Gnadenhutten massacre

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This 37 foot (11 m) monument to the Gnadenhutten massacre, located next to a reconstructed Moravian cabin in what was the center of the original village, was dedicated on June 5, 1872. The inscription reads: "Here triumphed in death ninety Christian Indians, March 8, 1782."^[1]

The Gnadenhutten massacre on March 8, 1782 was a mass murder of ninety-six Christian Munsee American Indians, including sixty-eight women and children, by American militia from Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War. The incident took place near Gnadenhutten, Ohio.

[edit] Background

During the American Revolutionary War, the Lenape (Delaware) tribe of the Ohio Country was deeply divided over which side, if any, to take in the conflict. The issue was of critical importance because the Delaware villages, located around the principal village of Coshocton lay in the path between the two opposing frontier strongholds: the main American military outpost at Fort Pitt, and the British with their indigenous allies in and around Fort Detroit.

Some Delawares decided to take up arms against the Americans and moved closer to Detroit, settling on the Scioto and Sandusky Rivers. Those Delawares sympathetic to the United States remained at Coshocton, signing a treaty with the Americans in 1778, through which they hoped to establish the Ohio Country as a state inhabited by native tribes within the new United States. A third group consisted of Christian Munsees who lived in several nearby villages run by Moravian missionaries.

White Eyes, the Delaware leader who had negotiated the treaty with the United States, died in 1778 possibly having been murdered by American militiamen, and many of the Delawares at Coshocton eventually joined the war against the Americans. In response, Coshocton was destroyed by an expedition out of Fort Pitt led by Colonel Daniel Brodhead on 19 April 1781, and the residents fled to the north. However, Colonel Brodhead convinced the militiamen to leave the Christian tribesmen at the Moravian villages unmolested, since they were unarmed non-combatants.

That Brodhead had to restrain American militiamen from attacking the Moravian villages was a reflection of what was considered acceptable in frontier warfare during the American Revolution. Relations between Continental Army officers from the East (such as Brodhead) and western militiamen were frequently strained. The tensions were made worse by the U.S. government policy of attempting to recruit certain Indian tribes as allies. Western militiamen, some of whom had lost friends and family in brutal Indian raids, often blamed all the Indians for the actions of a few.

[edit] Removal and massacre

In September 1781, British-allied tribesmen, primarily Wyandots and Delawares, forcibly removed the Christian Munsees and the white missionaries from the Moravian villages, relocating them to a new village ("Captive Town") on the Sandusky River. Missionaries David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder were taken to Detroit and tried for treason by the British, who suspected them of providing military intelligence to the American Army at Fort Pitt. The missionaries were acquitted, although historians have since discovered that Zeisberger and Heckewelder were indeed keeping the Americans informed of the movements of the British and their Indian allies.^{[citation needed]}

Meanwhile, the Christian Munsees were going hungry at Captive Town. In February 1782, over 100 of them returned to their old Moravian villages in order to harvest the crops they had been forced to leave behind.

However, the frontier war was still raging, and in early March 1782, a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rounded up the Christian Munsees and accused them of taking part in the ongoing raids into Pennsylvania. They truthfully denied the charges, but the Pennsylvanians held a council and voted to kill them all anyway. Some militiamen opposed to this action withdrew from the area. The Munsees, informed of their fate, spent the night praying and singing hymns.

The next morning on 8 March, the Christian Munsees were killed as they knelt, their skulls crushed with a mallet. In all, 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children were murdered and then scalped. The corpses were then heaped into the mission buildings, and the town was burned to the ground. The other abandoned Moravian towns were then burned as well. Two boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre.

[edit] Aftermath

Many White Americans were outraged by the Gnadenhutten massacre. However, many frontiersmen, embittered by a cruel war unlike anything in the East, voiced support for the militia's actions. Although there was some talk of bringing the killers to justice, no criminal charges were filed.

The Delawares at war with the Americans sought revenge for Gnadenhütten. When General George Washington heard about the massacre, he ordered that no American soldier allow himself to be taken alive; he knew what would happen should the militant Delawares capture an American. However, Washington's friend, Colonel William Crawford, was captured while leading an expedition against the Indians at Sandusky. Crawford, who had not been part of the Gnadenhutten expedition, was tortured for hours by Delawares and Wyandots before finally being burned at the stake.^[2] One participant in the massacre was Captain Charles Builderback. Although he survived Crawford's defeat in June 1782, he was later captured, tortured and killed in Ohio in June 1789 by Indians.^[3]

[edit] See also

• List of massacres
• Native American massacres
• The actions of the Paxton Boys have often been compared to the Gnadenhutten massacre.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Dowd, Gregory Evans. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1992.
• Olmstead, Earl P. Blackcoats among the Delaware: David Zeisberger on the Ohio Frontier. Kent State University Press, 1991.
• Smith, Page. A New Age Now Begins: A People's History of the American Revolution, Volume 2. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
• Wallace, Paul A. W., ed. Thirty Thousand Miles with John Heckewelder. Originally published 1958, Wennawoods reprint 1998.
• Weslager, C. A. The Delaware Indians. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1972.

[edit] External links

• "The Gnadenhutten Massacre of Christian Indians", excerpt from The Whiskey Rebellion by Thomas P. Slaughter.
• "Trumpet in the Land", a long-running outdoor drama in Ohio that depicts the Gnadenhutten massacre and the events leading up to it.