Modoc War
Armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army
The Modoc War, or the Modoc Campaign (also known as the Lava Beds War), was an armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon between 1872 and 1873. The fighting was in response to the California genocide, when agents of the United States government assisted by private citizens began the systematic killing of thousands of indigenous peoples of California in the mid-19th century. State authorities and private militias encouraged and carried out violence against the Modoc and other Indigenous peoples.
After being relocated by force to the Klamath Reservation, Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack, eventually led 52 warriors along with 150 Modoc women and children back to their traditional lands around the lava beds south of Tule Lake (present-day Lava Beds National Monument). In response the United States Army was sent to bring the native Americans back to the reservation. The group resisted taking refuge in an upland area now known as Captain Jack's Stronghold. In April 1873 at a peace commission meeting with US Army officers, Kintpuash killed General Edward Canby and Rev. Eleazer Thomas, and wounded two others, mistakenly believing this would encourage the European Americans to leave.
Instead the US Army was reinforced. Some Modoc surrendered but Captain Jack escaped.
The public source identifies “Modoc War” as armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Modoc, Armed and conflict.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2635052. The Library of Congress control number is sh85086454. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872 and 1873.
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This entry incorporates text from “Modoc War” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.