Even the names of the Modoc changed and they became known to their own people by the names given to them by the white man. They embraced many of the settler’s ways, and eventually began to wear clothing patterned after non-Indians with whom they socialized in the town of Yreka, California. The flow of non-Indians into their ancestral homelands had an enormous effect on the culture of the Modoc people. The Modoc chose to live peacefully with the farming and ranching newcomers, often working for them and trading for livestock and other necessities. These new American invaders traveled west by way of the Oregon Trail, which passed directly through traditional Modoc lands. But eventually the traders and the prospectors gave way to farmers and ranchers who initially enjoyed the company of the tribe, but later settlement and individuals focused on seizing land for profit had little regard for the Native inhabitants. The Modoc bartered with fur traders for guns and horses, which became necessary to remain competitive with neighboring tribes. The intrusion of exploring fur traders, and then Euro-American settlers, into the Pacific Northwest had a variety of social and economic effects on the Native populations. The arrival of the white European Americans in the early 19th century changed their lives forever. The Modoc were hunters, fishermen, and gatherers who followed the seasons and managed the landscape for food and developed products to be used with their keen sense of economic trade. Occasionally they formed war parties to drive out unwelcome visitors or raid neighboring tribes. On the west loomed the perennially snow-capped peaks of the majestic Cascade Mountains to the east was a barren wasteland of alkali flats scaling to the peaks of the Warner Mountains in the Sierra-Nevada range towering forests of Ponderosa pines and shores of majestic bodies of water and rivers were to the north while the Lava Beds, now a National Monument, and the Medicine Lake volcano range to Mount Shasta formed their southern boundary.įrom time immemorial, with records of rock art dating back some 14,000 years the Modoc were a culturally detached and unique band. The ancestral home of the Modoc Nation, or Captain Jack’s Band of Modoc Indians, consisted of over 5,000 square miles along what is now the California-Oregon border.
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