The Moravian or Gnadenhutten Massacre, March 8, 1782, resulted in the vicious rape and murder of 96 Moravian Native Americans by Pennsylvania militia settlers in the closing months of the American Revolution. The converted Christian Lenni-Lenape and Mohicans were mostly old men and women and children. Innocent pacifists, because of their commitment to non-violence, they remained neutral throughout the war. But were ultimately driven from their villages in eastern Ohio to the Sandusky River region by waring bands of natives and militia frontiersmen. Starving, in February of 1782, they were allowed to return home to harvest crops and retrieve food and supplies left at their abandoned villages. At Gnadenhutten, 160 Pennsylvanian militiamen arrived on March 7th under Lt. Colonel David Williamson. The Moravians welcomed and fed the settlers who promised them safe passage to Fort Pitt. When additional natives were brought in from nearby Salem, the settlers bound the Christians, telling them they would be killed the next morning.
Pleads for mercy fell on deaf ears as the Moravians spent the night praying and singing Christian hymns and psalms. Meanwhile, that night, the settlers indulged on liquor. Some systematically dragged young girls and women out onto the snow to rape.[1] Come morning, with mothers watching, screaming children’s heads were crushed beneath large cooper mallets. Praying victims were bludgeoned and hacked to death by the unleashed vengeful hatred of savage pioneers. Though at first heroes to frontier settlers, over time society condemned their actions. No amount of retribution for past harms could ever justify nor excuse the horrendous barbarity of the settlers on unarmed innocents, nearly half children; whose vengeful hatred towards all Native Americans turned them into a mob of the most vile monsters. Later generations appropriately described the perpetrators as the worst of humanity.
Background
By the mid 1700’s, to escape colonial encroachment, the Lenni Lenape, also called Delaware, had migrated to the Ohio Valley from their ancestral lands along the Hudson River and upper Delaware River to the mid-Atlantic coast.[2] They were of two major bands of Lenape; Munsee, from the upper Delaware region, and the Unami speaking dialect from further south. They settled villages around the major town of Coshocton,[3] about 120 miles directly west of Pittsburg.
War had persistently torn apart the western frontiers of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas since British General Braddock’s defeat near Fort Duquesne (Fort Pitt), in 1755. The 1763 Treaty in Paris ended the French and Indian War, but violence carried on immediately after and right up to the start of the American Revolution.[4] Treaties with Native Americans were violated or ignored as clashes intensified between colonials who sought new lands and opportunities west and Native Americans refusing to give up their ancestral homes. Both sides of the conflict issued raiding parties that destroyed, killed, and abducted community members, while pioneers torched native villages and killed Native Americans, often on sight, claiming the frontier status as ‘Indian Fighter.’
When the American Revolution erupted, the Lenape Delaware villages lay between colonial settlers at Fort Pitt to the east and the British at Fort Detroit, 250 miles north and west. This region of the Ohio Territory was called the Tuscarawas River Valley. It was about 90 miles northwest of Fort Pitt. The region was rife with traversing war parties from both sides of the conflict. Fort Laurens[5] was built on the Tuscarawas River as a staging area by Continental and Pennsylvania militia under General Lachlan McIntosh[6] in the fall of 1778. But after a major siege by Loyalist Rangers, Wyandot and hostile Delaware, during February and March of 1779, McIntosh’s replacement, General Daniel Brodhead at Fort Pitt decided to abandon the fort.
Lenape Delaware
The Lenape Delaware who had joined with the British, moved to the Sandusky River region on Lake Erie, about ninety miles north. Those who remained neutral and sympathetic to the rebellious colonials remained at Coshocton. A third band of Delaware Lenape also stayed in the Tuscarawas River Valley, having established villages at Schoenbrunn, Salem, and Gnadenhutten,[7] 30 miles south of Fort Laurens on the present Muskingum River and around thirty miles east of Coshocton. This band were Moravians[8], converted to Christianity principally by Moravian preacher David Zeisberger.[9]
Nearly forty years prior to the American Revolution, young missionary David Zeisberger[10] had arrived from Europe. After a brief stay in Savannah, Georgia, preaching to the Creek, he traveled north into Pennsylvania to begin his missionary with the Leni-Lenape or Delaware. Zeisberger and other Moravian Christian missionaries lived amongst the natives. They spoke the Munsee and the Unami dialects of Lenape, a major Algonquian language, and composed dictionaries and bible script in native tongues. These converted Christian Lenape, being Moravians, held to Christian pacifism.[11] During the American Revolution, Zeisberger lived amongst the Moravian Lenape villages.
From 1775 to 1780, colonial pioneers illegally settled on Native Lands west of Pennsylvania. The 1778 Fort Pitt Treaty designated Ohio as Native American land that would remain free of white settlement and incursions, while guaranteeing the safety of peaceful Lenape; negotiated by Delaware Chief White Eyes. White Eyes died mysteriously that year[12] and the treaty was never ratified by Congress. The treaty was ignored and soon after discarded. With increased raids by American rebel settlers against friendly Lenape bands, most of the Delaware at Coshocton joined with British loyalist rangers in the war against rebellious colonials. In consequence, Colonel Daniel Brodhead led an expedition out of Fort Pitt and destroyed Coshocton on April 19, 1781. Lenape who survived this onslaught fled north to Sandusky. At the time, Colonel Brodhead convinced Pennsylvania militiamen to leave the Lenape at the Moravian villages unmolested; since they were peaceful and neutral.
