The Ben Wright Massacre.
This so-called massacre has been the source of endless controversy, and
during the progress of the Modoc war afforded Eastern sentimentalists
grounds for shedding crocodile tears in profusion. They found in this
story ample grounds for justification of the foul butchery of General
Canby and the Peace Commission. According to their view, these "poor
persecuted people" were merely paying the white man back in his own
coin, and a lot more such rot.
According to this story, Ben Wright had proposed a treaty and while the
Indians were feasting, all unconscious of intended harm, were set upon
and ninety of their warriors murdered in cold blood. Captain Jack's
father, they said, was among the victims, and it was to avenge this
wrong that Canby and the Peace Commission were murdered under a flag of
truce. The story was without other foundation than the bloody battle
fought by Ben Wright and his Yreka volunteers with the Modoc tribe
during the fall of 1852. I will here give the true story as detailed to
me by Frank Riddle, one of Ben Wright's men, and which I believe is
absolutely true.
In the fall of 1852 Ben Wright raised a company of thirty-six men around
Yreka and went out to guard the immigrants through the country of the
Modocs. The company arrived in time and safely escorted all trains past
the danger point. The lesson taught the year before by Captain Miller
had instilled into the savage heart a wholesome fear of the white man's
rifle and revolver. They dared not attack the ever-watchful white men
openly, but determined to effect by strategy what they dared not attempt
in the open field. Accordingly they sent a messenger to Wright proposing
a treaty. The messenger, among other things, told Wright that they held
two captive white girls, which they wished to surrender as an evidence
of good faith. Ben Wright was anxious to rescue the girls and readily
consented to a treaty, and promised to kill a beef and have a feast. The
Indians in considerable numbers came to the camp, headed by the chief.
Wright was then camped on the peninsula, a place admirably adapted to
guard against surprise. A feast was had and all went well. The white
girls were to be surrendered three days later at the mouth of Lost
river, to which place the white men moved, followed by the Indians. The
latter were very friendly and exerted themselves to win the confidence
of the white men. Three days passed but no white girls showed up. The
chief assured Wright that they were coming, that they were a long way
off and would be on hand two days later. In the meantime the watchful
white men observed that the numbers of the Indians had more than doubled
and more and more were coming with each succeeding day. They became
suspicious and their suspicions ripened into a certainty that treachery
was meditated. At the expiration of the two days Ben Wright informed his
men of his plans. He was satisfied that the girls would never be
surrendered, but that the Indians, now outnumbering them five to one,
intended a massacre. Accordingly he told his men to quietly make ready;
that he was going to the chief and if he refused to surrender the girls
he would kill him then and there. He warned his men to pay no attention
to him, that he would make his way out as best he could; that they must
open fire at the instant his pistol rang out; that they were in a
desperate situation and must resort to desperate measures or all would
be butchered then and there.
The morning was cool, Riddle said, and Ben Wright covered himself with a
blanket, his head passing through a hole in the middle, as was the
custom of the time, the blanket answering the place of an overcoat.
Underneath the blanket he carried a revolver in each hand. He went
directly to the chief and demanded that he make his promises good. The
chief told him plainly, insolently, that he would not do so, and never
intended to do so; that he had men enough to kill the white men and that
they were now in his power. But the wily old chief little dreamed of the
desperate valor of the man before him, for no sooner had the chief's
defy passed his lips than Ben Wright shot him dead. Then firing right
and left as he ran, he made his escape out of the Indian camp.
Meanwhile, as the first shot rang out from Wright's pistol his men
opened a deadly fire with their rifles. For an instant, Riddle said, the
savages formed a line and sent a shower of arrows over their heads, but
they aimed too high and only one or two were slightly wounded. Dropping
their rifles, Wright's men charged, revolvers in hand. This was too much
for savage valor and what were left fled in terror. It was now no longer
a battle. The savages were searched out from among the sage brush and
shot like rabbits. Long poles were taken from the wickiups and those
taking refuge in the river were poked out and shot as they struggled in
the water. To avoid the bullets the Indians would dive and swim beneath
the water, but watching the bubbles rise as they swam, the men shot them
when they came up for air.
This is the true story of the "Ben Wright Massacre." It was a massacre
all right, but did not terminate as the Indians intended. Riddle told me
that about ninety Indians were killed in this fight. It broke the war
power of the Modoc Indians as a tribe for all time, and from that day
the white man could pass unvexed through the country of the Modocs.
There were probably isolated cases of murder, but nothing approaching
war ever again existed in the minds of the Modocs.