The descendants of the survivors of the Modoc War which devastated the tribe in 1872-1873 are the only tribe in Oklahoma that can trace its history back to California. As was common, the cause of the Modoc War was the United States government forcing the Modoc from their homes in northern California onto a reservation in Oregon with their neighbors, the Klammath. As a result of their eventual defeat, the Modoc were sent into exile on the Quapaw Agency in what was then the "Indian Territory." In 1909 the government permitted 51 Modoc to return to the Klamath reservation back in Oregon.

(Twenty-seven Modoc returned to the Klamath Reservation in 1909; however, several of them had returned before 1909. — Patricia Scruggs Trolinger - Modoc Tribal Historian)