Though Brodhead refused to allow the Moravinas to be attacked, it was only a matter of time before western settlers’ venom towards all indigenous people was unleashed. Tensions grew between eastern Continental officers like Brodhead and western militiamen over how the Native Americans should be dealt with; especially among those who had lost friends and family to Native American and Loyalist Ranger raids. Over the next year, with the increased frequency of raids by both sides, these militiamen did not distinguish between friendly or hostile tribes or bands.
Lenape Moravians Removed to the Sandusky Region and later Allowed to Return
The Moravian Native Americans, though consistently professing non-violent neutrality, were caught in the middle of warring factions. The British considered them American spies, and the “Americans burned with indignation against them as allies of the British.”[13] On September 11, 1781,[14] around 200 British and Native Americans, mainly Wyandot and Delawares under ‘Captain Pipe,’[15] suspicious that the native Moravians were providing intelligence to the Americans at Fort Pitt, forced the Christian Lenape and Mohegans to abandon their villages. They were taken to the Sandusky River near Lake Erie and a new village called Captive Town. The principal Moravian missionaries David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder,[16] living amongst the Lenape, on October 25th, were escorted under guard further to Fort Detroit. There they met the fort’s commander, Major Arent Schuyler De Peyster, and were tried on charges of treason for communicating with the rebel government. The missionaries were cleared of all charges and on November 22, 1781, rejoined their flock at Captive Town.
It proved to be a hard winter with dwindling food stocks. When the promised British supplies failed to materialize, the convert’s community suffered malnourishment. Because of growing tensions between the peaceful Moravians and waring Wyandots, De Peyster summoned Zeisberger and Heckewelder back to Detroit, not to stand trial, but for protection. Soon after, the food situation became critical in Captive Town with many on the cusp of starvation. Mrs. Zeisberger wrote that “Many a time the Indians shared their last morsel with me, for many a time I spent eight days in succession without any food of my own.”[17] By February, 1782, De Peyster had warmed up to the pacifists and with White Pipe’s approval, allowed over 150 Moravians to return to their former villages to harvest the crops they had abandoned in September of 1781 and retrieve any food supplies that had been left behind. It was a risky journey for throughout the winter, native war parties had launched several raids across the Ohio. Both north and south of Fort Henry at Wheeling, attacking isolated settlements, torching farms, and killing and capturing settlers. After the Moravians departed south, missionaries Zeisberger and Heckewelder would still be in Detroit when the Gnadenhutten Massacre occurred.[18]
Moravians Arrive and Settler Militia Assemble to Attack
The Moravians braved the 90-mile trek south in the dead of winter and sometime in late February, 1782, arrived at their perspective villages, Shoenbrunn, Salem, and Gnadenhutten. Originally, they were to camp far from their homes and shuttle food back and forth. But believing they were relatively safe, lived among their old homes while they worked the fields. They were overjoyed to find dried fields of corn still standing, as well as root crops in gardens. So too, stored food and supplies had been undisturbed. Praying and singing praises to Jesus, they immediately began to harvest and prepare the food for transport. Meanwhile, native raiding parties stopped by before and after their raids east and along the Pennsylvania frontier, seeking refreshments from the Christians and in some cases, trading goods.
The last couple years of the Revolution, in the West, were years of blood. The frontier was almost uninhabitable…”[19] By 1782, war parties from Sandusky appeared much earlier than usual, before the last of the winter months were past. One particularly brutal assault by a party of Wyandots had attacked the Robert Wallace family, and was returning westward. They camped near Gnadenhutten where warriors informed the working Moravians they had captured a woman, a child, and frontiersman and noted ‘Indian Fighter’ John Carpenter.[20] They said the woman and child had slowed their progress and were impaled on stakes on the western side of the Ohio River.[21] The child would be found with its face toward the settlements and its belly toward the Indian country…”[22] Before the party left, Carpenter traded some of his clothing and supplies with the Moravians[23] and warned them that the militia would pursue the raiders and pass through Gnadenhutten.[24] But the Moravians were confident of their innocence and did not fear any oncoming militia.
On March 4, 1782, Colonel David Williamson left the Fort Pitt region in command of a vigilante mob of 160 mounted militia, mainly from settlements on the Monongahela, under the guise of a military operation. They had collected in great haste after receiving details of the William Wallace attack, perpetrated by a party of Wyandot raiders from the Sandusky region. Wallace was found murdered along with four of his children. His wife and a fifth child were discovered later horribly impaled. Historians believe this was the last straw and catalyst for the attack. The savage raid had roused the whole frontier with the opinion that the Christian Moravians had something to do with the attack; either were part of it or had allowed native raiders to winter in their towns. The militia were finally setting out to do what Colonel Brodhead had prevented them from doing in the spring of 1781, destroy the Moravian presence on the Tuscarawas.[25] Fort Pitt commander, General William Irvine, who had replaced General Brodhead, was in Philadelphia and had left his deputy Colonel John Givson in command of the garrison. He learned that Williamson’s militia were riding to the Moravian towns and dispatched a messenger to warn the Christians, but it would arrive too late.
The militiamen rendezvoused at Mingo Bottom on the Ohio, just below present-day Steubenville, PA.[26] They formally elected Colonel David Williamson as their leader and set out for the Tuscarawas Valley. Williamson was well familiar with the way. He had campaigned with General Brodhead and in November of 1781, led militiamen to the Moravian Villages with the intent of delivering the Christians to Fort Pitt. He found the villages empty and the militia returned home. However, this time, hearts had hardened. Many among the men riding west had past family members or friends killed or abducted over the years. This mob of militiamen were set on deadly vengeance They would destroy the villages, with no intention of returning to Fort Pitt with Christian natives in tow.
