The Indian History of the Modoc War and the Causes That Led to It. By Jeff C. Riddle, the Son of Winema, the Heroine of the Modoc War. (Klamath Falls, Oregon, D. L. Moses, 1914. Pp. 295. $2.74.)

At the time of the advent of the white man, the Klamath Lake country, an elevated plateau in southeastern Oregon interspersed with numerous lakes and extending across the boundary into California, was occupied by a number of bands of Indians commonly regarded as being of a single stock, but having little intercourse with one another and that not always friendly. But one characteristic they had in common, the suspicion and dislike of the white man and the pertinacity and fierceness with which they resisted his attempts to occupy their country. When Ewing Young and his party, as early as 1837, brought the first herd of cattle from California to Oregon, he was attacked by Indians in this region, and from that time forward hardly a year passed without depredations on one side or the other, until the close of the Modoc war in 1873. The Indian who felt himself wronged by a white man revenged himself according to Indian custom upon the first white man that fell in his way. In like manner, if a white man was robbed or murdered, his associates or neighbors were but too apt to avenge him by attacking the first party of Indians they might encounter. It thus happened that oftener than otherwise the punishment for undoubted outrages fell upon those who were entirely guiltless, and in this way, too, every act of aggression became the source of an additional feud. The usual consequences followed, of constantly increasing bitterness between the races, and of reprisals that were simply ferocious in their cruelty. Nor were these by any means confined to the side of the Indians.

One of the smallest of the bands inhabiting the region mentioned was the Modocs, who dwelt along the shores of Rhett Lake, better known locally as Tule Lake, on both sides of the boundary between Oregon and California. There were different bands of these, under different chiefs, but we are here more particularly concerned with what is known as Capt. Jack's band. These were even more turbulent and warlike than the neighboring tribes, and from the earliest appearance of the whites in that region had been in frequent collision with them.

The government, in the beginning of 1870, succeeded in getting them to settle on a part of the reservation which was assigned to them with the consent of the Klamaths, but they got along no better with the Klamaths than with the whites, though it appears quite certain that the fault was altogether with the latter Indians.

Various attempts were made to compose their troubles without success, and the Modocs after a short time abandoned the reservation and returned to their former home. The authorities ignored this action until, about two years later, complaints began to be made by the white settlers that the Indians had become menacing and were committing frequent depredations. These complaints resulted in an order from the head of the Indian department in September, 1872, to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Oregon, to return the Modocs to the reservation "peaceably if you can, forcibly if you must." The Indians, on being informed of the order, flatly refused compliance. Thereupon Mr. Odeneal, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, applied to the military authorities in command at Fort Klamath, to compel obedience. Maj. Jackson with a detachment of some thirty-five men marched to Captain Jack's camp and after a parley asked the Indians to lay down their arms. The Indians, on Capt. Jack's advice and following his example, were doing so when an affray arose between Lieut. Boutelle and the Indian known as Scar-face Charley, who each at the same moment fired at the other. A general fight ensued, in which some twenty whites, soldiers and citizens, were killed or wounded, but, as is claimed, no Indians except a squaw and her baby.

Lying around the southern end of Tule Lake is a region known as the "Lava Beds," a vast field of congealed lava intersected in every direction with a labyrinth of fissures and caves and abrupt walls of rock. The place is a natural fastness of such extraordinary defensive strength that a handful of resolute men could hold it against an army so long as provisions and ammunition held out. To this place the Indians fled, numbering, with those who afterwards joined them of fifty-three men with their families. And here took place during the next year the most remarkable defense of which the annals of Indian warfare afford any account, and the most unparalleled act of treachery, the murder of Gen. Canby and Dr. Thomas, and the attempted murder of Mr. Meacham and Mr. Dyer, who as commissioners had met the Indians under a flag of truce to negotiate a treaty of peace.

The volume before us is a narrative of the events of this war and a sketch of the history of the tribe during the preceding quarter of a century. The author is the son of a Modoc mother and a white father. His father and mother acted as interpreters in the negotiations between the Indians and the peace commissioners, and had and deserved the confidence of the best informed on both sides. The mother was a woman of remarkable character, and is in fact the most heroic Indian figure of the Modoc war. With such an ancestry it is not surprising that the author should exhibit strong sympathy for the Indians. In fact, he avows, as a reason for his book that "the Indian side has never been given to the public yet." To the credit of his fairness it must be said that his account of actual occurrences is hardly more favorable to the Indians than that of others who witnessed and have written of them. If fault can be found anywhere it is in an occasional lack of details where details would lend a darker color to the facts given.

