Things That Never Were - (Strange Tales from the Modoc Country) - History

Tale: From the opening of a road through their territory, the Modocs were hostile to white travellers. In 1847 they massacred a party of twenty-eight by Tule Lake, at a place named Bloody Point, and they followed this up two years later by murdering a party of eighteen. In 1850 they surrounded a wagon train of some eighty people and killed all but one of them.

Reality: None of these stories can be substantiated. Charles Drew first told of the 1847 and 1849 massacres some fifteen years later in a report urging the building of a Fort in southern Oregon. They are part of a list of alleged atrocities by Indians in the area. The list is unreliable, to say the least; an alleged 1850 massacre at Port Orford, for example, is known to be based on unfounded reports, and two of the men supposed to be massacred there were still contradicting the report as late as 1873. But there are additional grounds to be suspicious of these Modoc incidents; they are not included in a virtually identical list Drew had presented a couple of years before this one. Where did he get these stories? They are not mentioned in contemporary newspapers for example, and in fact in 1847 Jesse Applegate wrote "Except an old wagon, abandoned by Judge Burch near Rogue river, every vehicle which took the southern road arrived in the valley, the teams in good condition, and their owners in fine health and spirits, having suffered, from all sources, a comparatively trifling loss of animals." Clearly he was not aware of the deaths of twenty-eight people in Modoc country. As for the 1850 massacre, it first appears even later, around 1905, and seems to be based on nothing more solid than the fumes of old memories of 1852 and 1853 still resident in the brain of "Colonel" William Thompson.

Body Counts

(1852)

Tale: In the 1850s the Modocs murdered some three hundred men, women, and children, determined by an actual count of their skeletons found bleaching in the sun.

Reality: The Modocs only attacked small parties beginning in 1852. Confirmed deaths include eight out of a group of nine packers; five scouts for a wagon train, and four people travelling in an isolated wagon, all in the summer of 1852. A contemporary source gives the numbers of bodies found as around twenty. (As the Modocs themselves boasted to the Klamaths of having killed thirty-four whites by 1854, the number is not likely to be larger.) One body was that of a woman, but no children's bodies were found.

The Reed Girls

(1852?)

Tale: Two girls, aged 14 and 16, the daughters of a man named Reed, were captured by the Modocs in the early 1850s. One died early, but the other lived for some time, until the Modoc women got jealous of her and caused her death.

Reality: At first sight this story seems to have some foundation. An 1852 story reports a rumor that two women were being held captive by the Modocs, and an 1873 article has it that the body of one of the women was found. But the 1852 story was never confirmed--and at that, it was a story that was also told of other tribes of southern Oregon. And the 1873 item only reports the finding of a skull and arm bone that were supposed to have belonged to one of the two rumored women--that is, the claim rests on nothing more than a guess. As time passed the story grew--the girls acquired specific ages and a last name, for instance, and lurid details were given of their treatment and fate--and finally, at least by 1890 or so, their alleged captivity was made the excuse for the Ben Wright massacre. But the fact is there is no good reason to believe that these girls were held captive by the Modocs, or even that they ever existed.

Ben Wright to the Rescue

(31 August 1852)

Tale: When Ben Wright's volunteers arrived at Tule Lake they found a large wagon train surrounded by Modocs, just on the verge of being overwhelmed. The volunteers turned the tide, the Modocs fleeing at their mere appearance, and so the wagon train was saved.

Reality: When Ben Wright's volunteers arrived at Tule Lake they did in fact find a large wagon train--eating lunch. The train--or rather one of two trains now joined together--had recently been attacked by Modocs and had spent over a day fighting them off. It was the arrival of the second train that had turned the tide. Ben Wright's men arrived after the fighting was over by several hours.

Elijah Steele's Unauthorized Treaty

(14 February 1864)

Tale: In one of the most bizarre events that led up to the war a private citizen, Elijah Steele, took it upon himself to make a private treaty with the Modocs, without bothering to even inform the government of what he was doing, let alone having the authority. The Modocs believed this was a valid treaty, and when the referred to it in later negotiations, were amazed to find that it had no value. Despite this they continued to have faith in Elijah Steele.

Reality: The Klamaths, Shastas, and Modocs, who were at war among themselves, went to Elijah Steele, then Superintending Agent Indian Affairs for Northern California, to draft a treaty among themselves. Steele and two other local authorities signed the document as witnesses, and Steele duly forwarded it to Washington. The authorities there were not only aware of it, they considered it as having some sort of official status, in that they provided Huntington with a copy of it when he went out to make a treaty with the Modocs later that year, describing it as some of the work that had already been done towards that end.

