Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands by Jim Compton (review)

jim compton's Spirit in the Rock: The Fierce Battle for Modoc Homelands offers a thoughtful and well-researched account of the context, course, and outcome of the Modoc War. Fought from 1872 to 1873 in the vicinity of Tule Lake on the border of California and Oregon, this conflict is mostly remembered for the brutal fighting that took place in the cave-pocked lava fields of Captain Jack's Stronghold, where outnumbered Modoc defenders inflicted embarrassing losses on the advancing ranks of the United States Army and state volunteers. When Modoc leaders met with a party of army officers to negotiate an end to the fighting, Captain Jack (Chief Kientpoos) was pressured by militant followers into killing General Edward Canby, believing it would demoralize and disperse the besiegers. Instead, it smothered any lingering sympathy for the Modoc and ignited a national campaign to avenge Canby's murder.

Spirit in the Rock recounts this familiar confrontation and the course of the campaign masterfully, but, more importantly, it places it within the greater context of Indian-settler interaction in the mid- to late nineteenth-century Pacific Northwest. It locates the origins of the conflict in a familiar mélange of muddled treaties, acquisitive settlers, and reciprocal violence, identifying the scheming of the Applegate family to monopolize local water rights as a critical factor in escalating retaliatory raiding into open warfare. But just as the threat of dispossession and removal gave the Modoc no room for retreat, the murder of Canby at the height of the war left the army with a mandate to pursue justice. Compton approaches the subsequent capture and execution of Captain Jack with deliberate fairness, mobilizing a variety of sources to argue that despite the flaws and prejudices of the court-martial, the chief had committed a crime and was punished accordingly. The treatment of his band in the aftermath of the campaign rightly receives a more critical assessment as the narrative follows the efforts of Modoc families to survive and create a meaningful existence in Indian Territory after being forcefully relocated far from their kin and homeland.

An accomplished journalist, Compton displays an eye for interesting and powerful quotations that allow the war's participants to reveal their own motives and observations as events unfold. These are woven into relatively short and briskly paced chapters that strike an effective balance between context and content, advancing a lively narrative that is informative but not overburdened with analysis. The author's passion for the people, history, and geography of the region proves to be a strength throughout, as he is able to draw on Modoc oral histories, interviews, visits to sacred sites, and a wealth of local scholarship to craft a sympathetic but balanced interpretation of the campaign and its consequences. The included maps and photographs can occasionally feel unpolished or unnecessary but are nonetheless interesting and attractive supplements to the already detailed in-text descriptions of locations and events.

Historians and readers familiar with late nineteenth-century reservation policies or warfare in the American West may wish for a more serious engagement with a broader historiography, but Spirit in the Rock keeps a tight focus on its subject and relies on extensive primary source research rather than theoretical scaffolding for its framework. This discipline serves to contain the scope of the project but at times limits its claims and leaves relationships and connections between the Modoc and other experiences of warfare, dispossession, and resettlement largely unexplored. Of particular interest might be investigating the composition, motivations, and interactions with the Indian scouts who fight alongside the United States Army in this campaign and are critical to tracking Captain Jack's band and compelling its surrender. The passing of Mr. Compton prior to the manuscript's publication will sadly deny us his future voice and scholarship on these issues; nonetheless, his balanced treatment of both Modoc and army leaders provides a careful and welcome nuance to a history that can invite...