The author modestly says of himself and his book:

"I have one drawback, I have no education, but I have tried to write as plain as I could. I use no fine language in my writing, for I lack education."

The book itself fully sustains this statement. But at times the very lack of art and skill betrayed lends a certain pathos to the story. The volume can hardly be called a valuable contribution to the history of the war. Its chief interest will be to the pioneer of the locality who will turn to it as he would to a newspaper of the time, or an old letter written from the midst of the scenes it describes, and thus live over again the scenes of this stirring period.

Julius A. Stratton.

Ten Thousand Miles With a Dog Sled. By Hudson Stuck, D. D., F. R. G. S., Archdeacon of the Yukon. (N. Y., Charles Scribner's Sons, 1914. $3.50.)

This is a most interesting narrative of winter journeys with dog team into many remote corners of the Yukon basin in Alaska from 1905 to 1913, connected primarily with the administration of the extensive mission work of the Episcopal church among the natives of interior Alaska.

It is the work of a man of trained mind who describes clearly and entertainingly his own experiences from day to day in traveling through drifting snow, over frozen rivers and lakes and across mountain ranges, in temperatures as low as 70 degrees below zero, making camps in the open plains, on mountain sides, in log huts, and with Eskimos in their igloos, and cooking his meals for himself and his helpers, and for his dogs as well, under all the trying conditions of a subarctic climate in mid-winter. Thousands of Alaskans go through similar experiences every winter, but few have the ability to tell their experiences so clearly and faithfully as Archdeacon Stuck has done.

The special value of this work, aside from its popular interest as a narrative of winter travels in the interior of a new territory about to be opened to development by the building of government railroads, is threefold:

First—He calls attention very forcefully to the bad effects on the natives of contact with a class of whites whom he calls "the low down whites." He compares the good results of the mission work in settlements remote from army posts and saloons, and the discouraging results of the same kind of work in settlements where the natives are preyed upon by immoral whites with bad whiskey as their principal agency. He does not overdraw the facts. His words burn, but they are true.

Second—He shows, from familiarity with the native languages, that the Indians of the upper Yukon valley, above the mouth of the Tanana, and of the entire Tanana valley, are Athabascans, speaking the same language and having the same traditions as the Indians of the Mackenzie river, while the Indians of the lower Yukon as far as Nulato, and of the upper Kuskokwim, are of a wholly different primal stock, speaking a language in no way related to that of the Athabascans. The Eskimos along the coast, in the interior, and in the lower Kuskokwim, he describes as all of one race with the Eskimos of the Arctic ocean clear to the east of Greenland. He speaks highly of the Eskimos, describing them as superior in character and in possibilities of mental development to any of the tribes of American Indians.

Third—The different breeds of dogs, so invaluable to Alaska as the universal friend and helper of prospectors and travelers in every part of the territory, are described in a manner that will help to clear up many of the long standing myths among Alaskans as to the origin of the "Malamute," the "Huskie," and the "Siwash." The "Malamute," he shows, is the typical Eskimo dog, the same in Alaska as in northern Labrador and in Greenland. The "Huskie" is not a cross with a wolf, he avers, contrary to the belief of many Alaskans, but was originally a cross between hardy dogs like the Scotch collie and others with the Malamute itself. The "Siwash" is simply one of the many kinds of native Indian dogs, pure or mixed with other stocks.

It would have been better for Archdeacon Stuck if he had stopped with telling what he knows from long experience among the natives, and had not devoted a chapter in opposition to the building of government railroads in Alaska. Here he prognosticates. He urges the building of a system of wagon roads instead, which, in this twentieth century, is strange advice from a man of his keen powers of observation in other respects. Of course, not ten men in all Alaska will agree with him on this point. His argument against railroads in Alaska is the same as that advanced for many years by the big trading companies, which desire above all things to prevent Alaskan development for their own good.

In dealing with the agricultural possibilities, which he minimizes, he omits mention altogether of the great Susitna valley, which all Alaskans know to be the best in Alaska from an agricultural standpoint.

It is very clear that Archdeacon Stuck is not an authority on agriculture in any of its branches, and that he never lived a day on a farm.

Aside from his opposition to government railroads in Alaska and his doubts as to agricultural possibilities there, on which subjects a minister of the gospel is not necessarily good authority, his book is one of the best of the many recent popular works on Alaska.

John E. Ballaine.

The Coming Hawaii. By Joseph King Goodrich. (Chicago, McClurg, 1914. Pp. 329. $1.50.)

