Old Chief Schonchin says that it grew out of a misunderstanding as to the identity of the Modocs, Snakes, and Pitt-river Indians. The emigrants had difficulties with the Snake Indians, through whose country they passed in reaching Oregon and California; and that he never knew what was the cause of the first troubles between them. The Snake Indians
captured horses and mules from the emigrants, and sold them, or gambled them, to the Pitt-river Indians, who in turn transferred them, through the same process, to the Modocs; and that the animals found by emigrants in possession of the Modocs were recaptured, and hence war was at last brought about. The story seems plausible, and is certainly entitled to some respect, coming, as it does, from a man of the character of old Chief Schonchin. I know there is a disposition to discredit any statement made by an Indian, simply because he is an Indian, and more particularly when it comes in conflict with our prejudices to accept it as the truth. Some white men are entitled to credit; others are not. So it is with Indians, and, if it were possible, the disparity is even greater among them than among white men.
Chief Schonchin, of whom I am speaking, commands respect from those who know him best, and have known him longest. He does not deny that he was in the early wars; that he did all in his power to exterminate his enemies. In speaking of the wars with white men, he once remarked, in an evening talk around a camp-fire: “I thought, if we killed all the white men we saw, that no more would come. We killed all we could; but they came more and more, like new grass in the spring. I looked around, and saw that many of our young men were dead, and could not come back to fight. My heart was sick. My people were few. I threw down my gun. I said, I will not fight again. I made friends with the white man. I am an old man; I cannot fight now. I want to die in peace.” To his credit be it said, that no act of his, since the treaty of 1864, has
deserved censure. He is still in charge of the loyal Modocs, at Yai-nax station, grieving over the waywardness of his brother John and Captain Jack.
He was not in the “Ben Wright” affair, although he was near when the massacre occurred. His reason for not being present was because he mistrusted that treachery was intended on the part of Wright; and, further, that a “treaty of peace” was proposed by him, which was to be accompanied with a feast, given by the white man; but that the talk was “too good,”—“promised too much,”—and that, suspicious of the whole affair, he kept away; that forty-six Modocs accepted the invitation to feast with their white brethren, and that but five escaped the wholesale butchery. Of these five, the last survivor was murdered, June, 1873, during the cowardly attack on Fairchild’s wagon, containing the Indian captives, near Lost river, after the surrender of Captain Jack.
Now, whether the Indian version of the Ben Wright affair is correct, or not, that forty Indians were killed while under a flag of truce in the hands of white men of the Ben Wright party, in 1852,—there can be no doubt. The effects of this act can be traced all the way down from that day to this, and have had much to do with making the Modocs a revengeful people.
The friends of Ben Wright deny that he committed an act of treachery; yet there are persons in California who state positively that he purchased strychnine previous to his visit to the Modoc country, with the avowed intention of poisoning the Indians. Others, who were with him at the time of the massacre,
testify that he made the attempt at poisoning, and finally, abandoning it, he resorted to the “peace talk” to accomplish his purpose. The excuse for this unwarrantable act of treachery was to punish the Modocs for the murdering of emigrants at Bloody Point, a few days previous.
This unparalleled slaughter was perpetrated on the shore of Tu-le lake, in September, 1852. It occurred directly opposite the “Lava Bed,” at a point where the emigrant road touches the shore of the lake, after crossing a desert tract of several miles, and where the mountains forced the road to leave the high plains to effect a passage. For several hundred yards the route ran along under a stony bluff, and near the waters of the lake. The place was well-adapted for such hellish purposes.
The emigrant train consisted of sixty-five men, women, and children, and the whole line of wagons was driven down into this position before the attack was made. The Indians, secreted in the rocks at either end of the narrow passage, attacked their hapless victims both in front and rear. Hemmed in by high rocky bluffs on one side and the lake on the other, they were butchered indiscriminately. Neither age nor sex were spared, save two young girls of twelve and fourteen years of age respectively, who were taken prisoners, and one man, who escaped.