The San Francisco call., 1897-04-07
PASS INC OF THE
WARL|KE MODOCS
Captain Jacks Celebrated
Band Decimated by
Starvation.
Pitiful Plight of the Remnant
Remaining on Northern
Ranges.
Fully a Fourth of Their Number
Succumbed TO the Hardshlps
of a Rig gorous Winter.

REDDING, CAL, April Oh. S. Nc
Coy, who has been riding the ranges ir
Modoc County, is in Redding to-day. He
tells of the pitiable condition OF the hand
full of the celebrated tribe of Modoc In
dians which live in that section. Ordi-
narily the reds have been able to sustain
themselves during the summer by work
ing on the hay ranches and in the winter
by cutting and hauling wood. This win
ter has been unusually severe and they
have been hard pressed 10 get bare sub
sislence. Mccoy reports that last fall
there remained but 100 of Captain Jacks
tribe in he neighborhood of the massacre
OF 1872 and that because of the severe
weather and the hardships OF the past
month line mum Der have been still more
greatly reduced. All told there are about
400 Indians of various tribes in the entire
county.
In 1873. at the close of the war, the
Modocs were taken to Indian Territory.
There were a score or more who escaped
the enticing wiles of Uncle Sans Com
m missioners, and in quarter OF q century
this remnant, left in peace, had grown TO
the mum Der OF 1C0. The ravages by hun
ger and exposure this winter has reduced
this nun Der, Mr.. Mccoy estimates, at
east one quarter The condition OF the
survivors is wre tched, and they appar-
emily feast with relish upon the carcasses
of cattle that have strayed from their
corrals and perished.
The present straits of the llniel de-
scendants OF Captains Jacks followers re-
call the history of that famous chief, who
in 1872 and 1873 caused the Government so
much trouble. 1t was famous war. Ac-
cording TO the reports made after it was
all over the Modocs had but forty-six me
capable of bearing arms when the war
commenced. Five braves, three squaws and
two boys lost their lives. On the Govern
ment side $50 soldiers were killed and
wounded, and the war cost $500, 600.
The tragedy of the struggle was the
treachery OF Captain Jack, who on April
IL. 1873, when under flag of truce, gave
the warwhoop and shot General Candy
dead. Candy fell upon the rocks and was
then stabbed in the neck with knife, as
q butcher kills hog, and was then
stripped of his clothing and left naked on
the lava. DR.. Thom as was Likewise killed
at this time.
For three days after that the United
States troops had Captain Jacks little
band hemmed up in the lava fields near
Tule Lake, pouring shot and shell upon
them. Not Modoc was slain, and the
whole band escaped 10 stronger position
six miles southwark. Three different
times the troops had their hands upon
Jack and he was not there.
Finally on June f. 1873, more than six
months after the first fight, the war closed
Captain Jack, Sconchin John. Boston
Charley, Black Jim, Waethinate and Shlox
were tried by court martial and sentenced
to death.
Scar-faced Charley was elected chief of
those who went TO Indian Territory.
Those left in NJ Modoc County have long ago
given up their tribal relation and have
lived peaceably on the verge oil civiliza-
tion, picking up a precarou9 and uncer-
tain living from odd jobs given them by
the whites in the sparsely settled region
in the northeastern corner of California
Never laying by any stores for rainy
day, they were not prepared to meet the
privations of the past winter, and spring
finds their ranks so reduced that soon the
Modocs will figure only in history.