Media - Press Releases
MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die
135 YEARS AFTER WAR, ASTOUNDING IMPACT ON MODOC INDIANS TODAY IS REVEALED
Sacramento, CA, October 1, 2008. Modoc descendent Cheewa James has completed MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die (Naturegraph) and exuberantly exclaims, “I have lived a hundred lives, fought a hundred battles, shed a thousand tears, and now I am ready to share.” Her tenacious research and nuggets of new sources and information destine this book to become a classic in Native American literature.
After a lifetime of collecting documents and photographs and a decade of research and writing, the dogged determination and struggle of a woman to tell the story of her family and tribe has finally paid off. Being a Modoc herself, James has created a unique and exciting book that is a valuable piece of American history.
In a desperate, last-ditch effort in 1873 to cling to their ancestral lands, the Modoc Indians, numbering some 55 warriors, fought the U. S. Army’s most expensive American Indian war. By the end of the six-month battle, over 1,000 soldiers were involved in the massive attempt to rout out the Modocs and their families from their natural fortification, which still exists today in the jagged, desolate terrain known as the Lava Beds National Monument, California. “The match for the Modoc Stronghold has not been built and never will be…It is the most impregnable fortress in the world,” despaired Lt. Thomas Wright, who fought and eventually died in the war.
This war dominated the front pages of newspapers all over America. A brigadier general was killed. Military men dropped like flies and most soldiers never even saw an Indian, as elusive Modocs slipped through the tortuous lava, in and out of the Stronghold.
It is generally acknowledged that much of the Modoc culture, including the language, was lost as a result of the war. What is not realized is that the last chapter of that war is not yet written. One hundred and fifty Modoc men, women, and children were put in chains at the end of the war and sent on cattle cars as prisoners of war to Oklahoma Indian Territory. Another one hundred Modocs, who did not participate in the war, remained on a reservation in Oregon. Families were split, separated by half a continent. Relatives were torn apart as their wails filled the air. Tribal culture and structure fell into decline.
One hundred thirty-five years later, the descendants of these Modoc people, having the same bloodlines and ancestors, possessing the same family pictures tucked away in drawers and old photo albums, are strangers. They do not know each other.
James, a professional speaker and television talent in Sacramento, California, speaks out with strong words: “It is time to unify the Oklahoma and Oregon Modocs in spirit—erase the forced split resulting from those terrible days. It is time for cousins to meet cousins and kin to know what happened over a century ago. Modocs need to know how they belong to each other even now. What balm that would bring to the souls of those old Modoc warriors,” she muses.
James has penned the most comprehensive book even written on this amazing tribe, covering Modoc ancestral times, the Modoc War, and the practically unknown story of what happened after the war. The book is filled with accounts never before revealed from soldiers and Modocs. It has photographs never published.
James states that, “This is not a ‘Modoc book.’ It is a story of many people doing the gutsy, incredible things that war demands. Sarah Brotherton, a settler woman whose husband was killed by the Modocs, was under attack and converted her cabin into a fort with her children manning the guns. I recovered the letters of Harry De Witt Moore, a young officer who stumbled on political intrigue and deception related to the war. As he lay one night in the lava rocks covered only with a canvas tarp, he wondered why soldier or Indian was there at all—a senseless war. I wished I had been there to comfort him.”
The richly documented and illustrated non-fiction book also contains 30 fictionalized vignettes. Cheewa says, “I wrote fiction, all drawn from actual historical events, because I want readers to feel the emotion of this historic event—the pain, the heroic actions, the evolutions. I want young people and families to get excited about history, and even seek their own ancestral roots.”
James does indeed touch the heart and spirit as well as the mind and intellect. “The message in my book is distinct and unmistakable. We need to build an understanding of other people. Raise our children that way. Honor people as the human beings they are, regardless of race, gender, religion, and all the other walls and barriers that can be concocted.”
MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die (Naturegraph), ISBN # 0-87961-275-4 350 pages, over 150 color and blk/wh photographs, soft cover $19.95
MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die - Maine Press Release
MODOC INDIAN TO BE HONORED IN PORTLAND 122 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
Portland, ME, July 10, 2008. In a strange twist of fate, Frank Modoc, a Modoc Indian who fought in the 1873 California/Oregon Modoc War, was buried in 1886 in Portland’s Friends Meetinghouse Cemetery. On Thursday, August 7, 2008, 10:00 a.m., Cheewa James of Sacramento, California, one of Frank Modoc’s descendents, will pay homage to him 122 years after he was laid to rest.
In a desperate, last-ditch effort in 1873 to cling to their ancestral lands, the Modoc Indians, numbering some 55 warriors, fought the U. S. Army’s most expensive American Indian war. By the end of the six-month battle, over 1,000 soldiers were involved, trying to rout out the Modocs and their families from their natural lava fortress.
“The match for the Modoc Stronghold has not been built and never will be…It is the most impregnable fortress in the world,” despaired Lt. Thomas Wright, who fought and eventually died in the war. The natural fortification still exists today in the jagged, desolate terrain known as the Lava Beds National Monument, California.
This war dominated the front pages of newspapers all over America. A brigadier general was killed. Military men dropped like flies and most soldiers never even saw an Indian, as elusive Modocs slipped through the tortuous lava, in and out of the Stronghold.
At the end of the war, 150 Modoc men, women, and children were sent as prisoners of war to Oklahoma Indian Territory, among them the warrior known as Steamboat Frank. He soon became known as Frank Modoc, and like almost all of the Modoc exiles, he became a Quaker. But he was no ordinary Quaker. His dream was to become a Quaker pastor, and in pursuit of that, he traveled in the mid-l880s to Vassalboro, Maine, to study at the Oak Grove Seminary. He left his son Elwood, affectionately known by his Modoc name Lep-is, in the care of relatives in Oklahoma Indian Territory. His wife Alice had died a few years before of consumption (tuberculosis), a major killer of the Modocs.
Frank Modoc was especially known among Quakers for his eloquent preaching. He spoke English, but the Friends in Maine were particularly moved when this six-foot Indian would fervently speak and pray in Modoc. Understanding the words weren’t important to those who listened. They felt the spirit.
Frank Modoc’s dream was never fulfilled. He contracted tuberculosis while at the seminary, and realizing the seriousness of his disease, he immediately left for Oklahoma Indian Territory to be with his son Elwood. He made it only as far as Portland when he fell critically ill. He was taken in by the Quakers of the Friends Meetinghouse and while in their care died on June 12, 1886. After Frank’s death the Quakers were amazed at the number of scars Frank had, which were revealed when his body was prepared for burial in Portland.
Frank Modoc was acknowledged in 1884 as being the first full-blood American Indian ever recorded as minister of the gospel in the Society of Friends.
James’ book MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die, has just been published and is the most comprehensive book on the Modoc ever written, from ancestral times to the present. “The Frank Modoc saga was one of the most heart-rending stories that I wrote. I cannot imagine the emotion I will feel when, after all these years, I finally stand next to Frank Modoc’s grave,” says James. Elwood followed his father in death four years later at the age of 16, also a victim of tuberculosis. James is bringing with her dirt and prairie grass from Elwood’s grave in the Oklahoma Modoc Cemetery to place on Frank Modoc’s grave. In turn, she will take dirt and a pinecone from the elder Modoc’s grave to be put on Elwood’s grave.
“There is little surviving of the Modoc culture,” says James, “but one simple song remains. It is a song of sharing that was given to me by Modoc relatives. We will all share that song at the grave site. The song says, ‘A change is coming.’ How appropriate for Frank Modoc it is.”
MODOC: The Tribe That Wouldn’t Die (Naturegraph), ISBN # 0-87961-275-4 350 pages, over 150 photographs, soft cover $19.95
