By Brandon Claycomb

Special to the Reporter

Settlers from the United States had scarcely arrived in Western Washington before their relations with the Native Americans, already living there, grew tense and then violent. It was only in 1853 that a sufficient number of American citizens lived north of the Columbia to justify splitting off from Oregon. Two years later, war broke out between these settlers and many native tribes.

The problem was land, which the natives had and the settlers wanted. The territory’s first governor, Isaac Stevens, had come west intent upon helping a transcontinental railroad connect the Puget Sound with the markets back east, and that required making treaties with all the tribes along the way.

Stevens quickly secured a number of these treaties, including one signed in December, 1854 at a Douglas fir grove along Medicine Creek in what is now Thurston County. In exchange for over two million acres of prime land, Stevens offered the representatives of three tribes guarantees of their remaining land, their traditional hunting and fishing rights, and cash payments over 20 years. The representatives signed this treaty, or were said to. Then the real trouble started.

Leschi, a Nisqually chief, rejected the amount of land given up at Medicine Creek. It was disputed then, and remains in question now, whether he had signed the treaty willingly, or under duress, or even had his mark forged. What is certain is that by 1855, tribes on both sides of the Cascades were openly fighting Stevens’ government over treaty enforcement.

In October, 1855, a group of Nisqually warriors clashed with “Eaton’s Rangers,” a citizens militia. Two settlers were killed, including a militia leader, Colonel Abram Benton Moses. Stevens held Chief Leschi personally responsible for this death and dispatched soldiers to bring him to justice.

Catching Leschi proved difficult, but by early 1858 he was on trial for Colonel Moses’ murder. Conviction did not come easily. The first jury could not reach a verdict, in part because it had been instructed that the killing in question occurred as part of an ordinary act of war, and so could not be considered murder. The second jury received no such instruction, and did find Chief Leschi guilty.

Many settlers at the time considered this conviction unjust. One started a newspaper in order to correct the story the prosecution had told. Both the territorial army and the sheriff charged with executing Leschi refused to comply. A local hangman finally proved willing to carry out the sentence, though he later said, “I felt then I was hanging an innocent man, and I believe it yet.” Chief Leschi was hanged on Feb. 19, 1858 near Lake Steilacoom.

It would be 121 years later, in 1979, before the United States Supreme Court would uphold the Boldt Decision that affirmed the tribal fishing rights promised in treaties such as Medicine Creek.

In 2004, a seven judge panel acting as an historical court of inquiry exonerated Chief Leschi for the killing of Colonel Moses.

Brandon Claycomb is a volunteer with the Issaquah History Museums.