Paxton Boys
The Paxton Boys justified their actions by claiming that the Conestoga were colluding with the Lenape and Shawnee who were attacking Pennsylvania's frontier settlements.
[1] In February 1763, the Paxton Boys marched on Philadelphia with the intent of murdering the Moravian Lenape and Mohican who had been moved to that city for their protection.
The Paxton Boys were drawn from Scots-Irish Presbyterians who lived in the hill country northwest of Lancaster and across the Susquehanna River in Cumberland County.
All Indians were enemies and must be treated accordingly.”[1] The Paxton Boys also despised some Whites, especially the pacifist "English Quakers and German Moravians [whom] they believed ... jeopardized the security of the backcountry.”[4] In the late 1680s, a remnant group of Susquehannock who had been living among the Seneca returned to their traditional homeland in the lower Susquehanna River valley.
In 1730, a group of Scots-Irish squatters occupied Conestoga Manor, declaring that it was "against the Laws of God and Nature that so much Land Should lie idle while so many Christians wanted it to labour on and raise their Bread."
Although they had lived peacefully with their colonial neighbors for decades, they were no longer able to support their families by hunting for fear of being mistaken for hostile warriors.
[1] Tenseedaagua (Will Sock), a prominent member of the Conestoga, became a target of the Paxton Boys due to unsubstantiated claims that he was providing aid and intelligence to the Lenape and Shawnee.
On December 27, 1763, under the leadership of Smith and Stewart, the Paxton Boys broke into the workhouse and killed, scalped, and dismembered all fourteen of the surviving Conestoga, including the women and children.
[9] William Henry, a resident of Lancaster, described the aftermath: I saw a number of people running down [the] street towards the gaol, which enticed me and other lads to follow them.
At about sixty or eighty yards from the gaol, we met from twenty-five to thirty men, well mounted on horses, and with rifles, tomahawks, and scalping knives, equipped for murder.
!—Near the back door of the prison, lay an old Indian and his [wife], particularly well known and esteemed by the people of the town, on account of his placid and friendly conduct.
Benjamin Franklin's "Narrative of the Late Massacres" noted that the Conestoga would have been safe "among any other people on earth, no matter how primitive, except 'the Christian white savages' of Peckstang and Donegall!
This deed, magnified into the blackest of crimes, shall be considered as one of those ebullitions of wrath, caused by momentary excitement, to which human infirmity is subjected.
[12]A month before the Conestoga Massacre, the peaceable Moravian Lenape and Mohican who lived near Bethlehem had been moved to Province Island near Philadelphia for their protection.
[13] In February 1764, the Paxton Boys and their followers, a few hundred in total, marched on Philadelphia intending to "put to death all the Indians in the Barracks.
A resident of the town, David Rittenhouse, described the occupation: "I have seen hundreds of Indians traveling the country, and can with truth affirm, that the behavior of these fellows was ten times more savage and brutal than theirs.” The Paxton Boys, he wrote, paraded through the streets, “frightening women, by running the muzzles of their guns through windows, swearing and hallooing: attacking men without the least provocation; dragging them by their hair to the ground, and pretending to scalp them.”[9] The Paxton Boys halted their march in Germantown after learning about the sizable force that was prepared to meet them in Philadelphia.
The Remonstrance repeated the accusation of favoritism and the demand for a scalp bounty, but also insisted that the Moravian Lenape and Mohican were enemies of Pennsylvania.
"[7] The most notorious incident was the January 1768 murder of ten Lenape and Mohicans, including women and children, by Frederick Stump and John Ironcutter in Cumberland County.
In March 1765 at Sideling Hill, Smith and his followers attacked a pack train moving goods intended for the Native trade to Fort Pitt.
In 1768, Pennsylvania acted upon its claim and hired land speculator Amos Ogden to bring in settlers and defend the valley against intruders from Connecticut.
Two months later, Stewart accompanied by Susquehanna Company agent Zebulon Butler and about forty of the Paxton Boys set out for the Wyoming Valley.
[16] The Pennamite-Yankee War resumed in 1775, when a Pennsylvania force of several hundred men under Colonel William Plunket approached the Wyoming Valley from the south.
Stewart, with twenty men, ambushed the Pennsylvanians on Christmas Eve as they attempted to cross to the east side of the Susquehanna under cover of darkness.
[1] In late June 1778, a strong force of Loyalist troops and Iroquois under Major John Butler approached the Wyoming Valley from the north.
In response, a Patriot militia headed by Lieutenant Colonel Zebulon Butler, who was home on leave from the Continental Army at the time, assembled at Forty Fort.
Colonel Butler favored delay, as he anticipated the arrival of reinforcements, but Stewart (who had taken over command of the company from Hanover Township) insisted that they should immediately attack and drive off the enemy.
