National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1873-10-17
The Execution OF the MOdOcs.
How They Received THeir DoOm..Com
paIisoms and lie nintsceMces

How They Received Their Doom-.Com
PARSONS and lie min,scencss.
That group Of savages, listening
through double Interpretation 10 the
comforting words Of clergyman, says
the New York Herald, whom they can
only speak of ms Esprit. man, is q
novel scene for the world 10 ponder
over. They heard the sentences trans.
lated into Modoc jargon and then rem.
dered into pure Modoc, but their
speeches aftorwarl betrayed how little
the thoughts Of the preacher had sunk
into their savage souls. They spoke in
turn, and the strange offer OF Captain
Jack, that Scar-faced Charley should
suffer IN his stead, was made. In neither
his nor Schonchin's speeches did the
calm, impassive, mistaken stoicism APP
pear which we have insensibly connect
ed with the Indian when facing his
doom. From Captain Jack looking
wistfully round with his searching,
glittering eyes, and saying, at is
terrible to think have to die, because
whenever look at my heart see n de-
sire to live," we recall the famous figure
of the Virginia .ldian, Logan, when,
rs a prisoner after bloody war in
which he was ever towering spirit, he
said, Logan would not turn upon his
heel to save his life" From Schonchin,
speaking AZ smoothly and ingeniously
az Shakspeare's Mark Antony, saying:
" Boston Charley has told the truth
when he called me "A woman. / was
like woman, and opposed to war;" we
can go back TO Osceola, the famous
Chief of the Seminoles, enduring his
Imprisonment with the dignity of
Brutus, expressing no regret save that
he had allowed himself to be betrayed
into the hands Of the pale face enemies
who were seeking, with bloody hand,
the destruction OF his race.
The long intermixture with the whites
had grated the idea upon the mind of
Captain Jack and Schonchin that while
there's life there's hope--that the life
which had been struggled for with
tooth and nail was worth struggling for
with the tongue. Different is this, in
deed, from Black Hawk, when made u
prisoner, saying pithily and with the
grim spirit OF an ancient Greek, "Have
done my best pale faces too many,
that's all. Although the old men and
chiefs betrayed this yearning for life,
III the two younger men, Boston Char
ley and Black jim, the defiant spirit of
the savage unused to the flood of
gentler emotions was seen, and particu
larry i'll the former. Schonchin,"
said Boston Charley, reproachfully, 81
am not afraid to die. fought III the
front rank. | am wholly man, not half
woman." SO the talk" went on with
some of the old Indian eloquence,
wherein their paganism, tempered with
Christian expression, IL heard -" The
Great Spirit who looks from above will
see Schonchin in chains, but He knows
that his heart is good, and says, You
die you become one of My people. ;"
Soon another scene takes place with
more of the human element in it, when
the squaws, papooses and relatives of
the doomed were let in to vent their
grief in passionate storm of farewells.
Even with fettered sayages and their
barbarian kindred this grief is some
thing sacred, from which we must turn
away.
Night comes down over the camp
with the death songs of the Modoc
women wailing through the air. Then,
save the sentry's tread, all is still
Morning breaks, and the reveille rings
ont. All are afoot at dawn. The
solemn pomp of death is prepared. The
morning advances, and the troops march
out and take position. Five hundred
Klamath Indians squat upon the ground
before the broad gallows, to see and be
by the death struggles of four
brethren of their banned race. A loud
wall from the stockade where the Modoc
squaws and braves are Gagged is heard,
and then comes the escorted wagon
with the doomed. Hope has gone out
of their breasts, and the stoicism of
the savage asserts itself in this supreme
moment. The fated four are seated
pinioned on the gallows frame, with the
sun shining on their backs, never to
shine upon their faces in life again.
The long, dreary form of reading the
sentence and praying is proceeded with,
and the Modoc wall, rising again from
the wives and children, is its agonizing
accompaniment. We wonder if it en-
tered the minds of the Klamaths look
ing coldly on, that so their race was
passing away with the sun upon their
backs, their Swallowed destiny on the
ground before their faces, white officers
reading their doom, white chaplains
pointing to a happy hereafter and the
walls and sobs of women and children
interviewer and mingled with it all. The
thud of an axe is heard, and the four
wretches struggle through strangula-
ton into eternity. -Four corpses sway
ing in the wind now tell that, in slow
fashion, the murders of Candy and
Thomas have been avenged.