Militia Ruse Promises Safe Passage to Fort Pitt
What we know of events that occurred the days just before, during, and immediately after the massacre came from two young Moravians witnesses who had escaped the slaughter. Their accounts were principally recorded by Samuel Nanticoke, an assistant missionary at New Schonbrunn, and later parroted by Moravian missionaries; principally David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder. Also, militiamen’s accounts pieced together over the years who, upon their return, boastfully detailed the campaign and murders.
After the Wyandots passed through the Moravian villages, and Carpenter’s grave warning of pursuit, the townspeople were alarmed. A council was held at Salem. It was determined to finish the harvest and leave a few days later, on the 7th. If the American militia arrived before then, they would assure them of their innocence and “friendship with the States, and their common religion.”[27] By the morning of the 6th, they resumed their work and labored hard to complete it so they could depart the following day. Crops were gathered in heaps and bagged while stored supplies were prepared for transport. But by then it was already too late for the militia were approaching. Williamson’s militia had arrived the night before and camped a mile or so from Gnadenhutten. Williamson decided come morning to split his command into two columns. One would cross the Tuscarawas to the west bank and stop any natives trying to escape the village by crossing the river. The other would remain on the east bank of the river, Gnadenhutten was on the east bank, and enter the town from there.
The morning of the 6th, the column crossing the river had no canoes and sixteen chose to swim. A sugar trough was discovered in which others used to cross while transporting weapons and supplies. This group met their first victim after crossing.[28] Joseph Schebosh Jr., a Moravian Christian whose father was a Welsh man and mother a Munsee Native American, was out early searching for a horse. While Joseph pleaded for his life, he was killed; some sources state he was shot while others that he was bludgeoned. After scalping Joseph, this group came across several Moravians working the corn fields. They told the Christians that they were there to escort them to Fort Pitt and to recross the river and return to Gnadenhutten. Moravian John Martin and his sons[29] observed the militiamen talking friendly with those who had been working the fields. Martin sent his sons to join those at Gnadenhutten and he went to Salem to inform Christians there of events.[30]
Meanwhile, the other column splintered into three groups and approached the town. In doing so, one came upon a Moravian in a canoe and shot him dead. They also came across Joseph’s wife hiding along the bank and killed her. Both columns of militia converged on the town and at first were friendly and conversational with the Moravians, promising them that for their safety, they would all be taken to Fort Pitt where they would be well supplied with food and supplies. At Salem, two men were appointed to return to Gnadenhutten with Martin; Adam and Henry,[31] to collect further information. At Gnadenhutten, Martin was reassured that all was well by the friendly mingling between Moravians and militia and the settlers repeating that they were there to escort the Christians to Fort Pitt. Martin was sent back to Salem with his compatriots and a militia detachment to retrieve the work parties there and assemble the entire body at Gnadenhutten.[32]
Early sources differ as to when the militiamen turned on the Moravians, resulting in two possible days the massacre occurred. According to Charles Mitchener’s 1876 account, the Moravians were tied up on the 6th, the same day the militia entered the village, and right after Martin and a small detachment departed for Salem. The Salem Christians returned that day and were all killed on the 7th. Moravian missionary Zeisburger’s account states the militia remained friends throughout the 6th, that they ate dinner supplied by the Moravians, and spent the night peacefully at Gnadenhutten. After the Salem Moravians returned the next day, all were tied up and killed the following day, March 7th. Most historical accounts agree with Zeisberger’s recollection and concur that the slaughter occurred on the 8th.
Mock Trial and Massacre
On March 7th, while awaiting the return of the militia detachment sent to bring Salem’s Christians to Gnadenhutten, Williamson’s men turned on the Moravians. They deprived the residents of any dangerous implements (weapons, farm tools, etc.), seized, bound, and herded them into two buildings, men in one, women and children in the other.[33] After the Salem Moravians were brought in, they too were bound and placed in the two buildings. While the Christians prayed and sang hymns, Colonel Williamson staged a mock trial, accusing them of being warriors, of feeding and aiding native raiding parties, and participating in attacks against settlers; killing homesteaders and steeling property. For proof, the militia pointed to pewter cups and plates, kitchen utensils, branded horses only done by whites, settler clothing, and a bloody dress, identified as Mrs. Wallace, who had been impaled after the attack on her farm.
