In Modoc: The Tribe That Wouldn't Die, Cheewa James, a direct descendent Modoc War hero Shkeitko, aka "Shacknasty Jim", recounts the explosive and personal story of her ancestors in a richly documented, non-fiction narrative that occasionally incorporates fictionalized inserts to help bring the story to life-an asset for school and family reading. Covering Modoc history from ancestral times to the present, this unique book includes over 100 rare black and white photographs of the Modoc War, historic Modoc men, women and children--many handed down through Cheewa's family--and life from times past. There are 40 color photographs of Modocs and their activities in current times. The book contains accounts from the letters of soldiers and eye-witnesses never before published. The six-month long Modoc War, fought in 1872-73, pitted some fifty-five Modoc warriors against 1,000 U.S. soldiers in the jagged, hostile terrain of today's Lava Beds National Monument, where both warriors and families held out in Captain Jack's Stronghold, a massive lava-cave maze named after the Modoc leader. The surviving Modocs were exiled to Oklahoma Indian Territory, where they faced the added trauma of disease and corrupt officials. Some later returned to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon, where Cheewa was born.
December 2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Modoc War. Commemorations held on ancestral Modoc land will acknowledge and honor the descendants of Modocs, settlers, and military personnel from this unforgettable time in Native American history.