USA > Ohio > History of the state of Ohio > Part 26
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The missionaries were thenceforth treated with much kindness by the commandant, his officers, and the inhabi- tants of Detroit, and soon returned to Upper Sandusky. Here, as the winter advanced, the unfortunate Indians were
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often on the verge of starvation; while Half King and Pipe, instigated by Elliott and Girty, resumed their persecutions, and demanded that the Governor of Detroit should remove the teachers from Sandusky. Their threats were too signifi- cant to be disregarded, and an order was received on the 1st of March, 1782, directing Girty and Half King to remove the missionaries and their families to Detroit : but as they had just arranged an expedition to the Ohio, one Francis Levallie, a Canadian Frenchman, living at Lower Sandusky, was appointed to accompany them. This was a fortunate exchange, for their conductor proved himself cour- teous and humane, even surrendering his own horse to the missionary Zeisberger, who was sixty years old, and insist- ing that respect for his age and station alike prompted the act. Levallie, instead of urging the party, among whom were the wives and children of the missionaries, through the dreary wilderness beyond Lower Sandusky, tarried at the latter place and sent a messenger to Detroit for further instructions, while, until his return, two English traders, Messrs. Arundel and Robbins, hospitably received the fugi- tives into their houses. In due course, two vessels arrived from Detroit, under directions from the Governor to trans- port the missionaries and their families by Sandusky Bay and Lake Erie. They embarked on the 14th of April, greatly to the chagrin of Girty, who had complained in the most brutal manner of their indulgent treatment, and made the voyage safely to Detroit, where they were generously received, and allowed their choice, either to remain under the protection of Col. Depeyster, or be returned to Bethle- hem. They chose to remain in the vicinity of their beloved Indian congregation, although restrained from living among them.
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Simultaneously with the removal of Zeisberger and his fellow-teachers to Detroit, a tragedy was enacted on the Mus- kingum, which fills the darkest page in the border history of the American Revolution. We refer to the cruel and cow- ardly massacre of a party of Moravian Indians, who had again repaired to their deserted cornfields to glean the scat- tered ears for the relief of their suffering brethren on the
Sandusky plains. Unhappily, while this peaceable party were thus engaged on the Muskingum, a band of Indians from Sandusky had made a descent upon the Pennsylvania frontier, and murdered the family of Mr. William Wallace, consisting of his wife and five or six children. A man named John Carpenter was taken prisoner at the same time. Enraged at these outrages, a band of one hundred and sixty men, from the settlements on the Monongahela, turned out in quest of the marauders, under the command of Col. David William- son. Each man provided himself with arms, ammunition and provisions, and the greater number were mounted. They struck immediately for the settlements of Salem and Gnaden- hutten, arriving within a mile of the latter place at the close of the second day's march. Colonel Gibson, commanding at Pittsburgh, having heard of Williamson's expedition, dis- patched messengers to apprise the Indians of the circum- stance, but they arrived too late.
Still, the Christian Indians were aware of the approach of Williamson's band, but having recently been accustomed to regard the savage allies of the English as the source of their injuries, they made no effort to escape, although their labors were accomplished and they were about to retrace their steps to Sandusky. The bloody sequel we prefer to give in the words of Loskiel :
"Meanwhile, the murderers marched first to Gnadenhutten,
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where they arrived on the 6th of March. About a mile from the settlement they met young Shebosch in the wood, fired at him, and wounded him so much that he could not escape. He then, according to the account of the murderers them- selves, begged for his life, representing that he was She- bosch, the son of a white Christian man. But they paid no attention to his entreaties, and cut him in pieces with their hatchets. They then approached the Indians, most of whom were in their plantations, and surrounded them almost imper- ceptibly, but feigning a friendly behavior, told them to go home, promising to do them no injury. They even pretended to pity them on account of the mischief done to them by the English and the savages, assuring them of the protection and friendship of the Americans. The poor believing Indians, knowing nothing of the death of young Shebosch, believed every word they said, went home with them and treated them in the most hospitable manner. They likewise spoke freely concerning their sentiments as Christian Indians, who had never taken the least share in the war. A small barrel of wine being found among their goods, they told their per- secutors, on inquiry, that it was intended for the Lord's Supper, and that they were going to carry it to Sandusky. Upon this, they were informed that they should not return thither, but go to Pittsburgh, where they would be out of the way of any assault made by the English or savages. This they heard with resignation, concluding that God would perhaps choose this method to put an end to their present sufferings. Prepossessed with this idea, they cheerfully delivered their guns, hatchets and other weapons to the mur- derers, who promised to take good care of them, and in Pittsburgh to return every article to its rightful owner. The Indians even showed them those things, which they had 16
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secreted in the woods, assisted in packing them up, and emptied all their bee-hives for their pretended friends.