In defense, the Moravians said the branding irons were their own which they could produce, that all implements and clothing had either been supplied by Pennsylvania missions, or bought from traders who visited the towns. That they were forced to give comfort to passing raiding parties and as pacifists, convinced several parties to refrain from attacking settlers and return home. The dress was foolishly traded for by a young girl who acquired it from the recent raiding party that passed through the village.[34] It was a fruitless defense. Too many of the militiamen had lost family and friends to raiding parties. Hearts had hardened where only vengeance remained. The decision was final; they would all be executed the next morning, March 8th.[35]
One can only imagine the terror men, women, and children experienced throughout the evening, knowing by morning they would be killed. By all accounts, besides cries of grief and mourning, the condemned vigilantly prayed and sang hymns well into the night. As related by later white captive Phobe Tucker Cunningham, many of the settlers got drunk with several entering the woman’s cabin where they “dragged the women and girls out into the snow and systematically raped them.”[36]
Accordingly, on the morning of the execution, Williamson was unwilling to assume the responsibility for ordering the slaughter. Nineteenth century account agree that he was unable to, or perhaps wished to absolve himself of the mass murder, fearing a later inquiry might seek consequences for the killers’ actions.[37] The men were lined up and according to Zeisburger’s narrative, Williamson stepped forward and said, “Shall the Moravian Indians be taken prisoners to Pittsburg, or put to death? All those in favor of sparing their lives, advance one step and form a second rank. On this but sixteen men – another report says eighteen – stepped out of the line, leaving an overwhelming majority for the sentence of death.”[38] Those who voted against death, retired from the scene.[39] Of those who were in favor of death were firm; the victims would be killed. A debate ensued if the Christians were to barricaded in houses and burned alive, or if they should be tomahawked and bludgeoned, then scalped prior to burning, this so the men could acquire trophies.[40] The latter was decided upon and preparations were made. Of Williamson, there is no account of him taking part in the brutal killings. One account has a woman named Christiana[41] who spoke fluent English and German, pitifully crying out to Willaimson for mercy as she was dragged to be killed; “I cannot help you,” was his cold reply.[42]
Accounts vary slightly but most concur the Moravians were herded two at a time into two killing houses where they were murdered; the men in one and the women and children in another. It was also reported that the victims were led and dragged from the houses to a killing block where their heads were bashed in, then scalped, one by one. The bodies were then dragged to one of the two killing houses where they were thrown in and later consumed in flames when the building was torched.[43] One description stated some of the Christian men, perhaps younger or more fit, were deemed warriors and separated from the others. They were marched out of town whereas they were tomahawked and scalped, two having attempted to escape[44] and were also killed and scalped.[45]
The men were first selected for death and in two’s, were tied by rope and dragged to what the militiamen called the ‘slaughter-house. One, named Abraham with long, flowing hair that some militia described as ‘a fine scalp,’ was the first to die.[46] According to missionary Heckwelder’s version, those in the houses fell beneath the vicious blow of a cooper’s mallet, either stunned or their head crushed before scalped and thrown aside. The men took turns, moving from one victim to another. One militiaman named Abraham killed fourteen men before he wearily handed the mallet to another stating “my arm fails me, go on in the same way; I think I have done pretty well.”[47]
War clubs, tomahawks, and spears were also used to kill. Amidst the savage sounds of crushed skulls and shrieks of terror and pain, it was reported many accepted their fate and sang hymns and prayed while waiting to be murdered. Incredible, more than one account stated several prayed for the salvation of their killers. The settlers carried on the butchery in cold blood as leisurely and systematically as if slaughtering animals for the shambles.[48] It was recorded that one settler taunted his victim, offering him his hatchet stating, “Strike me dead.” To which the Moravian answered, “I strike no one dead.” The angered frontiersman “chopped his arm away,” all the while the doomed man kept singing, “…until another blow split his head.”[49]
Once all the men were killed, like the men, the women and children were tied and dragged to their designated slaughter house. Judith, described as an aged and pious widow, was the first killed.[50] A mid-nineteenth century report, based on two militiamen who witnessed and or took part in the killings, describe the murders in its most gruesome manner:
“One after another, men, women, and children, were led out to a block prepared for the dreadful purpose; and, being commanded to sit down, the axe of the butcher, in the hands of the infuriate demons, clave their skulls. Two persons, who were present at that time, and who related to me the fearful story, assured me that they were unable to witness, but for a short time, the horrid scene. One of these men stated, that when he saw the incarnate fiends lead a pretty little girl, about twelve years of age, to the fatal block, and heard her plead for her life, in the most piteous accents, till her innocent voice was hushed in death, he felt a faintness come over him, and could no longer stand the heart-sickening scene. The dreadful work of human slaughter continued till every prayer, and moan, and sigh was hushed in the stillness of death. No sex, age, or condition was spared, from the grey-haired sire to the infant at its mother’s breast. All fell victims to the most cold-blooded murder ever perpetrated by man. There lay, in undistinguished confusion, gashed and gory, in that cellar, where they were thrown by their butchers, nearly one hundred murdered Christian Indians, hurried to an untimely grave by those who had but two days before sworn to protect them.”[51]
As fate would have it, while the massacre was under way, a messenger from Sandusky arrived at Schoenbrunn. The Moravian missionaries in Sandusky notified the villages that all converts were to be moved to Fort Detroit where they would properly supplied and cared for. Two from Schoenbrunn immediately set out to inform their brethren at Salem and Gnadenhutten. While doing so, they came upon the mangled body of Joseph Schebosh. They buried his body and quickly returned to Schoenbrunn to give warning, correctly assuming it was too late for those at Gnadenhutten and Salem. The Moravians fled the village just ahead of a large party of Williamson’s militiamen who had intended to murder all within. Finding the village abandoned, they returned to the main party.
Two young boys escaped the initial slaughter; Thomas and Jacob. Thomas had received a blow that fortunate for the boy was not fatal. Though he’d been scalped, he revived towards nightfall, lying amidst the dead bodies in the men’s slaughter-house. He noticed another was still alive, Abel who had been knocked unconscious and scalped, trying to rise from the floor. At that moment, a party of militiaman came by to check on the bodies and immediately caved in Abel’s skull with a hatchet. Thomas laid still amongst the ghastly corpses and faked death. Later that evening, he crept over the dead bodies and escaped to the forest.[52] Jacob and another young boy made their escape through a trap door in the floor of the house where the women and children were kept. They stayed there throughout the slaughter. After dusk, they attempted to get out through a small window opening in the foundation of the house. Jacob succeeded, but the other boy got stuck. Soon after, the house was set on fire and the poor child burned alive. The two made their way to Sandusky, having fallen in with the Schoenbrunn Moravians in their flight.[53]
Casualties and Militia Departure
By nightfall of the 8th, the bodies were piled up in the two slaughter-houses then put to the torch, as well as the rest of Gnadenhutten. The murdered and scalped Moravians numbered 28 men, 29 women, and 39 young children.[54] By all accounts, the settlers gleefully helped themselves to the plunder offered by the three villages. They took everything they could pack onto 80 horses from the 100 they stole from the villages; furs for trade, pewter, tea sets, clothing, etc. So too among the settlers’ booty were the prized 96 scalps collected and shared among the murderers; this gruesome collection of trophies included the tiny scalps of toddlers and infants.[55] After torching all three villages so nothing remained, the settlers rode back to their homes, many jubilant in both deadly retribution and the amount of plunder the stolen horses carried.
