A Century of Dishonor / A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"When the poor wretches saw they had no protection nigh, nor could possibly escape, and being without the least weapon of defence, they divided their little families, the children clinging to their parents. They fell on their faces, protested their innocence, declared their love to the English, and that in their whole lives they had never done them injury. And in this posture they all received the hatchet. Men, women, and children were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood. *** The barbarous men who committed the atrocious act, in defiance of government, of all laws, human and divine, and to the eternal disgrace of their country and color, then mounted their horses, huzzaed in triumph, as if they had gained a victory, and rode off unmolested. *** The bodies of the murdered were then brought out and exposed in the street till a hole could be made in the earth to receive and cover them. But the wickedness cannot be covered, and the guilt will lie on the whole land till justice is done on the murderers. The blood of the innocent will cry to Heaven for vengeance."

These last extracts are from a pamphlet printed in Philadelphia at the time of the massacre; printed anonymously, because "so much had fear seized the minds of the people" that neither the writer nor the printer dared to give "name or place of abode."

There are also private letters still preserved which give accounts of the affair. A part of one from William Henry, of Lancaster, to a friend in Philadelphia, is given in "Rupp's History of Lancaster County." He says, "A regiment of Highlanders were at that time quartered at the barracks in the town, and yet these murderers were permitted to break open the doors of the city jail and commit the horrid deed. The first notice I had of the affair was that, while at my father's store near the court-house, I saw a number of people running down-street toward the jail, which enticed me and other lads to follow them. At about six or eight yards from the jail we met from twenty-five to thirty men, well mounted on horses, and with rifles, tomahawks, and scalping-knives, equipped for murder. I ran into the prison-yard, and there, oh, what a horrid sight presented itself to my view! Near the back door of the prison lay an old Indian and his squaw, particularly well known and esteemed by the people of the town on account of his placid and friendly conduct. His name was Will Soc. Around him and his squaw lay two children, about the age of three years, whose heads were split with the tomahawk and their scalps taken off. Toward the middle of the jail-yard, along the west side of the wall, lay a stout Indian, whom I particularly noticed to have been shot in his breast. His legs were chopped with the tomahawk, his hands cut off, and finally a rifle-ball discharged in his mouth, so that his head was blown to atoms, and the brains were splashed against and yet hanging to the wall for three or four feet around. This man's hands and feet had been chopped off with a tomahawk. In this manner lay the whole of them—men, women, and children—spread about the prison-yard, shot, scalped, hacked, and cut to pieces."

After this the Governor of Pennsylvania issued a second proclamation, still more stringent than the first, and offering a reward of $600 for the apprehension of any three of the ringleaders.

But the "Paxton Boys" were now like wild beasts that had tasted blood. They threatened to attack the Quakers and all persons who sympathized with or protected Indians. They openly mocked and derided the governor and his proclamations, and set off at once for Philadelphia, announcing their intention of killing all the Moravian Indians who had been placed under the protection of the military there.

Their march through the country was like that of a band of maniacs. In a private letter written by David Rittenhouse at this time, he says, "About fifty of these scoundrels marched by my workshop. I have seen hundreds of Indians travelling the country, and can with truth affirm that the behavior of these fellows was ten times more savage and brutal than theirs. Frightening women by running the muzzles of guns through windows, hallooing and swearing; attacking men without the least provocation, dragging them by the hair to the ground, and pretending to scalp them; shooting dogs and fowls: these are some of their exploits."

It is almost past belief that at this time many people justified these acts. An Episcopalian clergyman in Lancaster wrote vindicating them, "bringing Scripture to prove that it was right to destroy the heathen;" and the "Presbyterians think they have a better justification—nothing less than the Word of God," says one of the writers on the massacre.

"With the Scriptures in their hands and mouths, they can set at naught that express command, 'Thou shalt do no murder,' and justify their wickedness by the command given to Joshua to destroy the heathen. Horrid perversion of Scripture and religion, to father the worst of crimes on the God of Love and Peace!" It is a trite saying that history repeats itself; but it is impossible to read now these accounts of the massacres of defenceless and peaceable Indians in the middle of the eighteenth century, without the reflection that the record of the nineteenth is blackened by the same stains. What Pennsylvania pioneers did in 1763 to helpless and peaceable Indians of Conestoga, Colorado pioneers did in 1864 to helpless and peaceable Cheyennes at Sand Creek, and have threatened to do again to helpless and peaceable Utes in 1880. The word "extermination" is as ready on the frontiersman's tongue to-day as it was a hundred years ago; and the threat is more portentous now, seeing that we are, by a whole century of prosperity, stronger and more numerous, and the Indians are, by a whole century of suffering and oppression, fewer and weaker. But our crime is baser and our infamy deeper in the same proportion.

Close upon this Conestoga massacre followed a "removal" of friendly Indians—the earliest on record, and one whose cruelty and cost to the suffering Indians well entitle it to a place in a narrative of massacres.

Everywhere in the provinces fanatics began to renew the old cry that the Indians were the Canaanites whom God had commanded Joshua to destroy; and that these wars were a token of God's displeasure with the Europeans for permitting the "heathen" to live. Soon it became dangerous for a Moravian Indian to be seen anywhere. In vain did he carry one of the Pennsylvania governor's passports in his pocket. He was liable to be shot at sight, with no time to pull his passport out. Even in the villages there was no safety. The devoted congregations watched and listened night and day, not knowing at what hour they might hear the fatal warwhoop of hostile members of their own race, coming to slay them; or the sudden shots of white settlers, coming to avenge on them outrages committed by savages hundreds of miles away.