In the Land of Burnt Out Fires - Page 9

The following data is extracted from Northwestern Fights and Fighters.

missionary had been avenged. The dignity of the United States had been upheld.

It was right that Jack should die, but what might he not have said had he possessed the fluent tongue of some of his race, as he stood on that scaffold, looking southward toward that point where but twenty-one years before, when he was scarcely fourteen, Ben Wright had violated a flag of truce in the same way as that for which he was being punished, only to receive reward and promotion thereafter from his fellow-citizens? What must Schonchin John, who had escaped from that catastrophe, have felt as the noose was placed about his neck?

The history of the Modocs thereafter is unimportant. To the number of thirty-four men who had been in the lava-beds, five other men who had joined them, fifty-four women and sixty children, they were translated to a reservation at Baxter Springs, Kansas. To-day a handful survives.

In the war the Modocs lost twelve killed, four executed, one a suicide - all warriors, and an unknown number of women and children. The total loss of the white settlers and soldiers was one hundred and sixtyeight, of whom eighty-three were killed. The cost of the war was over half a million dollars. They say it takes a ton of lead to kill one soldier in battle: to put down these fifty Modocs about twelve hundred men were employed. Each Modoc accounted for three men and cost the United States Government over ten thousand dollars before he was himself killed or captured - a fearful price, indeed.

Insignificant people they were, but in their brief hour they managed to stamp themselves on the pages of history. The name of Captain Jack will not be forgotten,

Note on the present status of Modocs furnished by the Department of the Interior.

This office is in receipt of your communication of the loth instant, in which you state you are anxious to know the present status of the Modocs who were translated from California and Oregon to Baxter Springs, Kansas, in 1873; and you ask if these Indians are still at Baxter Springs, and if they still retain their tribal existence. You further inquire as to their number and their temporal condition.

The Modoc reservation embraces a tract of land about two and one-half miles square, and is situated about one and one-half miles northeast of the Quapaw Agency. It was formerly a part of the Shawnee Reservation and contained in round numbers about 4,000 acres, equally divided as to timber and prairie land. The reservation was obtained for them by agreement with the Eastern Shawnees, made June 23, 1874, which was confirmed and ratified by Congress in an Act approved March 3, 1875 (r8 Stats. 447): 3,976 acres were allotted to sixty-eight Indians, 8 acres being reserved for church and cemetery purposes, 2 acres for a school, and 24 acres were set aside as a timber reserve to supply timber to allottees living on the prairie.

The last annual report of Mr. Horace B. Durant, Superintendent of the Seneca Indian Training-school (address at Wyandotte, Indian Territory), and in charge of the Modocs, gave the following statistics concerning the Indians under consideration:

Population. . . . . . . . . . 54

Males. . . . . . . . . . . 25

Females. . . . . . . . . . 29

Males over eighteen. . . . . . . . . .17

Females over fourteen. . . . . . . . . .16

Males under eighteen. . . . . . . . . .8

Females under fourteen. . . . . . . . . .13

Children between six and sixteen. . . . . . . . . .11

Number of allotments. . . . . . . . . .68

Acres in each allotment. . . . . . . . . .48

Indians of one-half Indian blood and over. . . . . . . . . .40

Indians of less than one-half Indian blood. . . . . . . . . .14

Living out of the Agency, inclusive of children in non-
reservation schools. . . . . . . . . .15

Males over eighteen who are farmers. . . . . . . . . .4

Children in non-reservation schools. . . . . . . . . .1

Children attending all other schools. . . . . . . . . .5

He further reported that all of the Modocs wore citizens' clothes and that all were engaged in civilized pursuits and were living in very poor houses of mainly one room each and with dirt floors.

From the above you will see that the Indians practically no longer sustain their tribal relations, they having received their allotments of land in severalty; that they all wear citizens' clothes and that they are still near Baxter Springs.

Source: Northwestern Fights and Fighters

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