"We cannot describe," said the missionaries, "the joy and fervent desire which most of them showed in the prospect of seeing their Saviour face to face. We saw with amazement the power of the blood of Jesus in the hearts of poor sinners." This was, no doubt, true; but there might well have entered into the poor, dying creatures' thoughts an ecstasy at the mere prospect of freedom, after a year of such imprisonment and suffering.
At last, on December 4th, the news of peace reached Philadelphia. On the 6th a proclamation was published in all the newspapers that war was ended and hostilities must cease. The joy with which the prisoned Indians received this news can hardly be conceived. It "exceeded all descriptions," says the record, and "was manifested in thanksgivings and praises to the Lord."
It was still unsafe, however, for them to return to their old homes, which were thickly surrounded by white settlers, who were no less hostile now at heart than they had been before the proclamation of peace. It was decided, therefore, that they should make a new settlement in the Indian country on the Susquehanna River. After a touching farewell to their old friends of the Bethlehem congregation, and a grateful leave-taking of the governor, who had protected and supported them for sixteen months, they set out on the 3d of April for their new home in the wilderness. For the third time their aged, sick, and little children were placed in overloaded wagons, for a long and difficult journey—a far harder one than any they had yet taken. The inhospitalities of the lonely wilderness were worse than the curses and revilings of riotous mobs. They were overtaken by severe snow-storms. They camped in icy swamps, shivering all night around smouldering fires of wet wood. To avoid still hostile whites they had to take great circuits through unbroken forests, where each foot of their path had to be cut tree by tree. The men waded streams and made rafts for the women and children. Sometimes, when the streams were deep, they had to go into camp, and wait till canoes could be built. They carried heavy loads of goods for which there was no room in the wagons. Going over high, steep hills, they often had to divide their loads into small parcels, thus doubling and trebling the road. Their provisions gave out. They ate the bitter wild potatoes. When the children cried with hunger, they peeled chestnut-trees, and gave them the sweet-juiced inner bark to suck. Often they had no water except that from shallow, muddy puddles. Once they were environed by blazing woods, whose fires burnt fiercely for hours around their encampment. Several of the party died, and were buried by the way.
"But all these trials were forgotten in their daily meetings, in which the presence of the Lord was most sensibly and comfortably felt. These were always held in the evening, around a large fire, in the open air."
They celebrated a "joyful commemoration" of Easter, and spent the Passion-week "in blessed contemplation" of the sufferings of Jesus, whose "presence supported them under all afflictions, insomuch that they never lost their cheerfulness and resignation" during the five long weeks of this terrible journey.
On the 9th of May they arrived at Machwihilusing, and "forgot all their pain and trouble for joy that they had reached the place of their future abode. *** With offers of praise and thanksgiving, they devoted themselves anew to Him who had given them rest for the soles of their feet."
"With renewed courage" they selected their home on the banks of the Susquehanna, and proceeded to build houses. They gave to the settlement the name of Friedenshutten—a name full of significance, as coming from the hearts of these persecuted wanderers: Friedenshutten—"Tents of Peace."
If all this persecution had fallen upon these Indians because they were Christians, the record, piteous as it is, would be only one out of thousands of records of the sufferings of Christian martyrs, and would stir our sympathies less than many another. But this was not the case. It was simply because they were Indians that the people demanded their lives, and would have taken them, again and again, except that all the power of the Government was enlisted for their protection. The fact of their being Christians did not enter in, one way or the other, any more than did the fact that they were peaceable. They were Indians, and the frontiersmen of Pennsylvania intended either to drive all Indians out of their State or kill them, just as the frontiersmen of Nebraska and of Colorado now intend to do if they can. We shall see whether the United States Government is as strong to-day as the Government of the Province of Pennsylvania was in 1763; or whether it will try first (and fail), as John Penn did, to push the helpless, hunted creatures off somewhere into a temporary makeshift of shelter, for a temporary deferring of the trouble of protecting them.
Sixteen years after the Conestoga massacre came that of Gnadenhütten, the blackest crime on the long list; a massacre whose equal for treachery and cruelty cannot be pointed out in the record of massacres of whites by Indians.
II.—The Gnadenhütten Massacre.