Afterwards
One of those who stepped out of line and opposed the killings was Obadiah Holmes, Jr.[56] He later wrote, “One Nathan Rollins & brother [who] had had a father & uncle killed, took the lead in murdering the Indians… & Nathan Rollins had tomahawked nineteen of the poor Moravians, & after it was over, he sat down & cried, & said it was no satisfaction for the loss of his father & uncle after all.” Speculation that perhaps more than one of the murderers realized afterwards the biblical teaching in Romans 12:19; ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’
On March 14th, Sandusky, missionaries Heckewelder and Zeisberger received the news of the massacre by a convert from Captives Town who had just spoken with a Wyandot warrior returning from a raid. Zeisberger refused to believe it.[57] “He deemed it possible that they had been carried off; but he could not be induced to believe that Indians, whom the whole West knew to be professors of Christianity, had been slain in cold blood.”[58] A more complete account had to wait until March 23rd, when two Native Americans bringing supplies for the trip to Detroit relayed the events and killings of the two boys who had escaped. Both missionaries would later compose diaries of their missionary work among Native Americans detailing the events of the massacre. Almost immediately, the entire Ohio River Valley was in an uproar. Native Americans and Loyalist Rangers were hell bent on revenge. Though the hostilities in the east and south had basically ended, the frontier summer and fall of 1782 would prove to be one of the bloodiest in the war.
Williamson and his men had returned to their homes on the 10th, two days after the massacre. At first the settlers boasted to friends and neighbors about their cold-blooded attack on the pacifist Moravians. They basked in the glory of their ‘campaign’ as they were treated as heroes by fellow western homesteaders. But in late spring, after Moravian missionaries reported details of the horrific murder of the villagers and the brutal method of slaughter, the general tone changed. So too when the murders had unleashed a scorched earth policy among vindictive native raiding parties. Some accused the settlers as cowards; attacking unarmed pacifists while knowing they in turn had no fear of attack. Many of those who participated in the slaughter later denied their involvement.[59]
When General Irving returned to Fort Pitt from Philadelphia, he was disgusted by the local militia’s actions. He called for an inquiry in which Williamson and others stated unconvincing reasons to prove their actions were justified. But frontiersman Carpenter had escaped and returned by then. He presented details that affirmed the Moravian arguments that they were innocent of the militiamen’s charges. Though authorities were sickened by the barbaric atrocities of such ‘outstanding men of the community,’ no charges were ever filed. Over time, the senseless wholescale murder of innocents at Gnadenhutten was classified as a crime against humanity. When informed about the massacre, General Washington’s only concern was for future captured American soldiers, fearing torture.
British Forces Carry on the War in the West
While peace was hammered out in Paris, two combined Native American and Loyalist armies planed a major, two prong attack; one in the Western Virginia and Pennsylvania region, and the other in Kentucky. The results were multiple homesteads laid to waste with motionless bodies strewn beside the ruins of burning homes. But for history’s focus, it produced two major actions; a militia defeat at the Battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky[60] (August 19, 1782), and the attack on Fort Henry, at Wheeling, now present-day West Virginia[61] (September 11-13, 1782). But before then, in early June, occurred the Sandusky Expedition or better known as Crawford’s Defeat. If there was a slither of ‘eye for an eye’ justice for the pacifists’ murders, it was during and after the Pennsylvania militia’s defeat.
Sandusky Expedition and Crawford’s Defeat
After the Moravian massacre exploded in a surge of vindictive Native American raids against Pennsylvania settlers, the frontier communities cried out for another Continental Army ‘Sullivan Expedition’[62] to destroy the villages on the Sandusky River near Lake Erie. They believed that such an action would end native attacks on settler homes. Congress had no money and no heart to launch a major offensive on the frontier just as peace with England loomed on the horizon. Therefore, in late May, local volunteer Pennsylvania militiamen organized a strong force of 500 men to attack and destroy the villages. For their leader they chose Colonel William Crawford; experienced Continental officer and good friend of General Washington. Labeled the Sandusky Expedition, many settlers among them had participated in the Moravian Massacre in March, including Colonel David Williamson, placed fourth in command. Bull headed and confident they, the settlers marched the ninety or so miles north to the Sandusky region, arriving in early June. But their self-assuredness was shot lived.
Pig headed into thinking they could surprise their enemy, the militia boldly approached their objective. But the Indigenous groups and Loyalist Rangers from the Detroit were well informed of their advance and were ready to defend their homes. After a day of indecisive fighting near some of the Sandusky towns, the Americans on June 4th, retreated to a grove that was later called ‘Battle Island.’ After native and British reinforcements arrived the next day, the militia found themselves surrounded and panicked. That night the militia retreated which immediately became disorganized. Crawford and several of his men were separated from the main body and captured, . Fearful of capture., the retreat became a rout with a skirmish fought on June 6th.
