Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands - Softcover

Compton, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874223504 ISBN 13: 9780874223507

Publisher: Washington State University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Fought amid lava beds, the 1873 Modoc War was fierce, bloody, and unjust. This riveting narrative captures the conflict's dramatic battles, betrayals, and devastating end. It also delves into underlying causes and secret schemes by the Applegate family and others to seize Modoc ancestral territory along what is now the California-Oregon border.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Hostilities between the Modoc and the U.S. Army were fierce, bloody, and unjust--the most expensive Indian conflict in American history. The riveting narrative includes accounts from Modoc warriors, army foot soldiers, and cavalry officers. Spirit in the Rock captures the war's dramatic battles, betrayals, and devastating end, but also delves into its underlying causes, secret schemes by the Applegate family and others to seize ancestral territory, and ways Native American traditions and spirituality influenced events.

For generations, Modoc homelands along what is now the California-Oregon border, provided abundant water and food sources. Indigenous families migrated seasonally throughout the region until the immigrant population increased, intensifying disputes over native lands. By April 1870, the Modoc were forced to live on a crowded, distant reservation with their rivals, the Klamath. Led by a charismatic young chief called Captain Jack, they fled to their original Lost River village and refused to return. Despite ongoing peace negotiations, the cavalry launched a surprise attack just before dawn on November 29, 1872. The stunned band awoke to chaos. Survivors escaped to a natural stone citadel--nearby lava beds--and that stark landscape became the setting for the 1873 Modoc War.

"The book is destined to be one of the definitive works on the Modoc war]]Compton has done a masterful job of producing a scholarly work that reads as easily as a novel."--Todd Kepple, Modoc War historian and Klamath County Museum Director

"One reads this account of the last frontier and wonders why this riveting, largely untold story

had to wait so long. Now Jim Compton has brought it to life."--David Brewster, Seattle journalist and publisher

About the Author

Jim Compton was a well-known journalist retired in Seattle. He graduated with honors from the Columbia University School of Journalism and twice received Fulbright Scholarships in Eastern Europe, most recently to teach investigative reporting in Romania. He was NBC correspondent in London and Cairo, covering Europe, Africa, and the Soviet Union. He later created and hosted The Compton Reportan award winning weekly prime time television news program that ran for ten years on the Seattle NBC affiliate. He won numerous journalism awards, including the Columbia-DuPont Silver Baton for outstanding documentary. He was a member of the Seattle City Council from 1999 to 2006. Mr. Compton died suddenly in March 2014, two months after completing the manuscript for this book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Washington State University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0874223504
• ISBN 13: 9780874223507
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 340