Biography
Slolux was a combatant in the Modoc War (1872–1873) — the only Indigenous fighters in U.S. history convicted as "war criminals" by a U.S. military commission for their role in the killing of Brigadier General Edward Canby during peace negotiations at the Lava Beds on April 11, 1873. The Modoc had resisted forced removal from their California ancestral lands to the Klamath Reservation in Oregon for years before the war. Sentenced to life imprisonment and held at Alcatraz federal military prison.
The National Park Service history spells his name Sloluck. It records his October 1873 transfer to Alcatraz and his release from confinement there in February 1878, followed by transport to Fort Leavenworth on the way to join the exiled Modocs in Indian Territory. The existing month-precision release is preserved; October 1873 is a transfer, not proof of first incarceration, and no additional imprisonment or exile total is inferred.
The National Park Service history identifies the five-member military commission as presided over by Lt. Col. Washington L. Elliott, with Maj. H. P. Curtis acting as judge advocate. It states that the six Modoc defendants were not represented by a legal officer. The trial opened July 1 and ended July 9, 1873. All six were convicted of murder in violation of the laws of war concerning Canby and Thomas, and assault with intent to kill concerning Meacham and Dyar. President Grant approved the findings on August 22, 1873. Grant subsequently commuted Sloluck’s death sentence to life imprisonment at Alcatraz in September 1873. He and Barncho were led back to the stockade as the other four men were prepared for execution. The roster supplies the variants Slolluck, Slolux and Cok. The history’s footnote says he was freed on February 14, 1878 and allowed to join the exiled Modocs; its supporting citation is a Special Order dated that day, so the existing independently recorded February 1878 month-precision release is preserved pending exact physical-discharge corroboration.
National Park Service, Modoc War (1967), PDF pages 181, 182, 184, 205.