S.H.M--->Modoc Protection System's

From 1872 to 1873 the Modoc tribe and the United States Army engaged in an armed conflict in southern Oregon and northern California . For nearly 7 months, a handful of Modoc warriors and their families held off hundreds of U.S. Army soldiers, by using the lava bed terrain for protection and hiding. Kintpuash (or Captain Jack) led 52 warriors in a band of more than 150 Modoc people (who left the Klamath Reservation) to occupy defensive positions throughout the lava beds south of Tule Lake. For months those few warriors waged a guerrilla war against United States Army forces sent against them and reinforced with artillery. The Modoc's took advantage of the lava ridges, cracks, depressions, and caves, all such natural features being ideal from the standpoint of defense. At the time the 52 Modoc warriors occupied "Captain Jack's Stronghold," Tule Lake bounded the Stronghold on the north and served as a source of water. After long drawn out warfare with reinforcements of US forces, finally some Modoc warriors surrendered, and Captain Jack and the last of his band were captured. Jack and five warriors were tried for murder; Jack and three warriors were executed by public hanging on the Klamath reservation to show the tribes what happens when they resist occupation and colonization. My great-grandma Emma Ball was six years old when her mom brought her to "town" to witness Captain Jack's death by hanging. She never forgot it and told this story to her children and grandchild, Al, my father.