Robert Aquinas McNally

Quick Links

In this March 2023 issue of the podcast, I talk with host Marc Oxoby about the war and the California genocide and read a sample of what is always a gripping narrative of a most disturbing tale.

Five Questions with Robert Aquinas McNally

In this feature from California Sun, I make the leap from Lava Beds National Monument as center of the created universe over the best burger in my hometown to dinner with John Steinbeck and friends. Scroll down.

Little Indian War Goes Big

The few ups and many downs of the Modoc War of 1872–73: gunfights, battles, hangings, decapitations in the name of science, all played out against the backdrop of California's state-sponsored genocide of Native peoples. A hard and necessary story.

Answers to Writing Questions You May Never Have Thought of

Carpentry is a good metaphor for explaining the difference between being a writer and being an author, for example. You'll also learn why backpacking with sons Darren McNally and Brian McNally is way cool, and how it is that partner Gayle Eleanor and I prefer wild places to cities.

A Dark History Hits Home (240 KB)

California's governor apologizes for the state's Native genocide before a gathering of tribal leaders and takes a first step toward healing a complex and bloody legacy. This article appears in the winter 2019 issue of California History.

California's Genocide Steps into the Light

In only the two years since The Modoc War was published, this state's extermination of Native peoples has lost its news value. More and more people, including non-Natives, have heard of it. There's a reason, and it's likely other than what you think.

Harte for the Wiyots

A young journalist working along the northern coast of California, Bret Harte found out how dangerous it could be to confront the genocidal reality behind a massacre of local Wiyot Indians.

California Governor Opens the Door on Native Genocide in the State's Closet and Apologizes

In an unprecedented move in front of a gathering of tribal leaders, Gov. Gavin Newsom took responsibility for California's state-sponsored attempt to wipe out its Native peoples in the second half of the 19th-century. He went on to apologize for this atrocity and to establish a Truth and Healing Council to address the genocide's unresolved justice issues.

Telling the Truth About the Modocs

Sometimes the book you set out to write differs from the book you finish. The truth may be other than what you imagined. Here's the backstory.

Selected Works

Nonfiction

Cast out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness

Telling the long-neglected part of Muir's story, Cast out of Eden lays out his take on the tribal nations he encountered and his embrace of an ethos that forced those tribes from their homelands. Although Muir questioned and worked against Euro-America's distrust of wild spaces and its deep-seated desire to tame and exploit them, his view excluded Native Americans as fallen peoples who stained the wilderness's pristine sanctity. Fortunately, in a transformation that a resurrected and updated Muir might approve, this long-standing injustice is beginning to be undone, as Indigenous nations and the federal government work together to ensure that quintessentially American lands from Bears Ears to Yosemite serve all Americans equally.

The Modoc War: A Story of Genocide at the Dawn of America's Gilded Age

Robert Aquinas McNally tells the wrenching story of the Modoc War of 1872–73, one of the nation’s most dramatic conflicts against North American Indigenous peoples. The book won a 2018 gold medal from the Commonwealth Club as the year's best nonfiction focused on California.

Poetry

Songs of the Two Names

"… sheer elegance, impeccable craft, and… authority"

Simply to Know Its Name

"… a guide into how specifics of Nature reveal a constant presence of the Other…"

Essay

A Wild Idea: The Hunting Trip That Changed John Muir and Created the American Wilderness

"This book and its beautiful prose is an absolute must-read."

Events

In Case You Missed It: "The Genocide in California's Closet."

Most Californians don't realize that in the latter half of the 19th century their state's policy toward its Native peoples was extermination -- genocide in the canon of contemporary international law. This Dec. 2022 presentation to the Institute for Historical Study provides an overview of the genocide and highlights the lessons we need to take even now from this horrific period.

In Case You Missed It: "The Refugee Story: Beginning, Middle, and End"

Here's the video of the panel discussion I moderated with Katya Cengel, author of Exiled: From the Killing Fields of Cambodia to California and Back, and Sieu Sean Do, A Cloak of Good Fortune: A Cambodian Boy's Journey from Paradise Through a Kingdom of Terror. Both books focus on the Cambodian genocide: Katya as a compassionate reporter chronicling the cruel fate of refugees deported to a country they no longer know, Sieu as a firsthand survivor of the Khmer Rouge's killing fields. I moderated from the point of view of California's genocide against its Indigenous peoples, on display in The Modoc War. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Extension.

In Case You Missed It: "Writing & Reporting Nowhere into Somewhere"

Here's the recording of the book reading and discussion I did with author Ray March and Univ. of Nebraska editor Matthew Bokovoy on May 18, 2021 via Francie & Finch Bookshop in Lincoln, NE. My Modoc War covers an obscure Indian conflict in the remote northeastern corner of frontier California, yet this little-told story illuminates the shameful treatment of Native Americans across the United States and the horror of the California genocide. Set against much the same geographical backdrop, Ray March's Mass Murder in California's Empty Quarter details the all-too-common collision of greed, tribal disenrollment, and violence on the reservation.