The Paxton Boys

Letter 94

Kind Reader,

In two separate incidents, on the 14th and 27th of December, 1763, twenty peaceable, friendly, and unarmed Indians, men, women, and children, living within the civilized parts of Pennsylvania, were barbarous attacked, murdered, and mutilated by some fifty-odd men, from some of our frontier townships, who had projected their destruction, and came for that purpose “all well-mounted, and armed with firelocks, hangers [swords], and hatchets.” Some 140 other Indians fled to Philadelphia for protection, but it was undetermined for some time whether the murderers, the “Paxton Boys” as they have been called, would be suffered to come at and kill all the rest. I was incensed, and wrote a pamphlet in their defense, and contributed in other ways to the preservation of these unfortunate people, threatened with cruel murder by a set of men who had the temerity to call themselves Christians. I was vilified for publishing this tract, and for defending the so-called “savages.”

I give you today a substantial portion of that pamphlet. It was first published at the end of January, 1764, and was, in large part, reprinted in London in The Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1764.

Alas, on March 8, 1782, these events were repeated farther to the west when 96 Christian Indians, mostly women and children, were basely murdered and scalped by Pennsylvania militiamen. On July 7, when an account of this second massacre reached me in France, I wrote that “an account of the abominable murders committed by some of the frontier people on the poor Moravian Indians, has given me infinite pain and vexation. The dispensations of Providence in this world puzzle my weak reason. I cannot comprehend why cruel men should have been permitted thus to destroy their fellow creatures.” I am

your friend and your humble servant,

B. Franklin
_________________________

Philadelphia – January 30, 1764.

A Narrative of the Late Massacres, in Lancaster County, of a Number of Indians, Friends of This Province.

There are some (I am ashamed to hear it) who would extenuate the enormous wickedness of these actions, by saying, “The inhabitants of the frontiers are exasperated with the murder of their relations, by the enemy Indians, in the present war.” It is possible; but though this might justify their going out into the woods, to seek for those enemies, and avenge upon them those murders; it can never justify their turning in to the heart of the country, to murder their friends.

If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians? It is well known that Indians are of different tribes, nations, and languages, as well as the white people. In Europe, if the French, who are white people, should injure the Dutch, are they to revenge it on the English, because they too are white people? The only crime of these poor wretches seems to have been, that they had a reddish brown skin, and black hair; and some people of that sort, it seems, had murdered some of our relations. If it be right to kill men for such a reason, then, should any man, with a freckled face and red hair, kill a wife or child of mine, it would be right for me to revenge it, by killing all the freckled red-haired men, women and children, I could afterwards anywhere meet with.

But it seems these people think they have a better justification; nothing less than the Word of God. With the scriptures in their hands and mouths, they can set at nought that express command, “Thou shalt do no murder”; and justify their wickedness, by the command given Joshua to destroy the heathen. Horrid perversion of scripture and of religion! To father the worst of crimes on the God of peace and love! Even the Jews, to whom that particular commission was directed, spared the Gibeonites, on account of their faith once given. The faith of this government has been frequently given to those Indians; but that did not avail them with people who despise government.

We pretend to be Christians, and, from the superior light we enjoy, ought to exceed heathens, Turks, Saracens, Moors, Negroes, and Indians, in the knowledge and practice of what is right. I will endeavor to show, by a few examples from books and history, the sense those people have had of such actions.

[ Hereafter I included anecdotes of the merciful and honorable treatment accorded to strangers among the ancient Greeks, among Muslims, Africans, Spaniards, and in the Indian nations.]

These poor people have been always our friends. Their fathers received ours, when strangers here, with kindness and hospitality. Behold the return we have made them! When we grew more numerous and powerful, they put themselves under our protection. See, in the mangled corpses of the last remains of the tribe, how effectually we have afforded it to them!

Unhappy People! To have lived in such times, and by such neighbors!

We have seen, that they would have been safer among the ancient heathens, with whom the rites of hospitality were sacred. They would have been considered as guests of the public, and the religion of the country would have operated in their favor. But our frontier people call themselves Christians! They would have been safer, if they had submitted to the Turks; for ever since Muhammad’s reproof to Khaled, even the “cruel Turks”, never kill prisoners in cold blood. These were not even prisoners. But what is the example of Turks to scripture Christians? They would have been safer, though they had been taken in actual war against the Saracens, if they had once drank water with them.

These were not taken in war against us, and have drank with us, and we with them, for fourscore years. But shall we compare Saracens to Christians? They would have been safer among the Moors in Spain, though they had been murderers of sons; if faith had once been pledged to them, and a promise of protection given. But these have had the faith of the English given to them many times by the government, and, in reliance on that faith, they lived among us, and gave us the opportunity of murdering them. However, what was honorable in Moors, may not be a rule to us; for we are Christians!

