News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-03-31

| CaDtain Jack and his blOOdthllSty hOuocS
! lay in waiting Oh the morning OF APri H.
! 1873 Captain Jack had broken ms pledges
! again and again within lew days pre-
| ceding the peace talk, when ne ii"'ue
! the cover of a most barbarous massacre.
| Friendly Indians. who knew the MOdocs
| purposes, scouts, and above all a squaW,
who had the privileges of Capt Jack 5
| lair, and learned by unerring signs that
mischief was on foot, warned the army
| leaders and Indian commissioners not to
| trust themselves within reach OF the MO
! docs. 1t was singular state OF affairs
| there at the Lava Beds of Tule lake, with
| an ''army with banners on one side and
handful of ugitives-outlawcd savages-
on the other. The troops numbered several
hundred, the larger part being regulars
| provided with the best implements of war,
| including cannon. The indian warriors
| numbered about two score, and had good
| small arms, but not much ammunition.
The United States forces had been in the
field for months upon an expedition to
force the MOdOcs to go upon reservation.
Several battles had been fought and the
Modocs, generally victorious, had secured
ammunition fro.h the dead soldiers The
position occupied 10y the Indians had given
them the upprr hand in many Il desperate
fight with greet odds 1t was in Il barren
region known as the Lava Beds, where
volcanic upheavas have left~a regular
series of ridges, broken at the surface by
deep crevices running both lcngthwiSe and
crosSwiSe The creviCes formed hidden
passages for the Indians to move about,
and where it suited their purposes they
blocked them against the invading troops
by rolling huge rocks down from above.
The army officers reported that one man
in the Lava Beds could keep twenty ut a
distance.
When matters reached Il crisis however,
the army surrounded the place, and with
its cannon and mounted troops was in
a fair way to win at all points. But be
fore the blow came to settle the doom of the
Modocs forever hOstilities were suspended
by orders from Washington ut the request
of the Indian bureau What the diplomatic
world calls negotiation, but in the parlance
of the plains is known as peace talk,
was to be brought into use at moment
when the scalpiug knives of the Modocs
were dripping with blood and their victims
lay unbured and bleeding within sight of
the council tent. Candy had reached ihe
spot prepared to fight and finish ,is. i..I+I
ness. Not that he WAS cruel Indian l!atrr
On the contrary, lie was IL friend OF the red
man and had proved it scores of times, even
rs far back as the Seminole trouble. But
he thought that patience had ceased to he
a virtue and it was time to cease talking and
go to shooting The Modocs were not Il new
species The soldiers knew them and the
settlers as well. They had grievances. too
but had become nuisance all the same-
the more because of brooding over their
grievances.
In the early days of California 1871 to
1919, they destroyed many whites and were
afterward whipped by Capt. Nathaniel
Lyons forces for their forays upon set
tiers. In 1872 the settlers organized. and
after terrible massacre invited the Mo
docs to II peace talk" and killed II out of
46 warriors who responded Naturally,
savage tradition didn't allow that sort of
negotiation to die out of remembrance.
After years of war, in which they got the
worst of it, of course, they coded their
lands and agreed to 20 on Il reservation.
The band thpr1-vvrrrt- r,tt-tltt n lsttrr-ftlt,
reservation, where they had no means of
living, were cheated out of their supplies.
and tormented by their natural enemies,
the Klamaths. Groups of them strayed
back to their old home on Klamath lake,
and these in 1872 were about forty families