Cheewa James

Modoc Cheewa James

In Modoc: The Tribe That Wouldn't Die, Cheewa James, a direct descendent Modoc War warrior Shkeitko, colorfully renamed "Shacknasty Jim", recounts the explosive and personal story of her ancestors in a richly documented, non-fiction narrative that incorporates fictionalized inserts to help bring their story to life. Covering Modoc history from ancestral times to the present, the book includes rare photographs and accounts from the letters of soldiers and eye-witnesses never before published. The six-month long Modoc War, fought in 1873, pitted some fifty-five Modoc warriors against 1,000 U. S. soldiers in the jagged, hostile terrain of today's Lava Beds National Monument. The surviving Modocs were exiled to Oklahoma, and some later returned to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon, where Cheewa was born.