The Native American Experience

by Dee Brown

  To save his power, to gain time, Jack knew he had to speak. “I will kill Canby,” he said. He pushed the men aside and walked on alone to the cave.

  Winema did not come with any messages the next day or the next, and so Boston Charley, who could speak and understand English, was sent to tell General Canby that the Modocs wanted to counsel with him and the commissioners on Friday morning, April 11. The Modocs would come unarmed to the council tent, Boston Charley told Canby, and they expected the commissioners to come unarmed.

  On the morning of April 10, Jack called his men together outside the cave. The day was springlike, the sun quickly burning away the night fog. “My heart tells me I had just as well talk to the clouds and wind,” he said, “but I want to say that life is sweet, love is strong; man fights to save his life; man also kills to win his heart’s desire; that is love. Death is mighty bad. Death will come to us soon enough.” He told his listeners that if they started fighting again, all would die, including their women and children. If they had to fight, let the soldiers start it. He reminded them that he had promised the commissioners to commit no acts of war as long as the peace councils continued. “Let me show the world that Captain Jack is a man of his word,” he pleaded. Then he came to the promise he had made to kill General Canby. “Do not hold me to it. If you hold me to what I said in anger, we are doomed. Hooker Jim, you know that as well as I do.”

  “We hold you to the promise,” Hooker Jim replied. “You have to kill Canby. Your talk is good, but now it is too late to put up such talk.”

  Jack looked at the fifty men seated around him on the rocks. The sunlight was bright on their dark faces. “All who want me to kill Canby,” he said, “raise to your feet.” Only about a dozen of his loyal followers remained seated.

  “I see you do not love life nor anything else.” His voice was somber as he grasped for an alternative. In the council with Canby, he said, he would tell the general what the Modocs wanted. “I will ask him many times. If he comes to my terms I shall not kill him. Do you hear?”

  “Yes,” they all said.

  “Will that do?”

  “Yes,” they agreed.

  Now only the words of Canby could stop the killing. 12

  Good Friday, 1873, dawned clear, with a chill breeze fluttering the canvas of the council tent, which still stood between the soldier camp and the Lava Beds stronghold. Captain Jack, Hooker Jim, Schonchin John, Ellen’s Man, Black Jim, and Shacknasty Jim reached the council ground early, and one of them built a fire of sagebrush to keep warm by while they waited for the commissioners to arrive. They had not brought their women this time. None had brought a rifle, either, but all had pistols concealed beneath their coats.

  The commissioners were late in arriving (Winema kept warning them not to go), but soon after eleven o’clock General Canby and Reverend Thomas appeared on foot, and behind them on horseback were L. S. Dyar, Alfred Meacham, Winema, and Frank Riddle. Accompanying the commissioners and the interpreters were Boston Charley and Bogus Charley, who had gone into camp to meet them. Both Charleys carried rifles carelessly slung. None of the commissioners had any arms showing; Meacham and Dyar carried derringers in their coat pockets.

  Canby brought along a box of cigars, and as soon as he reached the tent he gave a cigar to each man. Using brands from the sagebrush fire, they lighted up and sat on stones around the fire, smoking silently for a few minutes.

  As Frank Riddle later remembered, Canby made the first speech. “He told them that he had been dealing with Indians for some thirty years, and he had come there to make peace with them and to talk good; and that whatever he promised to give them that he would see that they got; and if they would come and go out with him, that he would take them to a good country, and fix them up, so that they could live like white people.” 13

  Meacham spoke next, opening with the usual preliminary remarks about the Great Father in Washington sending him there to wipe out all the blood that had been shed. He said that he hoped to take them to a better country, where they could have good houses and plenty of food, clothing, and blankets. When Meacham finished talking, Captain Jack told him that he did not want to leave the Modoc country, and asked for a reservation somewhere near Tule Lake and the Lava Beds. He also repeated his previous demand that the soldiers be taken away before they talked peace.

