A song composed and sung by a wrongly-convicted man as he stood on the gallows awaiting his death will be performed in Port Alberni tonight alongside a new quartet written to honour a century-old tragedy that continues to resonate among the community.

In 2012, the Hesquiaht First Nation offered forgiveness to the B.C. government for its role as a colonial power in 1869, when two Hesquiaht men were wrongfully hanged. (CBC)

Katkinna—along with another man, John Anietsachist—was hanged in 1869, accused of the murders of two white people found washed up on the shore of a Vancouver Island beach following a shipwreck.

The Hesquiaht men were apparently offered up by the band to stop the violent retribution that was being meted out on the entire community by agents of the governor sent to investigate increasingly lurid reports of savages and murder published in The British Colonist newspaper.

Fearing further reprisals, the band nominated two men—the chief's rival, Anietsachist—and Katkinna to be taken to Victoria for trial.

By all accounts, the trial itself was a mockery, with testimony by Hesquiaht witnesses being translated to serve the prosecution's trumped up charges.

A song of forgiveness

When composer Brent Straughan heard the story of the two men, he was particularly moved by Katkinna's plight.

"He was considered a simpleton that no woman in the tribe would marry, so he was sacrificed as a scapegoat," Straughan told On The Island.

"He composed a song at the gallows and he sang it—a song of forgiveness of all things."

Friday's concert will feature the premiere of Straughan's composition, "Cradle Song for a Useless Man", inspired by the story of Katkinna.

Originally he battled the simplicity of the cradle songs that were flooding his thoughts as he worked, Straughan said, concerned the music was too simple for a string quartet.

"But these cradle songs kept coming into my mind and pretty soon I had a whole movement."

Straughan is delighted that Katkinna's song — passed down through generations — will be sung at the concert by a direct descendent of the hanged man.

Straughan says he hopes his music will offer some level of comfort to the Hesquiaht community.

"I think of music as a great reconciliation force in the world. I can't apologize on behalf of anyone," he said. "But that doesn't mean I can't feel and try to express what it must have meant."

The B.C. government issued a statement of regret over the faulty convictions in 2012.