T
|
he Modoc War is a relatively obscure event in United States
history. Boiled down to its essence—In 1864 the Indian department chose to
assign the Modocs to live on Klamath Reservation, ignoring such complicating
factors as the long and strained relationship between the two groups and Modoc
economic ties to adjacent communities. In 1867 a place was prepared for them at
Yainax station (on Klamath Reservation), probably because it was a common
meeting-place for an annual gathering of various tribes to exchange slaves and
other goods), and some of them went. Many Modocs refused. Some of the leaders,
like Captain Jack, had signed the treaty agreeing to go to the reservation;
others had not. All were considered to be bound by the treaty. Years went by
while bureaucratic wheels turned slowly, but at last it was decided to use
troops to force the refusenik Modocs onto Klamath Reservation. The attempt
failed; the Modocs took refuge in nearby lava country, and after a long
stand-off were dislodged, rounded up, and sent to Indian Territory (later
called Oklahoma).
At the tipping point, right before the war started, it was
felt necessary to make one more attempt to get the separatist Modocs to go onto
Klamath Reservation voluntarily. The man in charge of this operation was Thomas
Benton Odeneal, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon. A long-time
newspaper man (he had been editor of the Corvallis Gazette and would go on to edit the Portland Bulletin), he had ended up with the appointment through some
unfathomable twist of politics. With a domestic crisis at home (his small
daughter would soon die from an unknown disease), and armed with an unshakable
belief in the childlike qualities of Native Americans, he nonetheless set out
to make an attempt to keep the peace in southern Oregon.
On 20 November 1872 he left Salem, Oregon, arriving at the
rambunctious frontier town of Jacksonville on the 24th. The next day brought him to Klamath
Reservation, where he wasted no time in sending out two messengers to contact
the Modocs—James “One-Armed” Brown and Ivan Decatur Applegate. Let’s let
pioneer historian Frances Victor, as channeled through über-editor H. H. Bancroft,
take it from here:
… he sent James Brown, of Salem, and Ivan Applegate to Lost river
to request the Modocs to meet him at Linkville on the 27th. At the same time
the messengers were instructed to say that the superintendent had only the
kindest feelings for them; that he had made ample provision for their comfortable
support at Yai-nax, where, if they would go within a reasonable time, they
should be fairly dealt with and fully protected; and if they would go there at
once with Applegate, he would meet them there, but if they refused he required
them to meet him at Linkville in order that a final understanding with them might
be had.
…
On the 27th the superintendent, in company with Dyar from the
Klamath agency, went to Linkville to meet the Modocs, as he had appointed, but
there found only his messengers, who informed him of Jack’s refusal either to
go upon the reservation or to meet him at Linkville. “Say to the superintendent,”
said Jack, who with a part of his men was in camp at Lost river, “that we do
not wish to see him, or to talk with him. We do not want any white men to tell
us what to do. Our friends and counsellors are men in Yreka. They tell us to
stay where we are, and we intend to do so, and will not go upon the reservation. I am tired of being talked to, and am done
talking.”
It being now apparent that nothing short of an armed force could
influence these Indians to submit to the government, the superintendent sent a
report of the late conference of his messengers with Captain Jack, and of the
reply of Jack to his proposals, together with the order of the commissioner, to
Green, with a request that he should furnish sufficient force to compel the
Modocs to go upon their reservation; and in case it became necessary to use
compulsory measures, to arrest first of all Jack, Black Jim, and Scarfaced
Charley, holding them subject to his orders. In reply to this demand, Green sent word that Jackson would at once
leave the post with about thirty men.
