The Modoc are a Native American people who originally lived in the area which is now northeastern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and central Southern Oregon. They are currently divided between

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

and

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

and are enrolled in either of two

federally recognized tribes This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

, the Klamath Tribes in Oregon and the Modoc Tribe of

, now known as the

Modoc Nation The Modoc Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Modoc people, located in Ottawa County in the northeast corner of Oklahoma and Modoc and Siskiyou counties in northeast California.Self, Burl EModoc.''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia ...

Language

The Modoc, like the neighboring Klamath, spoke dialectic varieties of the Klamathan/Lutuamian language, a branch of the Plateau Penutian language family. Both peoples called themselves ''maklaks'', meaning "people". To distinguish between the tribes, the Modoc called themselves ''Moatokni maklaks'', from ''muat'' meaning "South". The Achomawi, a band of the Pit River tribe, called them ''Lutuami'', meaning "Lake Dwellers".

Current population and geography

About 600 Modoc live in

Klamath County, Oregon Klamath County ( ) is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 69,413. The county seat is Klamath Falls. The county was named for the Klamath, the tribe of Native Americans living in th ...

, in and around their ancestral homelands. This group includes those who stayed on the reservation during the

Modoc War 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 M ...

, as well as the descendants of those who chose to return in 1909 to Oregon from Indian Territory in Oklahoma or Kansas. Since that time, many have followed the path of the Klamath. The shared tribal government of the Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin in Oregon is known as the Klamath Tribes. Two hundred Modoc live in

on a small reservation in

Ottawa County, Oklahoma Ottawa County is a county located in the northeastern corner of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,285. Its county seat is Miami. The county was named for the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma.Kintpuash) led during the Modoc War. The federal government officially recognized the Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma in 1978, and its constitution was approved in 1991.

Early population

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially.

James Mooney James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the ...

put the aboriginal population of the Modoc at 400. Alfred L. Kroeber estimated the Modoc population within California as 500 at the year 1770. University of Oregon anthropologist Theodore Stern suggested that there had been a total of about 500 Modoc.Stern, pp. 446–456 In 1846, the population may have included "perhaps 600 warriors (an overestimate, probably)".Thrapp, p. 1276

History

Pre-contact

Until the 19th century, when European explorers first encountered the Modoc, like all Plateau Indians, they caught salmon during salmon runs and migrated seasonally to hunt and gather other food.Arnold, ''et al.'', p. 507 In winter, they built earthen dugout lodges shaped like beehives, covered with sticks and plastered with mud, near lake shores with reliable sources of seeds from aquatic

wokas ''Nuphar polysepala'' (the great yellow pond-lily or wokas; syn. ''Nuphar polysepalum'' orth. err., ''Nuphar lutea'' subsp. ''polysepala'' (Engelm.) E.O.Beal) is a species of ''Nuphar'' native to western North America.Flora of North America''Nuph ...

plants and fishing.Pease, pp. 46–48

Neighboring groups

In addition to the Klamath, with whom they shared a language and the

Modoc Plateau __NOTOC__ The Modoc Plateau lies in the northeast corner of California as well as parts of Oregon and Nevada. Nearly of the Modoc National Forest are on the plateau between the Medicine Lake Highlands in the west and the Warner Mountains in th ...

, the groups neighboring the Modoc home were: * Shasta on the Klamath River; * Rogue River Athabaskans and Takelma west over the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, a ...

; *

Northern Paiute Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

east in the desert; *

Karuk The Karuk people are an indigenous people of California, and the Karuk Tribe is one of the largest tribes in California. Karuks are also enrolled in two other federally recognized tribes, the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad ...

and Yurok further down the Klamath River; and * Achomawi or ''Pit River'' to the south, in the meadows of the Pit River drainages. The Modoc, Northern Paiute, and Achomawi shared Goose Lake Valley.

Settlements

The known Modoc village sites are ''Agawesh,'' where Willow Creek enters

Lower Klamath Lake Lower Klamath Lake is a lake in Siskiyou County, California. At one time it was connected to Upper Klamath Lake. It currently is used to hold overflow water for Klamath Project irrigation uses. The lake is in Northern California, near the bord ...

