23. Chief Leschi was hanged for the murder of men considered casualties of war
Leschi was a Chief of the Puyallup and Nisqually Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-nineteenth century. In his capacity as a leader of both tribes, he signed a treaty with representatives of the territorial government of Washington in which he agreed to cede the lands along Puget Sound in exchange for reservations granted his people in perpetuity. The lands granted to the Nisqually were deemed unsuitable, the soil was too rocky to support crops and isolated from the Nisqually River, the source of the salmon which was a significant part of the tribe’s diet. Leschi’s protests fell upon deaf ears, and when American miners trespassed on the reservation land (in violation of the treaty) he led war parties in attacks which became known as the Yakima War.
Leschi was charged with the murder of casualties killed during the Yakima War, and at his first trial, the jury failed to deliver a verdict after receiving instructions from the judge that casualties of war could not be considered victims of murder. He was convicted at a second trial, despite evidence which indicated that he did not personally participate in the killing of the two victims for which he was charged with killing. He was hanged in February 1858. In 2004 the Washington legislature exonerated Leschi, finding he had been wrongly charged and convicted. In December of that year, Leschi was retried in absentia by a specially appointed court and exonerated.