What I am about to tell you is well known by Pennsylvania historians, but I have never been told once by a high school graduate that he/she ever studied it in school. Yet it happened right here in our own backyard. I suspect that there may be many from outside our local neighborhood that have missed this one. If you wish to read further, Benjamin Franklin wrote about this from the Philadelphia side, and researcher Kevin Kenney has presented us with the definitive read on the subject just this year. See: Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment. Oxford University Press, 2009. So, now I am going to tell you a story, and it is true.
Nothing should be taken out of context, but I'll try to keep the background brief. Look at a topographic map. You'll notice that the Blue Mountains (Appalachian Range) somewhat partition the southeast quadrant of the Commonwealth. Well, when the Indians threatened Philadelphia and environs during the French and Indian War (1750's) the Quaker-dominated government erected a series of forts along the base of the mountain to protect genteel Philadelphia from the threat. These forts were manned predominately by Scotch-Irish and German settlers, rough and tumble, on what was then the frontier. They were the ones taking it on the chin.
The Quakers appeared to find this arrangement entirely satisfactory, as they were pacifists but did not wish to get to heaven too early. As conditions deteriorated, it appeared to the frontiersmen that they were abandoned bumpkins being used as a buffer, and a buffer they truly were. When Pontiac's Rebellion (1763) flared up, the frontiersmen asked the assembly in Philadelphia for assistance; they got none. Fear was rampant, frustration levels high, and a group of roughnecks from Paxton Township, (now Dauphin) decided to do something about it. History remembers them as the Paxton Boys.
Reportedly, the Reverend John Elder at Paxton Presbyterian did his best to quell the anger and talk sense into the Paxton Boys, but, in short, he was unsuccessful. The nearest Indians were near Lancaster so on December 14, 1763, over 50 Paxton Boys marched on a Conestoga Indian village near Millersville, PA. Reports have them stopping frequently for liquid refreshment on that cold day, and by the time they got to their destination, they were well lubricated and ready for mayhem.
I take you now to a rarely read document, the nearest thing to a first-hand report: The Genealogy of the Barber Family: The Descendants of Robert Barber, by Edwin Albee Barber, Philadelphia, F. Fell & Co., 1890, pp. 148-150, condensed.
"One of the first things in my recollection is hearing an account of the massacre of the poor Conestoga Indians which took place three years before my birth. The great interest which everyone who I heard speak of it took in it seemed to fix it in my memory at an early age....They were called Conestoga Indians, but I think there were some among them of the Shawnee Tribe, and the little run where they had their huts is still called "Shawnee Run"; they were here when the first white settlers came; they were entirely peaceable, and seemed as much afraid of other indians as the whites were; they often had their cabins here by the little mill; my oldest brother and sister used to be whole days with them...
The government of Pennsylvania now got into other hands, and the peaceable nature of Penn's administration was changed to one more hostile toward the poor natives. The Friends (Quakers) did their best to keep peace in every way, but there was too much against them, and it was thought by many that they should all be destroyed. Accordingly, a company from Paxton Township, under the name of "Paxton Boys," agreed to come by night and destroy the poor Indians at their town. Such was the situation of things, when, a very cold morning in the 12th month, 1763, a German neighbor came to my father's house requesting him go with him in pursuit of some persons who had been at his house the preceding night, whom he termed robbers; they had behaved in a very disorderly manner, such as melting the pewter on the stove, and other things of same kind. My father, supposing they had been some persons in a frolic, advised him to take no notice of it. He was scarcely gone when five or six men came in; they had guns which they left outside; they were very cold--their coats covered with snow and sleet. My father did not know them but he knew from what part of the county they came. He gave them refreshments. While they warmed themselves they enquired why the Indians were suffered to live peaceably there. My father told them they were quite inoffensive, living on their own land and injuring on one. They asked what would be the consequence were they destroyed. My father told them he thought they would be as liaible to punishment as if they had destroyed so many whites. They were of a different opinion. At length they went away without telling what they had been about. In the meantime my two brothers, 10 and 12, had been out looking at their horses (as such boys are wont to do), which were hitched in a wagon shed near the door. After they were gone, my brothers said they had tomahawks tied to their saddles, and they were bloody, and that they also had Christie's gun. (Christie was a little Indian boy about the age of my brothers; they were attached to him; he was their playmate in all the sports--made their bows and arrows, and was, indeed, a brother.) While they wondered what it could mean, a messenger gave information of the dreadful deed. My father and some others went down to see them buried--shocking, indeed, was the sight--the dead bodies lay among the rubbish of their burnt cabins like half-consumed logs. I think there were fourteen murdered. It was said that at the beginning of the slaughter a mother had placed her child--almost an infant--under a barrel, charging it to make no noise; a shot was fired through the barrel, which broke the child's arm, and it still kept silent. I do not vouch for the truth of this, but I have often heard it told with the other parts of the shocking story. The rest of the Indians, I think, to the number of twenty-eight, who were absent at the first slaughter, were collected together and put into the jail in Lancaster for safety, as it was said, but the merciless wretches, not satisfied with their first work, went tither and (I cannot say in spite of opposition, for it does not appear there was any made) broke open the jail, and cruelly, and in a shocking manner, destroyed them all--old men, women and children."
Modern historians put the carnage of the jailhouse slaughter (December 27, 1763) at fourteen. All were severely mutilated. The initial cabin burning of December 14 included six murders. Incidentally, many of the Indians reportedly practiced Christianity. The thugs then heard that some had escaped and were being protected in Philadelphia. In short, our brief segment ends with the Paxton Boys, now some 250 strong, fired up and marching to Philadelphia to finish business. Benjamin Franklin and the militia met them at the city line and negotiated an end of the rebellion. Incidentally, a third of the Indians who did reach Philadelphia for safety died there of smallpox.
What happened to the Paxton Boys? Nothing. Orders were sent out for the perpetrators to be brought forth to the bench of justice, but nobody was prosecuted.
So there you have it, folks. A most bleak and shameful moment in the annals of our history. George Shumway once scolded me for calling a Kentucky rifle a "weapon," a term he reserved for tools of war. Well, they were used in a warlike sense this day, if you can call the senseless slaughter of women and children "war." My guess is that the Paxton Boys justified it as such.
Rich teaching points emerge. Hatred and frustration allowed preparatory conditions to simmer. Fear and frustration fueled the flames and brought it to a head. A recipe for a tragedy. History furnishes many examples right up to the present day. This is what happens when people view others as not quite human. At that point, some find carnage as easy as gutting a deer. This is what happens when an angry mob picks on an easy target as a scapegoat just because they are different. JWH, August, 2009