  Apparently Meacham was irritated by Jack’s repetitious demands. He raised his voice: “Let us talk like men and not like children.” He then suggested that those Modocs who wished to do so could remain in the Lava Beds until a reservation was found where they might live in peace.

  Schonchin John, who was seated about ten feet in front of Meacham, spoke angrily in Modoc, telling the commissioner to shut up. At this moment Hooker Jim arose and strolled over to Meacham’s horse, which was standing to one side of the commissioner. Meacham’s overcoat was draped over the saddle. Hooker Jim took the coat, put it on, and buttoned it up, clowning a bit as he walked in front of the fire. The others had stopped talking and were watching him. “You think I look like Meacham?” he asked in broken English.

  Meacham tried to make a joke of the interruption. He offered Hooker Jim his hat. “Take it and put it on; then you will be Meacham.”

  Hooker Jim stopped his clowning. “You keep a while. Hat will be mine by and by.”

  Canby evidently understood the meaning in Hooker Jim’s words. He quickly resumed the parley by saying that only the Great Father in Washington had authority to send the soldiers away. He asked Jack to trust him.

  “I want to tell you, Canby,” Jack replied, “we cannot make peace as long as these soldiers are crowding me. If you ever promise me a home, somewhere in this country, promise me today. Now, Canby, promise me. I want nothing else. Now is your chance. I am tired waiting for you to speak.”

  Meacham sensed the urgency in Captain Jack’s voice. “General, for heaven’s sake, promise him,” he cried.

  Before Canby could say anything, Jack sprang to his feet and moved away from the fire. Schonchin John turned toward the general. “You take away soldiers, you give us back our land,” he shouted. “We tired talking. We talk no more!” 14

  Captain Jack swung around, speaking in Modoc: “Ot-we-kau-tux-e (All ready!).” He drew his pistol from his coat, pointing it directly at Canby. The hammer clicked, but the weapon failed to fire. Canby stared at him in astonishment, and then the pistol fired and Canby fell back dead. At about the same moment, Boston Charley shot Reverend Thomas, killing him. Winema saved Meacham’s life by knocking Schonchin John’s pistol aside. During the confusion, Dyar and Riddle escaped.

  After stripping Canby of his uniform, Jack led the Modocs back to the stronghold to await the coming of the soldiers. The main point of contention—the surrender of Hooker Jim’s killers—had not even been discussed in that last council.

  Three days later the fighting began. Batteries of mortars pounded the Lava Beds, and waves of infantrymen charged the rock breastworks. When the soldiers finally overran the stronghold, they found it empty. The Modocs had slipped away through the caves and crevices. Having no taste for searching these hard-fighting Indians out of their hiding places, the Army employed seventy-two mercenary Tenino Indians from the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. These Warm Springs scouts discovered the Modocs’ hiding place, but when the soldiers were brought up to capture it, Captain Jack set an ambush and came very near wiping out the advance patrol.

  At last the overwhelming numbers and firepower of the soldiers forced the Modocs to scatter. They had to slaughter their horses for food, and some days there was no water to drink. As casualties mounted among the Indians, Hooker Jim began quarreling with Captain Jack over his strategy. After a few days of running, hiding, and fighting, Hooker Jim and his band abandoned the chief who had given them sanctuary and then had refused to surrender them to Canby. Jack was left with thirty-seven warriors to fight off more than a thousand soldiers.

  Not long afterward, Hooker Jim’s band surrendered to the s
oldiers and offered to help them track down Captain Jack in exchange for amnesty. The new military commander, General Jefferson C. Davis, gave them the protection of the Army, and on May 27 Hooker Jim and three members of his band set out to betray the chief who had refused to betray them. They found Jack near Clear Lake, arranged to parley with him, and told him they had been sent to take his surrender. The soldiers would give the Modocs justice, they said, and plenty to eat.

