Life on the Pennsylvania frontier could be remarkably brutal, and the period of 1754 to 1766 was arguably the fiercest of all.
The raids and battles of the French and Indian War gave rise to an uneasy peace, followed quickly by Pontiac’s Rebellion, another frontier clash between Native Americans and British soldiers, which lasted from 1763 to 1766.
Meanwhile, the Quaker-controlled Provincial Assembly refused to provide money for local militias to protect recently arrived Scots-Irish settlers, who had migrated into the Susquehanna Valley and points west. This tense atmosphere fueled anxiety, fear and suspicion among the settlers, who increasingly took matters into their own hands.
On Dec. 14, 1763, a group of about 50 armed settlers from Paxtang/Pextang, near present-day Harrisburg, attacked a group of peaceful Conestoga Indians at present-day Millersville in Lancaster County.
The so-called Paxton Boys killed six Indians on the notion that they were supporting Pontiac’s uprising and were plotting to massacre white settlers throughout the lower Susquehanna Valley. The surviving Indians sought refuge in a Lancaster workhouse, where, on Dec. 27, groups of armed men broke in and killed, in cold blood, the peaceful men, women and children who were housed there.
In early 1764, several hundred men from Paxtang, still angry about the inattention to Indian raids on the frontier, marched on Philadelphia, intent on killing any Indians and the white settlers who supported them. As Philadelphians learned of the oncoming mob, the city’s most prominent resident, Benjamin Franklin, was selected to speak to the group and attempt to quell the rabble before the situation escalated to a full-scale riot.
Franklin was able to convince the leaders of the Paxton Boys to seek a diplomatic solution. The men sought redress of their grievances through petitioning the Assembly, and they quietly returned home. Though many of their names were known at the time, no one was ever tried, convicted or sentenced for the murders of the Indians at Conestoga or in Lancaster.
As one of the saddest episodes in Pennsylvania colonial history, the massacre of the Conestoga Indians heralded the end of overall Quaker rule in Pennsylvania. William Penn’s almost 100 years of peace with the Indians was over, and, in the end, the strict pacifism of the Quaker minority was forced to yield to the hinterland settlers, who sought protection from the Indians, but also ultimately helped extend the rule of law throughout the commonwealth.
Jason Wilson is an historian with the Capitol Preservation Committee.
