Toby Riddle

Who was Toby Riddle?

Toby "Winema" Riddle was a Modoc woman who served as an interpreter in negotiations between the Native American Modoc tribe and the United States Army during the Modoc War. She warned the peace commission of a possible Modoc attack, and she saved the life of the chairman Alfred B. Meacham when the 1873 attack took place.

She and her family toured with Meacham after the war, starring in his lecture-play "Tragedy of the Lava Beds", to inform American people about the war. Meacham later published a book about Winema, which he dedicated to her. In 1891 Toby Riddle was one of the few Native American women to be awarded a military pension by the United States Congress, for her heroic actions during the peace negotiations in 1873.