, of the ''Gombatwa·s'' or Lower Klamath Lake People Band; ''Kumbat'' and ''Pashha'' on the shores of Tule Lake of the ''Pasganwa·s'' or Tule Lake People Band; and ''Wachamshwash'' and ''Nushalt-Hagak-ni'' on the Lost River of the ''Goġewa·s'' or Lower Lost River People Band.Kroeber, pp. 305–335 The Modoc have also been known as the Modok (Brandt and Davis-Kimball xvi).

First contact

In the 1820s,

Peter Skene Ogden Peter Skene Ogden (alternately Skeene, Skein, or Skeen; baptised 12 February 1790 – 27 September 1854) was a British-Canadian fur trader and an early explorer of what is now British Columbia and the Western United States. During his many expedi ...

, an explorer for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

, established trade with the Klamath people north of the Modoc.

Applegate Trail established

Brothers Jesse and

Lindsay Applegate Lindsay Applegate (September 18, 1808 – November 28, 1892) was an American pioneer known for his participation in blazing the Applegate Trail, an alternative route of the Oregon Trail. The trail was blazed with his brothers Charles and Jesse in ...

, accompanied by 13 other white settlers, established the

Applegate Trail The Applegate Trail was an emigrant trail through the present-day U.S. states of Idaho, Nevada, California, and Oregon used in the mid-19th century by emigrants on the American frontier. It was originally intended as a less dangerous alternative t ...

, or South Emigrant Trail, in 1846. It connected a point on the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

near Fort Hall, Idaho, and the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the eas ...

in western Oregon. The new route was created to encourage European-Americans to come to western Oregon, and to eliminate the hazards encountered on the Columbia Route. Since the Hudson's Bay Company controlled the Columbia Route, development of an alternate route enabled migration even if there were trouble between the United States and the United Kingdom. The Applegate brothers became the first known white people in present-day

Lava Beds National Monument Lava Beds National Monument is located in northeastern California, in Siskiyou and Modoc counties. The monument lies on the northeastern flank of Medicine Lake Volcano and has the largest total area covered by a volcano in the Cascade Range. ...

. The opening of the Applegate Trail appeared to bring the first regular contact between the Modoc and the European-American settlers, who had largely ignored their territory before. Many of the events of the

took place along the trail.

Emigrant invasion

From 1846 to 1873, thousands of emigrants entered the Modoc territory. Beginning in 1847, the Modoc raided the invading emigrants on the Applegate TrailMichno, pp. 90–91 under the leadership of Old Chief Schonchin. In September 1852, the Modoc destroyed an emigrant train at Bloody Point on the east shore of Tule Lake, killing all but three of the 65 people in the party. The Modoc took two young girls as captives. One or both of them may have been killed several years later by jealous Modoc women.Murray, pp. 24–28 The only man to survive the attack made his way to

Yreka, California Yreka ( ) is the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States, near the Shasta River; the city has an area of about , most of it land. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,807, reflecting a meager increase fr ...

. After hearing his news, Yreka settlers organized a militia under Sheriff Charles McDermit, Jim Crosby, and Ben Wright. They went to the scene of the massacre to bury the dead and avenge their deaths. Crosby's party had a skirmish with a band of Modoc and returned to Yreka. Wright and a small group stayed on to avenge the deaths. He was a notorious Indian hater. Accounts differ as to what took place when Wright's party met the Modoc on the Lost River, but most agree that Wright planned to ambush them, which he did in November 1852. Wright and his forces attacked, killing approximately 40 Modoc, in what came to be known as the "Ben Wright Massacre."