Seventy militiamen were killed with unknown number of wounded. Of the seventy, it is unknown how many were captured. Of those taken prisoner, which included some of those present during the Moravian slaughter, all were horrendously tortured before death. Only a couple escaped to give details of e the Native American vengeance for the settlers’ actions at Gnadenhutten. Colonel Crawford, as leading the expedition, faced a particular grisly torture and death, given in ghastly detail by one of those escaping. Of Colonel David Williamson, he made it back home safely. He would later be elected to several terms as county sheriff before poor financial decisions left him in total poverty at death, 1814. Hands bloodied having led the butchery at Gnadenhutten, his legacy would forever be tarnished.
In 1785, Moravian missionary John Heckewelder visited the torched ruins of Gnadenhutten. He collected the bones and charred flesh of the Christian Munsee and Christian Mohegan Martyrs[63] and buried them in a mound on the southern side of the village. Even though the American Revolution had ended, the Ohio Frontier was still ablaze with frequent raids and attacks by both Native Americans and settler militias. Captain Charles Bilderback had participated in the Gnadenhutten massacre and survived Crawford’s defeat. Sources state he had killed and scalped Joseph Shabosh just prior to the massacre and had welded the cooper’s mallet to murder the first thirteen Moravian men. The Lenape never forget what he had done. Seven years later, 1789, the 31-year-old settler was captured and tortured before murdered.
The massacre and brutal murder of Native Americans during settler expansions west were rarely if ever published. However, Colonel Crawford’s torture and others captured by Native Americans was reported in grisly detailed by many newspapers and later historical texts as justification for cruel and vicious acts against Native Americans. Throughout history, Native people have been subjected to more than 1,500 wars, attacks, and raids authorized by the United States government. Under the guise of ‘expanding civilization,’ the drive to amass land and widen borders incited decades of racial genocide fueled by hatred and violent retribution against native tribes who resisted the onslaught of European settlers.[64] As many as 15 million Native American people are estimated to have been living in North America when Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492. Illness brought by Europeans and the so-called Indian Wars devastated indigenous people. By the close of the 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Native Americans remained.[65]
If you would like to read more on the war along the frontier, we recommend the following books:
Of Similar Interest on Revolutionary War Journal
Resources
Belue, Ted Franklin. “Crawford’s Sandusky Expedition,” The American Revolution, 1775–1783: An Encyclopedia 1. Ed. Richard L. 1993: Blanco, New York.
Davis, Cindy. “Event Marks Massacre of Moravian Delaware Indians in Gnadenhutten.” March 12, 2017. The Times Reporter.
Equal Justice Initiative. “Mass Killings of Native Americans.” September 9, 2019.
Finley, James Bradley. The Christian Miscellany and Family Visitor, Volume 1. 1884: T. Woolmer, London, UK.
Finley, James Bradley Reverand. History of the Wyandot Mission, at Upper Sandusky, Ohio…. 1840: J. P. Thompson, Cincinatti, Ohio.
Getting Jefferson Right. “Gnadenhutten Massacre Revisited: An Extended Response to David Barton” Salem Grove Press, Grove City, PA
“Gnadenhutten Massacre.” Wikipedia.
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Endnotes
[1] Thompson.
[2] The migration from New Jersey and Hudson River began in the early 1700’s. By the 1750’s the Delaware (Lenape) had left Pennsylvania in large numbers to settle in the Ohio River Valley. The Delaware would later be pushed west and north – Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario Canada. The Munsee Community would be granted lands in Bowler, Wisconsin and St. Thomas and in Canada, St. Thomas and Moraviantown near Chatam-Kent, Ontario.
[3] During the American Revolution, Lenape sympathetic to the colonial rebellion against England remained near Coshocton, then called Goschachgunk. Their leader, White Eyes, signed the Treaty of Fort Pitt in 1778, which promised their safety during the war. In retaliation for frontier raids by thoe Lenape who had sided with the British, Colonel Daniel Brodhead of the Continental Army ignored the treaty and raided and destroyed the peaceful Moravian Christian Lenape settlement of XIndaochaic, known as Lichtenau. He later attacked and destroyed Coshocton in April, 1781.
[4] Pontiac’s Rebellion, 1763-1766, and Lord Dunmore’s War, 1774. However, the major Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1768, that set the boundaries for pioneer settlers was ignored by colonials; atrocities and destructive raiding parties were carried on by Natives and Settlers throughout and between these major conflicts right up to and throughout the American Revolution.
[5] Fort Laurens was named for Henry Laurens, wealthy planter of South Carolina and president of the Second Continental Congress.
[6] Lachlin McIntosh was an early fervent patriot in Savannah, Georgia. He commanded Georgian militia during invasions in Florida and clashed with the legislative branch of Georgia politics. After Button Gwennitt, signer of the Declaration of Independence from Georgia, and McIntosh argued over who was to blame for the failure to capture Florida, the two fought a duel in which Gwennitt was killed. Washington, fearing retribution towards McIntosh, ordered him north where he remained with the Continental Army at Valley Forge. In 1778, McIntosh was given the Western frontier command and stationed at Fort Pitt. After McIntosh was replaced in March of 1779, he returned to the south under Major General Benjamin Lincoln. He was with Lincoln during the Savannah attack, and later became a prisoner of war when Charleston fell on May 12, 1780. He remained a prisoner until near war’s end.