"In the meantime, the assistant, John Martin, went to Salem, and brought the news of the arrival of the white people to the believing Indians, assuring them that they need not be afraid to go with them, for they were come to carry them to a place of safety, and to afford them protection and support. The Salem Indians did not hesitate to accept of this proposal, believing unanimously that God had sent the Americans to release them from their disagreeable situation at Sandusky, and imagining that when they had arrived at Pittsburgh, they might soon find a safe place to build a set- tlement and easily procure advice and assistance from Beth- lehem. Thus, John Martin, with two Salem brethren, re- turned to Gnadenhutten, to acquaint both their Indian breth- ren and the white people with their resolution. The latter expressed a desire to see Salem, and a party of them was conducted thither and received with much friendship. Here they pretended to have the same good will and affection towards the Indians as at Gnadenhutten, and easily persuaded them to return with them. By the way they entered into much spiritual conversation with the Indians, some of whom spoke English well, giving these people, who feigned great piety, proper and scriptural answers to many questions con- cerning religious subjects. The assistants, Isaac Glikhikan and Israel, were no less sincere and unreserved in their answers to some political questions started by the white peo- ple, and thus the murderers obtained a full and satisfactory account of the present situation and sentiments of the Indian congregation. In the meantime, the defenceless Indians at Gnadenhutten were suddenly attacked and driven together by the white people, and, without resistance, seized and bound.
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The Salem Indians now met the same fate. Before they entered Gnadenhutten, they were at once surprised by their conductors, robbed of their guns, and even of their pocket knives, and brought bound into the settlement."
The officers, unwilling to take on themselves the whole responsibility of a massacre, agreed to refer the question to a vote of the detachment. The men were drawn up in a line, and Williamson put the question, " whether the Moravian Indians should be taken prisoners to Pittsburgh or put to death ?" requesting all in favor of saving their lives to advance in front of the line. On this, sixteen, some say eighteen, stepped out of the rank, and formed themselves into the second line. In this manner was their fate decided.10
" Those who were of a different opinion," continues Los- kiel, "wrung their hands, calling God to witness that they were innocent of the blood of these harmless Christian Indi- ans. But the majority remained unmoved, and only differed concerning the mode of execution. Some were for burning them alive, others for taking their scalps, and the latter was at last agreed upon ; upon which one of the murderers was sent to the prisoners to tell them that as they were Christian Indians, they might prepare themselves in a Christian man- ner, for they must all die to-morrow.
"It may easily be conceived how great their terror was at hearing a sentence so unexpected. However, they soon re- collected themselves, and patiently suffered the murderers to lead them into two houses, in one of which the brethren, and in the other the sisters and children were confined like sheep ready for slaughter. They declared to the murderers, that though they could call God to witness that they were per- fectly innocent, yet they were prepared and willing to suffer
10) Doddridge's Notes, 251.
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death. But as they had at their conversion and baptism made a solemn promise to the Lord Jesus Christ, that they would live unto him and endeavor to please him alone in this world, they knew that they had been deficient in many re- spects, and therefore wished to have some time granted to pour out their hearts before him in prayer, and in exhorting each other to remain faithful unto the end. One brother, called Abraham, who for some time past had been in a luke- warm state of heart, seeing his end approaching, made the following public confession before his brethren :
""'Dear brethren! it seems as if we should all soon depart unto our Saviour, for our sentence is fixed. You know that I have been an untoward child, and have grieved the Lord and my brethren by my disobedience, not walking as I ought to have done. But yet I will now cleave to my Saviour with my last breath, and hold him fast, though I am so great a sinner. I know assuredly, that He will forgive me all my sins and not cast me out.' The brethren assured him of their love and forgiveness, and both they and the sisters spent the latter part of the night in singing praises to God their Saviour, in the joyful hope that they should soon be able to praise him without sin.
"When the day of their execution arrived, namely, the 8th of March, two houses were fixed upon, one for the brethren and another for the sisters and children, to which the wanton murderers gave the name of slaughter-houses. Some of them went to the brethren and showed great impa- tience that the execution had not yet begun, to which the brethren replied that they were all ready to die, having com- mended their immortal souls to God, who had given them that divine assurance in their hearts that they should come unto him and be with him forever.