And so the Modoc War was on. To recap: Odeneal sent word to
Captain Jack and his people either to go with Ivan Applegate to Klamath
Reservation directly or to meet with him at Linkville to talk things over on
the 27th of November. (Note the date. This is a small matter, but
sometimes the meaning of events hangs on small matters.) Why he thought Captain
Jack would do either of these things is unknown—the facts are that the
disaffected Modocs had already repeatedly declined to go to Klamath
Reservation, and they were hardly likely to go to Linkville either, where the
local settlers were prepared (as subsequent developments show) to lynch them on
sight. Still the point is that Odeneal gave them a chance to talk things over
at Linkville on the 27th, he showed up there along with Agent Dyar,
the Modocs didn’t, and only when the
dissident Modocs had refused this last opportunity to talk things over did
Odeneal call for force to be used.
Now all this, as it happens, is absolute hogwash, though it
has made it into the standard histories of the Modoc War. Let’s take a look at
these same events again, this time as recorded in the November report of Agent
Dyar:
On the 25th of November superintendent Odeneal sent Mr. I. D.
Applegate, a man intimately acquainted with Indian character, and Mr. James
Brown, department messenger, from Linkville to the camp of the Modocs, at the
mouth of Lost river, with instructions to see captain Jack, and the leading
men, and tell them that the superintendent wished them to meet him at Link
river, about twenty miles from their camp, on the 28th [!!], or, if they would not meet him there,
to come upon the reservation, and he would see them here; that ample provision
had been made for their subsistance and comfort. Mr. Odeneal then came on to
the agency, arriving here on the evening of the 25th, and on the 27th I went
with him to Link river, to meet the Indians on the 28th, should they consent to
come. On the way to Link river we met Mr. Applegate returning from the Modoc
camp, and he reported that captain Jack refused to meet Mr. Odeneal at Link
river; that he did not wish to see the superintendent; that he had done talking;
that he was advised by his friends, white men in Yreka, to stay where he was,
and that he would not go on the reservation.
Note this: the proposed meeting was not on the 27th,
but on the 28th. And Odeneal didn’t wait for that meeting—he sent
his letter requesting that troops be sent out on the 27th. Now in
all fairness there’s no special reason why he should have waited, given his
presuppositions. He clearly never had confidence in negotiations with the Lost
River Modocs. And really, what was there to negotiate? The authorities had
decided that the Modocs were to be confined to Klamath Reservation; Captain
Jack’s Modocs were dead set against it—there was no middle ground. No room for
compromise. But the point here is that history has somehow simplified the
process. Odeneal supposedly demanded a meeting on the 27th; the
Modocs didn’t show up; the war was on. But in fact Odeneal demanded a meeting
on the 28th, and when he received word on the 27th that
the Modocs refused to come, immediately called for the troops. He did not wait for the date of the proposed
meeting.
So where did Victor, Bancroft, and subsequent historians get
the notion that it was only after the
Modocs failed to show up for a meeting on the 27th that Odeneal sent
for the troops? They probably got it from Odeneal. Here is the letter he wrote
the commander of the District of the Lakes on 25 November 1872 as it appears in Odeneal’s official report:
Sir: I am here for the purpose of putting the Modoc Indians upon
this reservation, in pursuance of an order from the honorable commissioner
of Indian affairs, a copy of which is as follows: “You are directed to remove
the Modoc Indians to Klamath Reservation, peaceably if you can, but forcibly
if you must.”
I have requested the head men of the tribe to meet me at Link river
on the 27th instant, at which time I shall endeavor to persuade them to return
to the reservation. If they shall refuse to come voluntarily, then I shall
call upon you for a force sufficient to compel them to do so. They have some
eighty well armed warriors, and I would suggest that as large a force be
brought to bear against them at once as you can conveniently furnish, in the
event it shall be determined that they cannot be removed peaceably.
Immediately after the conference referred to I will inform you of
the result thereof, and in the meantime I have to request that all necessary
preliminary arrangements be made for concentrating the forces at your
command, and having them ready for active operations.
