The people did not know these Indians and believing the chief of the band to be a Spanish Indian, caused great alarm.
Families left their plantations, and the women and children were in great danger from exposure, as the weather was cold. About twenty white men took arms, approached the band, and soon a battle was in progress. The whites said that the Indians refused a parley and fired first, wounding several of the inhabitants. The red men made off into the woods and were not seen again. Their leader was wounded, but escaped.
The identity of this band was not known until ten days later, May 20, when the Lieutenant Governor Patrick Gordon was waited upon by John Smith and Nicholas Schonhoven, two Indian traders from Pechoquealon, who delivered to him a verbal message from Kakowwatchy, which was an explanation of the unfortunate affair, and for which the chief sent his regrets, and asked the Governor for a return of the gun which the wounded leader had lost.
The Lieutenant Governor, accompanied by many other citizens of Philadelphia went to the troubled district, and personally pleaded with those who had fled from their plantations to return. So excited were the whites that they seemed ready to kill any red man or woman.
On May 20, an Indian man, two women and two girls, appeared at John Roberts, at Cucussea, then in Chester County. Their neighbors fearing danger, rallied to their defense, and shot the man and one of the women, beat out the brains of the other woman, and wounded the girls. Their excuse was that the Indian had put an arrow into his bow.
The Provincial authorities were fearful that revenge upon the people might be attempted, so the two neighbors who committed the atrocity were arrested and sent to Chester for trial, and notice of the affair was sent to Sassoonan, Opekasset, and Manawhyhickon, with a request that they bring their people to a treaty, arranged to be held at Conestoga with Chief Civility and the Indians there.
The Pennsylvania Government did not leave all to diplomacy[diplomacy]. John Pawling, Marcus Hulings and Mordecai Lincoln (a relative of President Abraham Lincoln) were commissioned to gather the inhabitants and to put them in a posture to defend themselves.
Having forwarded to Kakowwatchy the watchcoats, belts and tomahawks dropped by the eleven warriors, and having sent a present, together with a request that he warn his Indians to be more cautious in the future, Governor Gordon expressed a wish to see Kakowwatchy at Durham, then went to Conestoga, and met Civility, Tawenne and other Conestoga, some Delaware and three Shawnee chiefs.
Gordon began by reminding the Indians of the links in the chain of friendship and that neither the Indians nor Christians would believe ill reports of each other without investigation of the facts. The Governor then made them presents of watchcoats, duffels, blankets, shirts, gunpowder, lead, flints and knives.
The Governor then told them of the recent murders, and of the intention to punish those who killed the Indians, if found guilty. The chiefs, in turn, declared that they had no cause of complaint.