From the day the white man first set foot upon his soil the Modoc has been a merciless foe with whom there could be no peace.

From that day to the day when Ben Wright, with a handful of Yreka miners, broke their war power in the so-called "Ben Wright massacre" the Modocs were ever the cruel, relentless foe of the white man, murdering and pillaging without other pretext and without mercy.