Like the author's earlier books on China, Mexico and Canada, The Coming Hawaii is based partly on the writer's own experience and partly on other authorities, which he cites in footnotes throughout the book. Like his earlier works, also, it is written in a popular style and is intended for the reader whose interest in Hawaii is a general one.

Mr. Goodrich made his first visit to Hawaii in 1866. A second and longer one was made after the government there had become republican. His residence in Japan as professor in the Imperial Government College at Kyoto has enabled him to speak authoritatively on the attitude of that country toward Hawaii.

In The Coming Hawaii, Mr. Goodrich sketches the history of the islands, surveys present conditions and considers the relation of Hawaii, in the future, to other countries.

The historical outline includes some notice of the myths and legends which are interwoven with the early history of the Hawaiians, the rule of native monarchs, the transition to American control, and the present administration of the islands by the United States.

The discussion of present conditions is sufficiently broad in its scope as to include almost everything of general interest. Among the subjects presented are the origin of the Hawaiian race, the Hawaiians as laborers, native arts, manners and customs, social life, natural resources, volcanoes, the missionary movement, literature, and immigration.

A most interesting chapter is the one on Agriculture in the Islands. Mr. Goodrich commends the government for the interest it has taken in this pursuit, as shown by valuable experiments with soils and crops, and by its efforts to induce a desirable farming class to settle in the islands. He believes that upon the development of its agriculture, more than upon anything else, depends the economic future of Hawaii. It is of special interest to us that Hawaii turns to the United States, particularly to the Pacific states, to find a market for her products.

In considering the future of the Islands, Mr. Goodrich does not overlook the opportunities they offer all for pleasure, to which the scenery, the equable climate and the fine beaches, especially, contribute.

The reader's enjoyment of the book is increased by the reproductions of attractive photographs. It contains also a good bibliography and an index.

Mary Hubbard.

Travel and Description, 1765-1865; Together With A List of County Histories, Atlases, and Biographical Collections and a List of Territorial and State Laws. By Solon J. Buck. (Springfield, Ill. Illinois State Historical Library, 1914. Pp. 514.)

This book, published as volume nine of the Illinois Historical Collections, is a product of the Historical Survey conducted by the University of Illinois. It forms the first part of a comprehensive bibliography of Illinois history, which is being prepared by Solon J. Buck. An attempt is here made to list all works of travel covering any part of the territory of Illinois during the period 1765-1865. Full items of imprint and collation are given, followed by annotations and references to notices and reviews. Such a thoroughgoing piece of bibliography covering description and travel in America becomes of general interest to all students of the Western Movement.

Guide to the Materials in London Archives for the History of the United States Since 1783. By Charles O. Paulin and Frederic L. Paxson. (Washington, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1914. Pp. 642.)

This is the third volume to be issued by the Department of Historical Research of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the series of Guides relating to the London Archives. The two previous volumes relate to the History of the United States preceding 1783. The present volume covers the period from 1783 to 1860. It therefore becomes of great interest and value to students of Pacific Northwest History from the time of the Nootka Sound Embroglio to the Acquisition of the Oregon Territory. A glance at the index reveals more than sixty references to Oregon with nearly as many to the Hudson's Bay Company and a goodly number to Washington Territory.

Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California, 1912-1913. (Los Angeles, J. B. Walters, 1914. Pp. 158.)

This volume marks the thirtieth anniversary of the organization of the Historical Society of Southern California. In addition to articles of direct bearing upon the local field are several papers of a more general interest. Among the latter may be noted: "Events leading to the Chinese exclusion act"; "Drake on the Pacific Coast"; and "Anti-Japanese legislation in California."

Other Books Received

Chicago Historical Society. Annual Report, 1913. (Chicago, The Society, 1914. Pp. 173.)

Doughty, Arthur G., and McArthur, Duncan A. Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 1791-1818. (Ottawa, Government, 1914. Pp. 576.)

Faxon, Frederick W., editor. Annual magazine subject-index, 1913. (Boston, Boston Book Company, 1914. Pp. 278.)

Michigan Historical Commission. First Annual Report, 1913. (Lansing, Public Printer, 1914. Pp. 63.)

North Carolina Historical Commission. North Carolina Manual, 1913. (Raleigh, Public Printer, 1913. Pp. 1053.)

Pennsylvania Society. Yearbook, 1914. (New York, The Pennsylvania Society, 1914. Pp. 256.)

Trexler, Harrison A. Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865. (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1914. Pp. 259.)