They would have been safer it seems among Popish Spaniards, even if enemies, and delivered into their hands by a tempest. These were not enemies; they were born among us, and yet we have killed them all. But shall we imitate idolatrous Papists, we that are enlightened Protestants?

They would even have been safer among the Negroes of Africa, where at least one manly soul would have been found, with sense, spirit and humanity enough, to stand in their defense. But shall white men and Christians act like a pagan Negro? In short it appears, that they would have been safe in any part of the known world, except in the neighborhood of the Christians white savages of [the townships of] Paxstang [Paxton] and Donegal!

O ye unhappy perpetrators of this horrid wickedness! Reflect a moment on the mischief ye have done, the disgrace ye have brought on your country, on your religion, and your Bible, on your families and children! Think on the destruction of your captivated country folks (now among the wild Indians) which probably may follow, in resentment of your barbarity! Think on the wrath of the united Five Nations, hitherto our friends, but now provoked by your murdering one of their tribes, in danger of becoming our bitter enemies. Think of the mild and good government you have so audaciously insulted; the laws of your king, your country, and your God, that you have broken; the infamous death that hangs over your heads; for justice, though slow, will come at last. All good people everywhere detest your actions. You have imbrued your hands in innocent blood; how will you make them clean? The dying shrieks and groans of the murdered, will often sound in your ears. Their specters will sometimes attend you, and affright even your innocent children! Fly where you will, your consciences will go with you. Talking in your sleep shall betray you, in the delirium of a fever you yourselves shall make your own wickedness known.

One hundred and forty peaceable Indians yet remain in this government. They have, by Christian missionaries, been brought over to a liking, at least, of our religion; some of them lately left their nation which is now at war with us, because they did not choose to join with them in their depredations; and to show their confidence in us, and to give us an equal confidence in them, they have brought and put into our hands their wives and children. Others have lived long among us in Northampton County, and most of their children have been born there. These are all now trembling for their lives. They have been hurried from place to place for safety, now concealed in corners, then sent out of the province, refused a passage through a neighboring colony, and returned, not unkindly perhaps, but disgracefully, on our hands.

O Pennsylvania! Once renowned for kindness to strangers, shall the clamors of a few mean niggards about the expense of this public hospitality, an expense that will not cost the noisy wretches sixpence a piece (and what is the expense of the poor maintenance we afford them, compared to the expense they might occasion if in arms against us). Shall so senseless a clamor, I say, force you to turn out of your doors these unhappy guests, who have offended their own country-folks by their affection for you, who, confiding in your goodness, have put themselves under your protection? Those whom you have disarmed to satisfy groundless suspicions, will you leave them exposed to the armed madmen of your country? Unmanly men, who are not ashamed to come with weapons against the unarmed, to use the sword against women, and the bayonet against young children; and who have already given such bloody proofs of their inhumanity and cruelty! Let us rouse ourselves, for shame, and redeem the honor of our province from the contempt of its neighbors; let all good men join heartily and unanimously in support of the laws, and in strengthening the hands of government; that justice may be done, the wicked punished, and the innocent protected; otherwise we can, as a people, expect no blessing from Heaven, there will be no security for our persons or properties; anarchy and confusion will prevail over all, and violence, without judgment, dispose of everything.

When I mention the baseness of the murderers, in the use they made of arms, I cannot, I ought not to forget, the very different behavior of brave men and true soldiers, of which this melancholy occasion has afforded us fresh instances. The Royal Highlanders have, in the course of this war, suffered as much as any other corps, and have frequently had their ranks thinned by an Indian enemy; yet they did not for this retain a brutal undistinguishing resentment against all Indians, friends as well as foes. But a company of them happening to be here, when the 140 poor Indians above mentioned were thought in too much danger to stay longer in the province, cheerfully undertook to protect and escort them to New York, which they executed (as far as that government would permit the Indians to come) with fidelity and honor; and their Captain Robinson, is justly applauded and honored by all sensible and good people, for the care, tenderness and humanity, with which he treated those unhappy fugitives, during their march in this severe season.

General [Thomas] Gage, too, has approved of his officer’s conduct, and, as I hear, ordered him to remain with the Indians at Amboy, and continue his protection to them, till another body of the king’s forces could be sent to relieve his company, and escort their charges back in safety to Philadelphia, where his Excellency has had the goodness to direct those forces to remain for some time, under the orders of our governor, for the security of the Indians; the troops of this province being at present necessarily posted on the frontier. Such just and generous actions endear the military to the civil power, and impress the minds of all the discerning with a still greater respect for our national government. I shall conclude with observing, that cowards can handle arms, can strike where they are sure to meet with no return, can wound, mangle and murder; but it belongs to brave men to spare, and to protect; for, as the poet [Homer] says, “Mercy still sways the brave.”
___________________