  “You are no better than coyotes that run in the valleys,” Jack answered them. “You come here riding soldiers’ horses, armed with government guns. You intend to buy your liberty and freedom by running me to earth and delivering me to the soldiers. You realize that life is sweet, but you did not think so when you forced me to promise that I would kill that man, Canby. I knew life was sweet all the time; that is the reason I did not want to fight the white people. I thought we would stand side by side if we did fight, and die fighting. I see now I am the only one to forfeit my life for killing Canby, perhaps one or two others. You and all the others that gave themselves up are getting along fine, and plenty to eat, you say. Oh, you bird-hearted men, you turned against me. …” 15

  What galled the Modoc chief most of all was that these turncoats had been the very ones who had thrown squaw’s clothing over his head and called him a fish-hearted woman a few weeks before, thus forcing him to promise to kill Canby. They knew as well as he that it was too late for him to surrender; he would be hanged for murdering Canby. He told them he had made up his mind to die with a gun in his hand instead of a rope around his neck, and then ordered them to go back and live with the whites if they wanted to. But he swore to them that if they ever came within range of his gun again he would shoot them down like dirty dogs.

  For a few more days the pursuit continued. It was “more of a chase after wild beasts than war,” General Davis said, “each detachment vying with each other as to which should be the first in at the finish.” 16

  After a grueling foot race across jagged rocks and through a thicket, a small party of troops surrounded Captain Jack and three warriors who stayed with him to the end. When Jack came out to surrender he was wearing General Canby’s blue uniform; it was dirty and in tatters. He handed his rifle to an officer. “Jack’s legs gave out,” he said. “I am ready to die.”

  General Davis wanted him to die immediately by hanging, but the War Department in Washington ordered a trial. It was held at Fort Klamath in July, 1873. Captain Jack, Schonchin John, Boston Charley, and Black Jim were charged with murder. No lawyer represented the Modocs, and although they were given the right to cross-examine witnesses, most of them understood very little English, and all spoke it poorly. While the trial was in progress soldiers were constructing a gallows outside the prisoners’ stockade, so there was no doubt as to what the verdict would be.

  Among the witnesses against the doomed men were Hooker Jim and his followers. The Army had given them their freedom for betraying their own people.

  After Hooker Jim was questioned by the prosecution, Captain Jack did not cross-examine him, but in his final courtroom speech, translated by Frank Riddle, Jack said: “Hooker Jim is the one that always wanted to fight, and commenced killing and murdering. … Life is mine only for a short time. You white people conquered me not; my own men did.” 17

  Captain Jack was hanged on October 3. On the night following the execution, his body was secretly disinterred, carried off to Yreka, and embalmed. A short time later it appeared in eastern cities as a carnival attraction, admission price ten cents.

  As for the surviving 153 men, women, and children, including Hooker Jim and his band, they were exiled to Indian Territory. Six years later Hooker Jim was dead, and most of the others died also before 1909, when the government decided to permit the remaining fifty-one Modocs to return to an Oregon reservation.

  ELEVEN

  The War to Save the Buffalo

  1874—January 13, unemployed workmen battle police in New York City; hundreds injured. February 13, U.S. troops land at Honolulu to protect the king. February 21, Benjamin Disraeli becomes English Prime Minister, replacing William E. Gladstone. March 15, France assumes protectorate over Annam (Vietnam). May 29, Germany dissolves Social Democratic party. July, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrates his new invention, the electric telephone. July 7, Theodore Tilton accuses the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher of adultery. November 4, Samuel J. Tilden elected governor of New York after overthrow of Tweed Ring. December, the Whiskey Ring, involving distillers and U.S. government officials, is exposed.

  I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don’t want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die. I have laid aside my lance, bow, and shield, and yet I feel safe in your presence. I have told you the truth. I have no little lies hid about me, but I don’t know how it is with the commissioners. Are they as clear as I am? A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry. … Has the white man become a child that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve.

