Following outbreaks of violence and the Yakima Wars (1855–1858), as a leader Leschi was charged with the killings of two Washington Territorial Volunteers.

[4] Isaac Stevens, first governor of Washington Territory, appointed Leschi as chief in 1854 to represent the Nisqually and Puyallup tribes at the Medicine Creek Treaty council of December 26 of that year.

Under pressure, the tribes ceded to the United States all or part of present-day King, Pierce, Lewis, Grays Harbor, Mason, and Thurston counties, agreeing to the requirement that the American Indians inhabiting the area move to reservations.

[5] On June 11, 1855, Governor Isaac I. Stevens forced representatives from the Yakima, Nez Perce, Walla Walla, Umatilla and Cayuse tribes to sign a treaty in which the various tribes signed away vast amounts of land in return for money, reservations, and other provisions.

[3] This battle was of little consequence for the whites, since the natives were held off by the cannons of the Decatur, a naval warship with a crew of about 30.

A year later, when hostilities had quieted somewhat, Governor Isaac I. Stevens of Washington Territory, requested that federal troops deliver five Indians for trial.

[9] Sluggia had formed a relationship with the chief's youngest wife Mary, which may have added to his zeal to capture Leschi and turn him over to Stevens.

The judge did not give this instruction, and the court did not allow Leschi's defense lawyers, Frank Clark and William Wallace, to introduce potentially exonerating evidence.

Leschi and his lawyer team tried to present a map that refuted Rabbeson's details of the event as physically impossible, but the jury appeared to have difficulty understanding it.

United States Army officer August Kautz, another supporter, published two issues of a newspaper defending Leschi.

The first issue of the paper containing this masthead was published on February 3, 1858; it had four pages of columns and articles that favored Leschi and his innocence.

Kautz also included his recollections of the survey he had carried out at the crime scene, which he believed strongly discredited Rabbeson's account of the attack.

[3] Tolmie's petition and the front page of the Truth Teller are reprinted in Ezra Meeker's 1905 history, The Tragedy of Leschi, which was republished in 1980.

[3] Leschi's supporters arranged an elaborate plot in which the Pierce County sheriff, George Williams, agreed to be arrested by sympathetic members of the United States Army rather than carry out the execution.

Other Pierce County officials arranged for the execution on February 19, 1858, when Leschi was hanged in a small valley, from a hastily constructed gallows near Lake Steilacoom.

I went to war because I believed that the Indian had been wronged by the White men, and I did everything in my power to beat the Boston soldiers, but, for lack of numbers, supplies, and ammunition, I have failed.

On December 10, 2004, Chief Leschi was informally exonerated by a unanimous vote by a Historical Court of Inquiry following a definitive trial in absentia.