[7] The First Gnadenhutten was a Moravian Missionary established at Bethlehem, PA in 1744 near the junction of Mahoney Creek and Leigh River. Missionaries that included David Zeisburger converted nearby Lenape. By 1749 over 500 Lenape and Mohegan had been converted and attended services at Bethlehem. At the start of the French and Indian War and after British General Braddock’s defeat on July 9, 1755, Pennsylvania was left undefended. Shawnee and Delaware chiefs, along with French Rangers, launched dozens of raids that killed and captured many white settlers. The year 1755 was a lean year for food supplies; hunting and a May frost devastated harvests. It was reported among the Shawnee that much was to be had at the Moravian settlement at Gnadenhutten. The settlement was attacked on November 24, 1755. Though native Moravians were allowed to flee, white settlers were attacked. Some escaped by leaping out windows or off roofs; however, eleven died, most burned alive while barricading themselves in their homes. After the French and Indian war, and with encroaching white settlement, many Leni-Lenape bands, that included the Munsee and those converted by Moravians moved from Pennsylvania into the Ohio River Valley. The Moravian conversts established the village of Gnadenhutten.
[8] Over the centuries, the Moravian Church had sponsored missionaries all over the world. Its founder was Czech reformer, John Hus (1369-1415), who was a professor of philosophy and rector of the University in Prague. One of the earliest protestant breaks from the Roman Catholic Church, his reform principals predated Lutheran Protestants. Hus was burned at the stake in 1415 for hearsay. The church gained popularity. By the 1730’s, it had established communities at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and missionaries among Native Americans; principally Creek in the south and Delawar Lenape-Leni in the north. Many missionaries spoke German in the Americas.
[9] The Moravian missionary Frederick Christian Post had visited the area in 1762, but did not stay long due to the French and Indian War. When Heckewelder and Zeiseberger later arrived, Post had already introduced local Delaware to the Moravian faith.
[10] David Zeisburger (April 11, 1721 – November 17, 1808) Moravian Clergyman and missionary arrived in America with help from Georgia Gov. James Oglethorpe in 1838 and joined the Moravian community in Savannah from where he traveled and preached to the Creek. A year later he moved to Bethlehem, PA. Over the years he lived amongst the Mohawk and learned and wrote dictionaries in Iroquoin or Lenape and Algonquian. He became a Moravian minister to the Lenape in 1749 and lived amongst them in the Ohio Valley until the British arrested him 1781 for suspected collusion with American Revolutionary rebels and removed him to Detroit. He was in Detroit during the Gnadenhutten Massacre. After the war, many Munsee moved to Canada, while Zeisburger remained as a native missionary in Goshen, Ohio where, after spending 62 preaching to Native Americans, he died in 1801 and was buried at Goshen at the age of 87.
[11] Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position in which have both a scriptural and rational basis for Christians, and affirms that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith. That Jesus was a pacifist who taught and preached that his followers must do likewise.
[12] White Eyes (known as George White Eyes) was the Lenape leader lived on a farm near Coshocton, Ohio; major Lenape settlement he established. In 1774, he was elected the Principal Chief of the Delaware nation by the Delaware Head Council. He had been the chief negotiator to help end Lord Dunmore’s War between Virginia and Shawnees. In April 1776, he addressed the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on behalf of the Lenape. He and American Indian Agent Colonel George Morgan, negotiated the 1778 Fort Pitt treaty that guaranteed Delaware sympathetic to the American cause safety. It was almost immediately ignored by western settlers. He died in November, 1778 while on an American expedition to Detroit. General Lachlan McIntosh reported he had died of smallpox. Years later, Indian agent, trader, and close associate of White Eyes, wrote to Congress and claimed he had been ’treacherously put to death’ by American militia in Michigan. Documentation later confirmed that he was assassinated by an American militia officer on November 5, 1778.
[13] Schweinzer, pg. 538.
[14] Mitchner, pg. 151.
[15] Captain Pipe, Konieschquanoheel, was a chief Lenape (Delaware) Wolf Clan leader during the American Revolution who initially sought neutrality, but allied with the British after American militia killed his family. He resisted American expansion and oversaw the execution of captured American Colonel William Crawford in 1782, leader of the Sandusky Expedition against the Wyandot and Delaware in the Ohio Valley.
[16] John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder (March 12, 1743 – Jan. 21, 1823) was an American missionary for the Moravian Church. He had arrived in Pennsylvania in 1747. After employment as a cooper, he took temporary employment in Moravian missions. In 1771, he was appointed to assist David Zeisberger in his ministry among the Lenape in Ohio. After the war, he remained with the Lenape Moravians. He later in the 1790’s moved to a Post in Vincennes to minister to Native Americans. He later returned and settled at Gnadenhutten until 1801, when he moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where he died.
[17] Schweinzer, pg. 531.
[18] Zeisberger and Heckewelder were tried in Detroit for treason, but were cleared of charges and returned to the Moravians at Captive Town on Nov. 22, 1781. During a hard winter and starvation and growing tensions with local Wyandot, De Pryster summoned the missionaries back to Detroit for protection. They were in Detroit when the massacre at Gnadenhutten occurred.
[19] Schweinzer, pp 538-539.
[20] John Carpenter had served under Militia Colonel George Washington during the French and Indian War. He served in the American Revolution as Quartermaster Sergeant in Captain Ewell’s company of the Virginia State Garrison Regiment – attached to Washington’s army. He fought at Monmouth. In 1779, he returned to serve in Virginia before being transferred to the western frontier region of Wheeling and Fort Henry. After leaving the army in 1781, he settled on Buffalo Creek in Western Pennsylvania (at the time still considered part of Virginia). He later moved 20 miles south on Short Creek, west of the Ohio River. History is sketchy if Carpenter was captured by the Wyandots while at his homestead, or while traveling toward Fort Pitt for supplies. Accordingly he traded some supplies he had with him with the Moravians at Gnadenhutten (where he warned them of militia pursuit) before taken north to Sandusky. Once there, he managed to escape by stealing a horse and riding to Fort Pitt. He died in 1806 after many years of ‘adventures’ along the Frontier.