  —SATANTA, CHIEF OF THE KIOWAS

  My people have never first drawn a bow or fired a gun against the whites. There has been trouble on the line between us, and my young men have danced the war dance. But it was not begun by us. It was you who sent out the first soldier and we who sent out the second. Two years ago I came upon this road, following the buffalo, that my wives and children might have their cheeks plump and their bodies warm. But the soldiers fired on us, and since that time there has been a noise like that of a thunderstorm, and we have not known which way to go. So it was upon the Canadian. Nor have we been made to cry once alone. The blue-dressed soldiers and the Utes came from out of the night when it was dark and still, and for campfires they lit our lodges. Instead of hunting game they killed my braves, and the warriors of the tribe cut short their hair for the dead. So it was in Texas. They made sorrow come in our camps, and we went out like buffalo bulls when their cows are attacked. When we found them we killed them, and their scalps hang in our lodges. The Comanches are not weak and blind, like the pups of a dog when seven sleeps old. They are strong and farsighted, like grown horses. We took their road and we went on it. The white women cried and our women laughed.

  But there are things which you have said to me which I do not like. They are not sweet like sugar, but bitter like gourds. You said that you wanted to put us upon a reservation, to build us houses and make us medicine lodges. I do not want them. I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls. I know every stream and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my fathers before me, and, like them, I lived happily.

  When I was at Washington the Great White Father told me that all the Comanche land was ours, and that no one should hinder us in living upon it. So, why do you ask us to leave the rivers, and the sun, and the wind, and live in houses? Do not ask us to give up the buffalo for the sheep. The young men have heard talk of this, and it has made them sad and angry. Do not speak of it more. …

  If the Texans had kept out of my country, there might have been peace. But that which you now say we must live on is too small. The Texans have taken away the places where the grass grew the thickest and the timber was the best. Had we kept that, we might have done the things you ask. But it is too late. The white man has the country which we loved, and we only wish to wander on the prairie until we die.

  —PARRA-WA-SAMEN (TEN BEARS) OF THE YAMPARIKA COMANCHES

  AFTER THE BATTLE OF the Washita in December, 1868, General Sheridan order
ed all Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and Comanches to come in to Fort Cobb and surrender, or face extinction by being hunted down and killed by his Bluecoat soldiers. (See chapter seven.) Little Robe, who succeeded the dead Black Kettle as chief, brought in the Cheyennes. Yellow Bear brought in the Arapahos. A few Comanche leaders—notably Tosawi, who was told by Sheridan that the only good Indian was a dead Indian—also came to surrender. The proud and free Kiowas, however, gave no sign of cooperating, and Sheridan sent Hard Backsides Custer to force them to surrender or to destroy them.

  The Kiowas could see no reason for going to Fort Cobb, giving up their arms, and living on the white man’s handouts. The treaty of Medicine Lodge, which the chiefs had signed in 1867, gave them their own territory in which to live and the right to hunt on any lands south of the Arkansas “so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase.” 1 Between the Arkansas and the western tributaries of the Red River, the Plains were black with thousands of buffalo driven down from the north by the white man’s advancing civilization. The Kiowas were rich in fast-footed ponies, and when ammunition was scarce they could use their arrows to kill enough animals to supply all their needs for food, clothing, and shelter.

  Nevertheless, long columns of Bluecoat pony soldiers came riding to the Kiowa winter camp on Rainy Mountain Creek. Not wanting a fight, Satanta and Lone Wolf, with an escort of warriors, went out to parley with Custer. Satanta was a burly giant, with jet black hair reaching to his enormous shoulders. His arms and legs were thickly muscled, his open face revealing strong confidence in his power. He wore brilliant red paint on his face and body, and carried red streamers on his lance. He liked to ride hard and fight hard. He was a hearty eater and drinker, and laughed with gusto. He enjoyed even his enemies. When he rode up to greet Custer he was grinning with pleasure. He offered his hand, but Custer disdained to touch it.