Today in Labor History June 1, 1873: Captain Jack (Kintpuash), who led a band of 52 Modoc warriors against the U.S. army near Tule Lake, California, finally surrendered to U.S. troops. The fight was part of the Modoc Wars, in which the Modoc tribe (southern Oregon and Northern California) resisted domination by the U.S. This was the most expensive Indian War in US history. Initially, the Modocs were highly successful, at least until the U.S. brought in significant reinforcements, encircled them, starved them out, leading many of Captain Jack’s own warriors to join with the U.S. forces to help capture him. It was also the only time Indigenous Americans killed a U.S. general. For decades, Kintpuash’s head was displayed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
In 1863, the U.S. Army built Fort Klamath, just north of the Oregon border. Hundreds of Civil War veterans spent their days and evenings there getting drunk because there wasn’t anything else to do there. The army had forced Captain Jack and a hundred other Modocs to leave Tule Lake and live on the Klamath reservation. However, the Klamath Indians mistreated the Modocs. And the U.S. soldiers raided the reservation and raped Modoc women. So, Captain Jack returned to Tule Lake with the hundred Modocs he had brought with him, plus another 300 who had been living on the reservation before he got there.
When they returned to Tule Lake, they found even more white men than when they had left, and they didn’t want the Modocs around. They demanded that the Army return Captain Jack and his people to the reservation. The army surrounded the Modocs and sent in a peace delegation to negotiate a return to the reservation. Captain Jack initially wanted to make peace with the U.S. government because he knew Washington would continue to send soldiers and they’d never be able to win. But several of his chiefs disagreed. They knew that if they made peace, they’d be betrayed, as had happened so many times before. Realizing his chiefs would make war with the U.S., with or without his support, he chose to fight. So, at the next peace commission, Captain Jack shot and killed General Canby, the only general to ever die in the Indian wars. The other members of the delegation fled.
The Lava Beds were a natural fortress, with hundreds of caves and tunnels that were well-known to the Modocs. The night of the U.S. assault, a dense fog moved in from Tule Lake. The U.S. soldiers couldn’t see, yet they proceeded anyway. Modoc sharpshooters hid in crevasses and behind natural lava breastworks. They picked off the U.S. soldiers, one by one. In all, the Modocs killed 83 U.S. soldiers and volunteers, including 7 officers. The army killed 17 Modoc warriors, women and children. But eventually the U.S. brought in enough soldiers to surround the Modocs and starve them out, ultimately winning the war.
You read my complete biography of Kintpuash here: https://michaeldunnauthor.com/2021/04/23/captain-jack/
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