Modoc Nation
The Modoc Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Modoc people, located in Ottawa County in the northeast corner of Oklahoma, Modoc and Siskiyou counties in northeast California. The smallest tribe in the state, they are descendants of Captain Jack's band of Modoc people, removed in 1873 after the Modoc Wars from their traditional territory in northern California and southern Oregon. They were exiled to the Quapaw Agency in Indian Territory, where they were colocated with the Shawnee people from east of the Mississippi River.
In the 1950s, the federally recognized status of the Klamath Reservation and the Modoc was terminated, ending federal assistance to the two tribes. The Modoc tribe in Oklahoma later reorganized independently and gained federal recognition in 1978. They have also acquired a land base and have introduced bison to their area. They have pursued several avenues of economic development in what was an inhospitable environment compared to Northern California.
Government
The Modoc Nation is headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma, and based largely in Ottawa County. Of the 250 enrolled tribal citizens, 120 live within the state of Oklahoma., the current administration is:
- Chief: Robert Burkybile
- Second Chief: Gina McGaughey
The tribe's government complex includes an archive and library.
Economic development
The Modoc Nation operates a housing authority; a casino established in 1998, together with the Miami Nation; and Red Cedar Recycling, founded in 1996 and open to the larger community. They manage the Modoc Bison Project and are a member of the Inter-Tribal Bison Council. They also issue their own tribal license plates. The casino, known as The Stables, is located in Miami, Oklahoma, and includes a restaurant and gift shop.Red Cedar Recycling provides free cardboard and paper recycling for area businesses and residents; they also pay the market rate for aluminum to recycle. The tribal company provides educational materials about recycling and hosts tire recycling events.
In the 21st century, the tribe engaged in what is known as "payday lending", considered controversial for the often high rates of fees charged to customers. It allowed a corporation to be formed under the tribe's name and legal status in order to bypass state usury laws. While the tribe maintains nothing illegal was done, the leader of the corporation, Scott Tucker was convicted of financial violations and sentenced in January 2018 to more than 16 years in federal prison. His company and others involved were ordered to pay $1.3 billion by the Federal Trade Commission. Today, the tribe independently engages in "payday lending" on a far smaller scale, which generates revenue.
History
The people of the Modoc Nation traditionally occupied some 5,000 square miles of the interior of what is now the California-Oregon border. While their tribal territory encompassed a small area, it was one of great biological diversity. The west was bordered by the Cascade Mountains; to the east was a barren wasteland of alkali flats; forests of Ponderosa pines bordered the north, and what is known as the Lava Beds National Monument formed the southern boundary.Descended from Indigenous cultures who had been in the region for 10,000 years, the historic Modoc were culturally unique. They spoke the Klamath language, as did the neighboring Klamath people. Occasionally, they formed war parties to drive out unwelcome visitors or raid neighboring tribes. The Modoc were hunters, fishermen, and gatherers who followed the seasons for food. They lived their lives in relative obscurity. The arrival of European Americans in the early 19th century began to encroach on their territory, and their lives were changed.
The intrusion of fur traders, followed by European settlers into the Pacific Northwest, had a variety of social and economic effects on the Native populations. The Modoc bartered with fur traders for guns and horses, which they found necessary to compete with neighboring tribes. But eventually the traders and the prospectors gave way to farmers and ranchers, who competed for land and resources and had little regard for the Native inhabitants. These new American invaders traveled west in the mid-19th century by way of the Oregon Trail, which passed directly through traditional Modoc lands.
The Modoc learned to live peacefully with the farming and ranching newcomers, often working for them and trading for livestock and other necessities. But the flow of non-Indians into their ancestral homelands had an enormous effect on the culture of the Modoc people. They embraced many of the settlers' ways. Eventually they adopted clothing patterned after non-Indians, with whom they socialized in the nearby town of Yreka, California.
The Modoc sometimes used names given to them by white people. For instance, Kintpuash became known as Captain Jack, while other men were documented in American records as Scarfaced Charley, Steamboat Frank, Bogus Charley, Shack Nasty Jim, Long Jim, Curly-headed Doctor, and Hooker Jim.
The increasing number of settlers needed more land to farm and to graze. As a result of the enormous pressure of white infiltration into Indian lands in California and Oregon, the Modoc, Klamath, and Yahooskin Band of Snake tribes ceded their lands to the United States government and signed a joint reservation treaty in 1864. The Modoc agreed to live alongside the Klamath Indians, although these peoples were traditional enemies.
Life on the reservation was difficult. The more numerous Klamath harassed the Modoc, and the Indian agent neglected them. The Modoc became increasingly frustrated. By 1865, Captain Jack led his band of Modoc off the reservation and returned to their territory of the Lost River area of Northern California.
The treaty signed in 1864 was not ratified by the US Senate until 1870. For two years Captain Jack refused to return to the Klamath reservation, requesting separate property on the Lost River for the Modoc. But with his band in violation of the treaty, the U.S. Army determined to capture the wandering Modoc and return them to the Klamath reservation in Oregon. The confrontation caused the explosive Modoc War.
