American Mob Lynches Canadian Teen...
Historian's investigation of 1884 lynching made into film
Last Updated Feb 2 2006 12:50 PM CST
CBC News
It's been quite a year for a University of Saskatchewan historian who turned detective, looking for answers in the century-old case of an aboriginal teenager who was executed for a crime he didn't commit.
University of Saskatchewan history professor Keith Carlson
Now, professor Keith Carlson's investigation into the 1884 incident – where an American lynch mob crossed the border into B. C. and hanged 14-year-old Louie Sam – has been made into a film.
On the surface, the lynch mob was seeking justice for the murder of an American shopkeeper.
However, Carlson revealed a more complex and troubling situation – the boy was not only wrongly accused, but framed.
Scene from The Lynching of Louie Sam
"It was an American and his brother-in-law who had killed the shopkeeper in Watkin county and then framed Louie Sam to cover their own tracks," said Carlson.
"Then, when Louie Sam was able to get back into Canada, they feared that he was going to receive assistance from the Canadian government and a translator. They had to do something quickly to prevent that from happening."
So they gathered the mob together, crossed the border and hanged Sam from a tree.
Even a century later, the injustice done to Sam weighed heavily on the minds of people on Sto:lo First Nation in B.C.
Carlson was asked to look into the case after a string of teenage suicides on the reserve.
"Elders were wondering, well, was he perhaps lynched on this tree? Is this what these hangings are about? Is his spirit there unsettled, causing problems? Perhaps he's not resting and his spirit is bothering youth in this community."
The case wasn't just about a crime perpetrated by a group of Americans, he notes – the federal government was less than forthright with the Sto:lo people about the case.
"They kept lying to the Sto:lo people, saying 'No, no, no, we're still looking into this,'" he said. "In fact, the case had been closed months earlier and they'd washed their hands of it."
After Carlson's research was published in an academic journal, a documentary film crew from Vancouver picked up the story.
The result was The Lynching of Louie Sam, which had its Saskatoon premiere at the U of S this week and is scheduled to run on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and the History Channel later this year.
"It's suddenly put a lot of attention on me, which is humbling," he said. "I'm not the story, the story is the incident in the past and the real legacy that people are now living with."
Carlson's students say he has brought the century-old case to life for them.
"It's to give truth to history rather than ignore it, deny it or rationalize it," Derek Thompson said. "Somebody died and that somebody was an aboriginal person and that aboriginal person was a child."
"It's not just being put in a textbook but it's being shown in a film and getting out across Canada," Jodi Crewe said. "It's accessible to a lot of different people.
The film isn't the only thing to come out of Carlson's research.
His work has been recognized by B.C.'s government and there are now talks in the works with Washington state about how best to apologize to the Sto:lo people.
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