Treaty with the United States

The United States, the Klamath, the Modoc, and the

Yahooskin The Klamath people are a Native American tribe of the Plateau culture area in Southern Oregon and Northern California. Today Klamath people are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: * Klamath Tribes (Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin (Yahus ...

band of

Snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more ...

tribes signed a treaty in 1864 that established the Klamath Reservation. It required the tribes to cede the land bounded on the north by the 44th parallel, on the west and south by the ridges of the

, and on the east by lines touching Goose Lake and Henley Lake back up to the 44th parallel.''Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs'', pp. 104–105 In return, the United States was to make a lump sum payment of $35,000, and annual payments totaling $80,000 over 15 years, as well as provide infrastructure and staff for a reservation. The treaty provided that if the Indians drank or stored intoxicating liquor on the reservation, the payments could be withheld and that the United States could locate additional tribes on the reservation in the future. The treaty required that the Modoc surrender their lands near Lost River, Tule Lake, and Lower Klamath Lake in exchange for lands in the Upper Klamath Valley. They did so, under the leadership of Chief Schonchin. The Indian agent estimated the total population of the three tribes at about 2,000 when the treaty was signed. The land of the reservation did not provide enough food for both the Klamath and the Modoc peoples. Illness and tension between the tribes increased. The Modoc requested a separate reservation closer to their ancestral home, but neither the federal nor the California government approved it. In 1870 '' Kintpuash'' (also called Captain Jack) led a band of Modoc to leave the reservation and return to their traditional homelands. They built a village near the Lost River. These Modoc had not been adequately represented in the treaty negotiations and wished to end the harassment by the Klamath on the reservation.

Modoc War

In November 1872, the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

was sent to Lost River to attempt to force Kintpuash's band back to the reservation. A

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and for ...

broke out, and the Modoc escaped to what is called

Captain Jack's Stronghold Captain Jack's Stronghold was a holdout of the Modoc people that is located between Tulelake and Canby, California. The stronghold, which is now part of Lava Beds National Monument, is named for Native American chief Kintpuash who was also kn ...

in what is now

. The band of fewer than 53 warriors was able to hold off the 3,000 U.S. Army troops for several months, defeating them in combat several times. In April 1873, the Modoc left the Stronghold and began to splinter. Kintpuash and his group were the last to be captured, on June 4, 1873, when they voluntarily gave themselves up. U.S. government personnel had assured them that their people would be treated fairly and the warriors would be allowed to live on their own land.Arnold, ''et al.'', pp. 507–509 The U.S. Army tried, convicted and executed Kintpuash and three of his warriors in October 1873 for the murder of Major General Edward Canby earlier that year at a parley. Canby had violated agreements made with the Modoc. The Army sent the rest of the band to Oklahoma as

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

with

Scarfaced Charley Chikchikam Lupatkue-latko ( – December 3, 1896), known as Scarface Charley, was a chief of the Modoc tribe of Native Americans. He took part in the Modoc War of 1872–73 in California, and is considered to have fired the first shot at the Batt ...

as their chief. The tribe's spiritual leader, Curley Headed Doctor, was also forced to remove to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

. In the 1870s,

Peter Cooper Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791April 4, 1883) was an American industrialist, inventor, philanthropist, and politician. He designed and built the first American steam locomotive, the '' Tom Thumb'', founded the Cooper Union for the Advancement of ...

brought Indians to speak to Indian rights groups in eastern cities. One of the delegations was from the Modoc and Klamath tribes. In 1909, the group in Oklahoma was given permission to return to Oregon. Several people did, but most stayed at their new home.

Culture

The religion of the Modoc is not known in detail. The number five figured heavily in ritual, as in the ''Shuyuhalsh'', a five-night dance rite of passage for adolescent girls. A sweat lodge was used for purification and mourning ceremonies.Kroeber, pp. 320–321

Namesakes

, Modoc National Forest,

Modoc County, California Modoc County () is a county in the far northeast corner of the U.S. state of California. Its population is 8,700 as of the 2020 census, down from 9,686 from the 2010 census. This makes it California's third-least populous county. The county seat ...

;

Modoc, Indiana Modoc is a town in Union Township, Randolph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 196 at the 2010 census. History There are several legends to how the town of Modoc got its name. One of them said that a man travelling on ...

; and numerous other places are named after this group of people.

Notes

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma
official website
Klamath Tribes: Klamath, Modoc, Yahooskin
official website
Southern Oregon Digital Archives
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Modoc People Native American tribes in California Native American tribes in Oregon Native American tribes in Oklahoma Modoc Plateau History of the Great Basin History of Modoc County, California Native American history of California