Editing Modoc War (section)

===First hostilities===
[[File:Schonchin Butte.jpg|thumb|200px|[[Schonchin Butte]], a [[cinder cone]] named for Old [[Schonchin]], a chief of the [[Modoc people]] during the late nineteenth century.]]
Although the Modoc initially had no trouble with Americans, after the murders of settlers in a raid by the [[Pit River Tribe]], an American militia unit, not familiar with the Indian peoples, retaliated by attacking an innocent Modoc village, killing men, women and children.<ref name="Riddle"/> ([[Kintpuash]], the future chief also known as Captain Jack, survived the attack but lost some of his family.) To try to end the American encroachment, some Modoc chose to attack the next whites they encountered. In September 1852 the Modoc attacked a wagon train of some 65 men, women, and children on their way to California.<ref name=fsusda>[http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/modoc/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5310669&width=full Modoc NF History, 1945 – Chapter I, General Description] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140529122322/http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/modoc/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5310669&width=full |date=2014-05-29 }} [[United States Department of Agriculture]], Forest Service.</ref>

One badly wounded man escaped to the Oregon settlements in Willamette Valley and told of the attack. His report spread quickly and Oregon volunteers who later reached the scene, reported bodies of men, women and children mutilated and scattered for more than a mile along the lake shore and their wagons plundered and burned.<ref name=fsusda /> The location became known as [[Bloody Point (Oregon)|Bloody Point]].<ref name="Riddle"/><ref name="milmuseum">[http://www.militarymuseum.org/Modoc1.html "Modoc War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061108003019/http://www.militarymuseum.org/Modoc1.html |date=2006-11-08 }}, California State Military Museum</ref> In another round of retaliation, California [[militia]] led by an Indian fighter named Ben Wright killed 41 Modoc at a peace [[parley]].<ref name="Riddle">Davis Riddle, ''History'', pp. 28–30.</ref> [[John Schonchin]], the brother of the Modoc chief, was one of the natives who escaped.