The catch is, the letter
actually received at the fort was different. In it Odeneal had written that
he had called for a meeting with the Modoc leaders on the 28th, not
the 27th, “at which time I shall endeavor to persuade them to return
to Yainax at once. In the event they shall refuse to meet me, or shall refuse to come upon the
reservation voluntarily, then I shall call upon you for a force sufficient to
compel them to do so.” And after the sentence about the size of the force he
had written, “This will, I think,
overawe them, and probably render the shedding of blood unnecessary.” (The
portions in bold have been excised from the doctored letter.) After the
doctored letter Odeneal’s report continued blandly:
On the day appointed, in company with agent L. S. Dyer, I went to
the place designated for the meeting, and there met the messengers, who
reported that they had been to the camp of captain Jack’s band of Modocs, and
had informed the head men of everything contained in my instructions, and
besides had used every argument in their power to persuade them to meet me, or
go upon the reservation. That they peremptorily
declined to do either.
Of course this never happened. By
the 28th (the day actually appointed) Odeneal was on his way back to
Salem, not waiting for Modoc emissaries. But Odeneal clearly thought he could
get away with it—and he did get away with it for over a century.
The military authorities apparently expected a bit more from
Thomas Odeneal. Specifically, they expected him to go out to Captain Jack’s
village himself to talk with the Modocs directly, in the event that they failed
to come to Link River to talk with him there. Major Jackson, who led the troops
in the failed attempt to arrest the Modoc leaders, wrote that Odeneal had done
so: “The Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Mr. Odeneal, visited their village
and tried to induce them to comply with the orders he had received…” Of course
that never happened, as we know. Another officer involved in that same attempt
wrote: “…Mr. Odeneal … sent word to Captain Jack of the Indians that he was at
Linkville and to meet him there. Jack not responding, he was informed that
Odeneal would be at Lost River two days later to talk to him. Instead of making
preparations for his suggested meeting he despatched Mr. I. D. Applegate to
Fort Klamath asking that troops be sent to move the Indians.”
The Modoc leaders likewise expected Odeneal at their camp in a
few days. As they told reporters later on, Ivan Applegate had told them to
expect somebody (presumably Odeneal) to show up and talk further with them. The
previous Superintendent, Alfred Meacham, had in fact done just that a few years
before in a partly successful attempt of the same sort. (The disaffected Modocs
had in fact gone to Klamath reservation, but after a few months of constant
conflict with the Klamaths the Modocs left en masse, including those who had
already settled there.) The expected course of events by all concerned seems to
have been that if the Modocs failed to show up at Linkville, Odeneal would go
to their village on Lost River, and only if negotiations failed at that point
would the troops be called in. Instead,
however, Odeneal threw in the towel at the first report from Agent Dyar and
Ivan Applegate that the Modocs declined to meet with him, and immediately wrote
out a request to send in the troops.
Obviously something happened to change his mind. Conceivably Odeneal
coolly and rationally concluded that further negotiations were pointless, and
that keeping his word to the Modoc leaders would be counter-productive, and in
a moment of clarity dashed off the note that started the war. But I don’t think
so. What I think happened is that Odeneal, on receiving the Modocs’ refusal to
talk with him, just flat out lost his temper. I think he saw red, and from then
on the course of action was determined. Like South Park’s Cartman he basically
said Screw you guys, I’m going home. And that’s what he did.
Only afterwards, when the attempt to bring the Modocs to the
reservation ended up in bloodshed and a protracted siege did Odeneal review his
actions. I suspect that’s why he left out the part about calling for the troops
if they refused to meet with him; in retrospect that may have seemed a bit
petty. And I suspect that his belief that a show of force would overawe the
disaffected Modocs was omitted because his prophecy proved so disastrously
false, though he also insisted afterwards that he had expected a much larger
force to be sent out. And in any case how the military elected to carry out
their job was not his department, so to speak.
But this part at least is speculation. His reasons for
changing the date of the projected meeting from the 28th to the 27th—the
detail that has confused historians—though unrecorded, are obvious. The guy was
covering his ass, like other bureaucrats appointed through political patronage
to a job they were manifestly unsuited for. Michael D. Brown, when confronted
by the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, would have understood.
No comments:
Post a Comment