[21] Sterner, Moravians in the Middle…
[22] Schweinzer, pg. 539.
[23] After the massacre, a court of inquiry was called at Fort Pitt to determine the reason for the murders. The militiamen under Williamson attempted to exculpate themselves for the blame by exhibiting clothing found in the village. This evidence of the Moravians’ guilt for recent settler raids prompted them to attack the villagers. John Carpenter, who had been captured by the Wyandot raiding party and later escaped, identified the clothing as his own, but explained how the Moravians acquired it through trade.
[24] Sterner, Moravians in the Middle…
[25] Ibid.
[26] The Mingo Village, or Mingo Bottom, was on the west bank of the Ohio, about 75 miles below present day Pittsburg.
[27] Schweinzer, pg. 540
[28] Sources differ if Joseph was killed on the east bank of the river before the first column crossed the river, or on the west bank and was killed after the column crossed.
[29] John Martin and his sons Anthony and Paul would be killed at Gnadenhutten
[30] Mitchner, pg. 160.
[31] Schweinzer, pg. 543.
[32] Sources differ if the men set out for Salem on the 6th or the morning of the 7th.
[33] Mitchener, pg. 161; Sterner, Moravians in the Middle…
[34] Schweinzer, pg. 545; Mitchener, pg. 161.
[35] Mitchener’s account states the executions began shortly after the mock trial ended.
[36] Phoebe Tucker Cunningham was captured by a Wyandot and Shawnee raiding party in 1785 and taken to Sandusky until purchased and released three years later. She had witnessed the brutal killing of her three children before abducted. While in route to Sandusky, her infant child was taken from her and also killed. Robert Thompson’s research uncovered what Phoebe related she heard about the Moravian slaughter from her captives. That the militia had become intoxicated the night before the killing and that they “dragged the women and girls out into the snow and systematically raped them.” Thompson, Chpt. 4.
[37] It was never settled if Williamson voted or not, the presumption being, from the fact of his being commander, that he did not vote. Mitchener, pg. 162.
[38] Schweinzer, pg. 547.
[39] Accounts differ as to if those who opposed remained in the village but out of sight, waiting for the murders to be completed, or left the village, in effect, washing their hands of the whole affair.
[40] Schweinzer, pg. 547.
[41] Mitchener, pg. 163.
[42] Schweinzer, pg. 549; Sterner, Moravians in the Middle…
[43] Finley, pp 20 & 21.
[44] The two killed while trying to escape were identified by Zeisberger’s account as Anthony and Paul, John Martin’s sons (Martin would die in the men’s slaughter-house). Schweinzer, pg. 551.
[45] Moravian missionary Heckewelder stated that all were killed in the houses but for four men taken out to be murdered. Mitchener, pg. 162.
[46] Schweinzer, pg. 549.
[47] Mitchener, pg. 162.
[48] Schweinzer, pg. 550.
[49] Schutt, pg. 172.
[50] Ibid.
[51] Finley, pp 20 & 21.
[52] Thomas lived four more years after the massacre. Labeled the ‘scalped boy,’ he suffered extreme migraines and fits after having been scalped. He lived at the Moravian mission at Cuyahoga and in June, 1786, was found drowned in a creek. It is assumed he was fishing and fell into the water when hit by one of his fits. Schweinzer, pg. 551.
[53] Mitchener, pg. 163.
[54] A full list of named victims can be found in Schweinzer, pp 551 – 553.
[55] Some accounts state that of the 96 killed by the Pennsylvania militia, ninety were villagers from Gnadenhutten and Salem. The other six were from those the militia had come upon just prior to entering Gnadenhutten, and afterwards, some perhaps Native Americans they met while returning to the Fort Pitt region.
[56] Abraham, who had refused to be part of the killings, was reported to have rescued an 8 year old boy who he raised to an adult. The boy later returned to live with the natives.
[57] The Wyandot was with a band of warriors who had crossed the valley with border scalps and stolen horses. This was evidently the party who had killed and impaled the child of Mrs. Wallace, sold her bloody dress at Gnadenhutten.
[58] Schweinzer, pg. 535.
[59] So too, generations of militia descendants in turn did not acknowledge their actions.
[60] Battle of Blue Licks is famous for the presence of Kentucky frontiersman and folk hero, Daniel Boone. On a hill next to the Licking River in what is now Robertson County, Kentucky, , a force of 50 Butler’s Rangers and 300 native warriors ambushed and routed 182 Kentucky militia. The settlers were partially led by Daniel Boone, who lost a son killed during the battle.
[61] The 1782 Siege of Fort Henry (named for Patrick Henry) was the last of several attacks on the fort throughout the war. The garrison was attacked by around 300 Native Americans and Loyalist Ranger and defended by around 30 militiamen. They held off three assaults on the fort before the British force retired. The event is famous for Elizabeth Zane’s gunpowder run. She risked getting shot after she dashed over 60 yards of open ground to retrieved a small keg of powder from her brother’s blockhouse where the ammunition was stored. The extra powder allowed the settlers to lay down a continuous fire on the besiegers.
[62] The Sullivan Expedition, led by General John Sullivan, June to October 1779, was a punitive attack against the Iroquois Nation’s villages. Over a quarter of all Continental Soldiers were involved in the mission to destroy the Iroquois Nation’s will to fight as allies with the British. The expedition was considered a success as the nation lay in ruins, with survivor refugees pushed west to Detroit where many starved in what proved to be a brutal winter.
[63] By 1785 the victims of the massacre were referred to as Christian Martyrs.
[64] EJI, Equal Justice Initiative, Sept. 9, 2019.
[65] Ibid.