Captain Jack's Treaty Ratification

(10 December 1869)

Tale: When the October 1864 treaty with the Modocs and Klamaths was sent to the Senate, it was passed with a few verbal amendments, making it necessary for the Modocs and Klamaths to approve the changes. Captain Jack protested, claiming that this was not what they had agreed to, but he was overruled by others, who convinced him to give his assent to the revised treaty, which he grudgingly did.

Reality: Captain Jack and most of the rest of the Modocs were not on Klamath Reservation on 10 December 1869 when verbal amendments were approved by the Klamaths and Modocs, and therefore can neither have protested, nor grudgingly assented to the revised treaty. Captain Jack and the others did not come in to the reservation until the very end of December.

Attack on the Hospital Tents

(26 January 1873)

Tale: One rainy night seven Modocs, led by Scarfaced Charley, climbed up a narrow path and crept through the brush to a grove of trees where the field hospital tents stood. It was guarded by two sentries, but the Modocs were able to stab them before either could call out, and then they rushed into the tents to cut the throats of five wounded soldiers.

Reality: Nothing remotely like this happened, not on 26 January or any other date. This story apparently goes back to 1881, and was told to Herman Werner (then a soldier at Fort Klamath) by some local resident. It does not appear to be based on any real event of any kind; my guess is that the anonymous informant was amusing himself at Werner's expense.

Meacham's Peace Commission

(late January 1873)

Tale: Alfred B. Meacham, former Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, being eager to get his job back, persuaded the federal government to make him head of a peace commission to the Modocs. His scheme was to make peace with the Modocs at any cost, at the same time throwing the blame for the war onto his successor in office, Thomas B. Odeneal.

Reality: Alfred B. Meacham did not propose the peace commission, nor did he suggest the idea through friends, as is sometimes said. A delegation from Oregon suggested the idea of a peace commission to end the war, and proposed Meacham as its head, partly because Meacham had succeeded in getting the Modocs onto Klamath Reservation once before. No doubt Meacham did want his old job back, and as his successor Thomas Odeneal had fouled things up badly, he probably did see this as an opportunity, but he did not originate the idea.

Lindsay Applegate's Letter

(late January 1873)

Tale: Lindsay (or Jesse) Applegate presented a confused letter to the Secretary of the Interior proposing a peace commission. Starting with the premise that Indians from different tribes work together more harmoniously on a reservation when one of the tribes can claim ownership, he nonetheless went on to propose that the Modocs and Klamaths be moved to a reservation where neither had prior claim. Further, although he proposed the idea of the peace commission, the author later repudiated it as an expensive and useless farce.

Reality: Three members of the Applegate family have been confused here. Lindsay Applegate had once been sub-agent for Klamath Reservation, but it was his son Elisha who urged (against the wishes of most of the rest of the Applegate family) the creation of a peace commission. His letter is clear and consistent; a printer's error in some reprints makes him seem to contradict himself, but what he wrote was that Indians from different tribes would work together better on a single reservation if neither of them could claim previous ownership; for this reason he proposed moving both tribes to a different reservation on the coast. It was Lindsay's brother Jesse who repudiated the commission as an expensive and useless farce.

Meacham and the Good Friday Conference

(11 April 1873)

Tale: When Frank and Toby Riddle "in vain tried to dissuade the commissioners from their purpose[,] Meacham told Gen. Canby that Riddle only sought to delay negotiations in order to prolong his job as interpreter; that he knew Capt. Jack and that he 'was an honorable man.'" Canby said he was a soldier and had no choice but to obey orders.

Reality: When Frank and Toby Riddle "in vain tried to dissuade the commissioners from their purpose" it was Meacham who believed them, and Canby who didn't. Canby felt that the Modocs wouldn't dare make a move with the army so close by.

Kate Schira's Attack on Steamboat Frank

(6 June 1873)

Tale: While the Modocs were prisoners of war, their victims were brought by to identify them. When Hooker Jim and Steamboat Frank confessed to being part of the party Louisa Boddy went for Hooker Jim with a knife, and Kate Schira pulled a pistol on Steamboat Frank. Fortunately Edward Fox of the New York Herald alerted General Gillem, who disarmed the women, receiving a cut from the knife in the process.

Reality: Louisa Boddy did attack Hooker Jim with a knife, and General Gillem disarmed her, but Kate Schira had nothing to do with this. She was there, as was Steamboat Frank, and she had a pistol, but this seems to have been backup for the attack on Hooker Jim. It was Samuel Clarke of the New York Times who raised the alarm; Edward Fox was in New York City at this time.

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