Top inset: Eadweard Muybridge, May 1873. The Modoc Indian War – panorama (from stereo cards) of “Camp South” at the edge of Tule Lake.
Back panels: May 2007: Site of “Gillem’s Camp” from Schonchis’ Rock to Signal Station showing a rebuilt defensive fortification, soldiers cemetery, alfalfa fields, visitor’s pullout, and a quiet calm that belies a bloody and complicated past. Lava Beds National Monument. Tulelake, California.
Muybridge photographs courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, and Lee Laney, Chico, California.
In 1873, Eadweard Muybridge was hired by the U.S. Government to photograph the Modoc Wars. Part of his documentation included a quirky and ambitious set of stereo cards that together form a panorama. From a presentation standpoint, the individual nature of stereo cards makes it nearly impossible to view them in a way that connects the space across each frame.
Today the scene is part of Lava Beds National Monument near the California-Oregon border. I visited the site in May 2007 and was struck by how quiet and calm the region was despite its tumultuous history. It's a place where the feeling of emptiness dominates.
For a more thorough account of the events of the war and Muybridge's role in photographing them, please see Rebecca Solnit's incomparable River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, 2003. ISBN 0-670-03176-3
Byron
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