position frustrated numerous attempts by U.S. troops to dislodge them.  Captain Jack didn't have complete control over the band. The Modocs stressed individual choice but worked as a group. Jack would accept the choice of the whole band even if he didn't agree with it. He argued against killing General Canby, but the majority of the warriors believed it would send the Army away, so Jack went along with the plan.

Jack had two wives, at least one daughter, and a sister, Queen Mary. They lived with him during the entire Modoc War.

John Schonchin

He was the brother of Old Schonchin, one the the Chiefs of the Modoc Tribe. He was hung with Captain Jack on October 3rd, 1873 for his part in the killing of General Canby and Rev. Thomas.

Black Jim

Black Jim was one of the four Modocs to hang on October 3rd. He shot and tried to scalp Meacham when General Canby was shot. After the Second Battle of the Stronghold, he and a few of the other Modocs left the two main bands of Modocs and tried to escape the U.S. Army. They were captured by Oregon Volunteers.

Hooker Jim

Hooker Jim was one of the most violent and independent members of the Modoc Tribe. After the Battle of Lost River he and a small group of Modocs took revenge on the settlers and killed 17. When he was captured after the Second Battle of the Stronghold, he agreed to help the Army find Captain Jack in return for escaping the hangman's noose.