Modoc War
With the outbreak of fighting, the Modoc warriors retreated with their wives and children to the nearby Lava Beds. They used the many caves for their defense and refuge. For almost six months, Captain Jack worked with his 57 braves to withstand an army that came to number over a 1,000 men. The military small arms were supported by mountain howitzers and coehorn mortars.Captain Jack lost only six men by direct combat, while the U.S. Army suffered 45 dead. The latter included E.R.S. Canby, the only United States Army general to lose his life in an Indian war. In April 1873 at a peace commission meeting, Captain Jack and others killed General Edward Canby and Rev. Eleazer Thomas, and wounded two others, mistakenly believing this would encourage the Americans to leave. The Modoc War is estimated to have cost the United States government at least half a million dollars. Given the small number of warriors, this was probably the costliest Indian war ever fought. In comparison, the cost of land for the reservation requested by the Modoc on Lost River was estimated at $10,000.
The war finally ended on June 1, 1873, with the surrender and capture of the Modoc, who were unable to keep themselves supplied with food. Captain Jack and five of his warriors: Schonchin John, Black Jim, Boston Charley, Barncho, and Sioux, were charged with war crimes. They are the only Native Americans to be tried by a military commission on such charges. Gallows were constructed before the trial began, and it was evident the verdicts would be death by hanging. The date set for the execution was October 3, 1873. Captain Jack, Barncho and Sioux were convicted and sentenced to death.
But just before the executions were to take place, the commission commuted the sentences of Barncho and Sioux to life imprisonment at Alcatraz Island in California. The men were not told of the change until after they, along with the other Modoc men, women and children, were forced to watch the execution of Captain Jack.
Exile from Oregon
To solve the conflict between the Modoc and Klamath at the reservation, the US Commissioner of Indian Affairs decided to relocate the Modoc far to the east, to the Quapaw Agency in northeastern Indian Territory. The Modoc were ordered to pack all their belongings for a long journey but were not told of their destination. On October 12, 1873, 155 Modoc: 42 men, 59 women, and 54 children, were loaded on 27 wagons and departed Fort Klamath, Oregon under guard of Captain H.C. Hasbrouck and soldiers of Battery B, 4th Artillery.A week later the large expedition stopped for the first time near Yreka, California. When they reached Redding, California, military guards took Barncho and Sioux away from the main group to prison at Alcatraz Island. The remaining Modoc were put aboard a train and housed in cattle cars. None of the people had seen a train before, and they were frightened of the noise and movement. Their four railroad cars were coupled between two other cars filled with soldiers. Guards with loaded muskets stood at the doors of each car day and night. All of the men and boys capable of bearing arms were shackled within the cars, adding to their distress. In this stage, they were transported to Fort D.A. Russell in Wyoming Territory.
Nearing the fort, the Army officers received orders to take the Modoc prisoners to Fort McPherson, Nebraska. Finally arriving there October 29, Captain Hasbrouck turned his charges over to Captain Melville C. Wilkinson, US Army, Special Commissioner in Charge of Indian Removal. The prisoners were placed temporarily on an island in the Platte River, a few miles from the fort, where they hunted and fished for food.
Given the detour to Nebraska, the Modoc were forced to travel 2,000 miles during the cold of late fall, not reaching Baxter Springs, Kansas, until November 16, 1873. The 153 Modoc men, women, and children arrived cold and hungry in this part of Indian Territory.
In Baxter Springs, Captain Wilkinson conferred with Hiram W. Jones, Indian Agent at the Quapaw Agency, as to where to place the Modoc. They decided to locate the band on Eastern Shawnee land, to be supervised directly by Agent Jones. But Jones' Quapaw Agency had not been supplied with additional goods to outfit the prisoners: 153 persons who had little but loose blankets on their backs. With Scarfaced Charley in command and one day's help from three non-Indians, the Modoc built their own temporary wood barracks two hundred yards from the agency headquarters. Some were housed in tents. These accommodations were to be their home until June 1874, when the Office of Indian Affairs purchased 4,000 acres for their reservation from the Eastern Shawnee.
The Quapaw Agency was located on Eastern Shawnee land in the northeast corner of Indian Territory, now Ottawa County, Oklahoma. It was bounded on the north by the Kansas state line and on the east by the Missouri line. The Cherokee Nation formed its western and southern boundaries. The agency had been a sub-agency of the Neosho Agency until 1871, when they were jurisdictionally separated. The tribes constituting the Quapaw Agency were the Confederated Peoria, Eastern Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Quapaw, Seneca, and Wyandotte.
Captain Wilkinson remained with his charges until the second week in December. When he left the agency, he reported to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, "on the cars, in the old hotel used for them at Baxter, I found them uniformly obedient, ready to work, cheerful in compliance with police regulations, and with each day providing over and over that they only required just treatment, executed with firmness and kindness to make them a singularly reliable people."
Agent Jones reported no difficulties in enforcing the strictest discipline, although one small area of friction had developed. Some Modoc gambled, resulting in some instances in losing what few possessions they had. When Scarfaced Charley, who had become chief, refused to interfere, Jones appointed Bogus Charley as chief. He served as chief until 1880, when the federal government ended formal Modoc tribal government in Oklahoma for almost 100 years. It appointed officials through the Bureau of Indian Affairs.