The Reburial of Chief Leschi: A Puyallup War Chief Comes Home
In July 1895, tribes from across the Northwest gathered on the Nisqually reservation to disinter and rebury Chief Leschi and his brother Quiemuth — a warrior the pioneers remembered as an enemy, and honored as a brave man.
TACOMA, July 2 — Special. What will be the greatest gathering of Indians held in the Northwest in years will take place on the Fourth on the Nisqually reservation, about twenty miles from here, and near the mouth of Muck creek. The occasion is the disinterment of the body of Chief Leschi and the subsequent reburial of the remains.
All the pioneers in this part of the state are taking a deep interest in the matter, as they regard the occasion as an historical one. There are still many people living who remember the great battles with the whites, the armies he led against the settlers, his memorable surrender in 1856 to Col. Wright, his imprisonment at Yakima, his delivery to the civil authorities, his trial at Steilacoom, and finally his execution for the crime of murder. These pioneers feel an interest in the bones of the old chief, for him they respected as a brave man, if an enemy of their race.
Today a large band of the Puyallups arrived at Nisqually, and other parties representing the Muckleshoots, the Rivers, the White Rivers and the Green Rivers are on the way to the scene of the ceremonies. They are going for the most part on horseback and in wagons. In each delegation several of the huskiest and most orderly men have been told off to see that the young bucks behave themselves, and abstain from gazing on firewater when it is red in the cup. To Jerry Meeker and Tommy Lane has this task been assigned by the Puyallups.
The Northern Pacific will run an excursion train, carrying people to view the ceremonies tomorrow, leaving here at 9 a.m. The train will stop at Maxfield, two miles from the burial ground. Indians will be waiting with wagons to carry passengers the remainder of the distance.
The body of Leschi will be disinterred from its grave outside the reservation in the morning and will be rehuried in the new cemetery at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. At the same time the body of Quiemuth, his brother, and himself a famous war chief, will be removed from its resting place on Huggin's ranch, near by, and placed in the same grave with Leschi. The ceremonies will be participated in by all the Indians of this part of the country, but will be under the direction of the tribe Leschi led and of which he was chief.
“These pioneers feel an interest in the bones of the old chief, for him they respected as a brave man, if an enemy of their race.”
Leschi was hanged in 1858 for a killing in the treaty wars, and the reburial here was an early step in a long campaign to clear his name — a campaign that finally succeeded in 2004, when a historical court exonerated him. The ground where he was reburied is now a state historic site, and the question of who gets to tell a war chief's story still shapes how Washington remembers its treaty past.
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