MODOC (i.e. " southerners ")  , a tribe of North American Indians of the I,utuamian stock, who formerly lived around Lower Klamath Lake, south-western Oregon . They were always an aggressive people, and constantly at war with their neighbours . They are known mainly from their stubborn resistance to the United States government in 1872 and 1873 . This is called the Modoc War, and was caused by an attempt to place them on a reservation . After some preliminary fighting the Modocs retreated to the " Lava Beds," a basaltic region, seamed and crevassed, and rich in caves . Here they made a stand for several months . During the war two members of a peace commission were treacherously massacred by them while under a flag of truce . On their final submission the leaders were hanged and part of the tribe was removed to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), and the others were sent back to a reservation on the Klamath .