The Lynching of Louie Sam

the

LYNCHING

of

Louie Sam

a novel by

ELIZABETH STEWART

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

On the night of February 27, 1884, two white teenagers followed a lynch mob comprised of their fathers and almost a hundred other American settlers north from the Washington Territory into British Columbia, Canada. There they seized Louie Sam, a member of the
First Nation, from lawful custody and hung him, claiming he was guilty of murdering one of their own. This novel is the fictionalized story of those two teenagers, George Gillies and Peter Harkness. Readers should be advised that the racism expressed by these and other characters, while offensive, is meant to reflect the attitudes of the period.

I have taken care in writing this historical fiction not to presume to express the thoughts or feelings of Louie Sam or the
people, apart from what has been reported in the public record. The story of Louie Sam—who he was and what the injustice of his death meant and continues to mean to the
Nation—remains to be told.

According to the Tuskegee Institute of Alabama, between 1882 and 1968 there were 4,742 lynchings in the United States. In Canada during the same period there was one—the lynching of Louie Sam.

“Groups tend to be more immoral than
individuals.”

—Martin Luther King Junior

F
OR
L
OUIE
S
AM

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Afterword

About the Author

Chapter One

Washington Territory, 1884

M
Y NAME IS
G
EORGE
G
ILLIES
. My parents are Scottish by birth and I was born in England, but since we immigrated, we're all Americans now. We live near the town of Nooksack in the Washington Territory, just south of the International Border with British Columbia, Canada. Mam says the way we children speak, we sound just like we were born here.

In Scotland and England, my father, Peter Gillies, worked the farmlands of one rich laird after another. He likes to tell anyone who will listen that we came to America for freedom's sake—by which, he'll add with a wink, he means the land he purchased almost for free from lumbermen here in the Nooksack Valley. Father considered it a bargain because the land had already been cleared of the giant fir trees that grow in these parts to a hundred feet or more. Our house is a log cabin made from those firs, but we have plans to build a fine two-story plank house one day.

Father likes his joke, but he is serious about freedom, too. He tells us kids never to forget that the land we own is ours for all time and makes us free in ways we never could have been in Great Britain. Here, Father answers to no one but himself and God. And Mam says he only answers to God on Sundays.

A couple of years back, my brothers and I helped Father build a dam on Sumas Creek, which cuts through our land. We run a gristmill off the millpond that resulted from that dam. Homesteaders bring wagonloads of grain and corn from miles around to our mill to be ground into flour and meal. The driveshaft is trimmed from a Lodgepole pine and the waterwheel and pit wheel are made from fir. Father has plans to bring in a steel driveshaft from back east once the Canadians finish building their railroad through British Columbia. And once we've saved enough money from selling our miller's toll—the portion of flour that Father keeps as payment.

Between the mill and the farm, we work hard from dawn to dusk. Father says that's the price of freedom. Me, I count myself lucky that even if I wasn't born free, I am free now. Out here in the frontier a man can be whoever he sets his mind to be. My friend Pete Harkness was born in the States—Minnesota, to be exact—and he never lets me forget it.

“You'll never be president,” Pete is fond of telling me.

He's referring to the fact that the United States Constitution requires that presidents be born on American soil—as though Pete, who had to repeat tenth grade, thinks that being born here makes him better fit for the job than I am. Pete and I are in the same grade now, but he's sixteen and reminds me every chance he gets that he's a year older than I am. Mam says not to mind him, that Pete hasn't had the advantage of being raised in a God-fearing family the way I have, at least not since his mother died three years ago and his father took up with Mrs. Bell. I have never heard Mam gossip about Mrs. Bell the way some people do, but I can tell from the way Mam's lips go tight at the mention of her name that she disapproves of her.

T
HIS
S
UNDAY PAST
, you could say fate took me by the hand. I was walking my brothers and sister the four miles from our property to Sunday school at the Presbyterian church in Nooksack when halfway there we saw smoke rising above the trees. That in itself wasn't unusual—on a February morning, you'd be worried if you
didn't
see smoke rising from a chimney. But this was different: thick and black.

“That's coming from Mr. Bell's cabin,” said John.

The Mr. Bell he was referring to was James Bell, an old-timer who ran a store out of his cabin, selling a few supplies to get by. He was also the lawful husband of the very same Mrs. Bell who is currently living under the roof of my friend Pete's father.

We hurried around the bend in the trail ahead to see what was the cause of the smoke. Flames were leaping above the trees by the time we started down the narrow path through a thicket of dogwood that led from the trail to the cabin. When we got to the clearing, the wood shack was going up like tinder. Fire was licking out of the windows of the front room, where Mr. Bell kept his dry goods for sale. If I'd let him, John—who is thirteen and a know-it-all—would have rushed right up to it. Will, a year younger than John and pretty much John's shadow, would have been right behind him.

“Mr. Bell?” I called from a safe distance, holding John and Will back.

There was no answer, just the loud crack of blistering wood. I thought about running to the closest farmstead for help, the Breckenridges', but it would have been a good twenty minutes to get there, and another twenty back.

I tried again. “Mr. Bell!”

“He can't hear you!” said John.

I had to admit John was right. The bursting and crackling of the fire was making too much noise. There was nothing to do but inch up and have a look inside that inferno.

“You stay here with Annie,” I told Will. Annie is only nine, and I could see her eyes were wide with fright.

John and I crept alongside the cabin toward the back, where the flames hadn't caught hold yet, shielding ourselves from the heat. We peered through a window and saw Mr. Bell lying face down on the floor between the storeroom and the kitchen at the rear. A fog of smoke was quickly filling the space above him.

“We got to get him out!” declared John.

“Let's hope he's got a back door,” I yelled over the din, because it was obvious we were not going through the front way.

We ran to the rear of the cabin and were relieved to see that there was a way into his kitchen. When we pushed open the door, smoke came rushing out at us. It stung our eyes and blinded us, but after a moment it cleared enough for us to see Mr. Bell lying there.