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"Immediately after this declaration the carnage com- menced. The poor, innocent people, men, women and chil- dren, were led, bound two and two together with ropes, into the above mentioned slaughter-houses, and there scalped and murdered.11
" According to the testimony of the murderers themselves, they behaved with uncommon patience, and went to meet death with cheerful resignation. The above mentioned bro- ther Abraham was the first victim. A sister called Christina, who had formerly lived with the sisters in Bethlehem, and spoke English and German well, fell on her knees before the captain of the gang, and begged her life, but was told that he could not help her.
"Thus ninety-six persons magnified the name of the Lord by patiently meeting a cruel death. Sixty-two were grown persons, among whom were five of the most valuable assis- tants, and thirty-four children.
" Only two youths, cach between sixteen and seventeen years old, escaped almost miraculously from the hands of the murderers. One of them, seeing that they were in earnest,
11) As to the precise manner of this tragedy, Heckewelder differs from Loskiel, whose narrative is preserved above. Heckewelder does not speak of their removal from the place of their confinement. His language is (Narrative, 319): "The murderers, impatient to make a beginning, came again to them, while they were singing, and inquiring whether they were now ready for dying, they were answered in the affirmative; adding, 'that they had commended their immortal souls to God, who had given them the assurance in their hearts that he would receive their souls.' One of the party now taking up a cooper's mallet, which lay in the house (the owner being a cooper), saying, 'How exactly this will answer for the business,' he began with Abraham, and continued knocking down one after the other, until he had counted fourteen, that he had killed with his own hands. He now handed the instrument to one of his fellow-murderers, saying, ' My arm now fails me ; go on in the same way! I think I have done pretty well.' In another house, where the women and children were confined, Judith, a remarkably pious, aged widow, was the first vietim," &e., &e.
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was so fortunate as to disengage himself from his bonds, then slipping unobserved from the crowd, crept through a narrow window into the cellar of that house in which the sisters were executed. Their blood soon penetrated through the flooring, and according to his account, ran in streams into the cellar, by which it appears probable that most, if not all of them, were not merely scalped, but killed with hatchets or swords. The lad remained concealed until night, providentially no one coming down to search the cellar, when having, witlı much difficulty, climbed up the wall to the window, he crept through and escaped into a neighboring thicket. The other youth's name was Thomas. The murderers struck him only one blow on the head, took his scalp, and left him. But after some time he recovered his senses, and saw himself surrounded by bleeding corpses. Among these, he observed one brother, called Abel, moving and endeavoring to raise himself up. But he remained lying as still as though he had been dead, and this caution proved the means of his deliver- ance; for soon after, one of the murderers coming in and observing Abel's motions, killed him outright with two or three blows. Thomas lay quiet until dark, though suffering the most exquisite torment. He then ventured to creep towards the door, and observing nobody in the neighborhood, got out and escaped into the wood, where he concealed him- self during the night. These two youths met afterwards in the wood, and God preserved them from harm on their jour- ney to Sandusky, though they purposely took a long circuit and suffered great hardships and danger. But before they left the neighborhood of Gnadenhutten, they observed the murderers from behind the thicket making merry after their successful enterprise, and at last setting fire to the two slaughter-houses filled with corpses.
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" Providentially, the believing Indians who were at that time in Schoenbrun escaped. The missionaries had, imme- diately on receiving orders to repair to Fort Detroit, sent a messenger to the Muskingum to call the Indians home, with a view to see them once more, and to get horses from them for their journey. This messenger happened to arrive at Schoenbrun the day before the murderers came to Gnaden- hutten, and having delivered his message, the Indians of Schoenbrun sent another messenger to Gnadenhutten to inform their brethren there, and at Salem, of the message received. But before he reached Gnadenhutten, he found young Shebosch lying dead and scalped by the way-side, and looking forward, saw many white people in and about Gnadenhutten. He instantly fled back with great precipita- tion, and told the Indians in Schoenbrun what he had seen, who all took flight and ran into the woods. They now hesi- tated a long while, not knowing whither to turn or how to proceed. Thus, when the murderers arrived at Schoenbrun, the Indians were still near the premises, observing every thing that happened there, and might easily have been dis- covered. But here the murderers seemed, as it werc, struck with blindness. Finding nobody at home, they destroyed and set fire to the settlement, and having done the same at Gnadenhutten and Salem, they set off with the scalps of their innocent victims, about fifty horses, a number of blankets and other things, and marched to Pittsburgh, with a view to murder the few Indians lately settled on the north side of the Ohio, opposite to the fort. Some of them fell a sacrifice to the rage of this blood-thirsty crew, and a few escaped. Among the latter was Anthony, a member of the [Moravian] con gregation, who happened then to be at Pittsburgh, and both
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he and the Indians of Schoenbrun arrived, after many dan- gers and difficulties, safe at Sandusky.
"The foregoing account of this dreadful event was col- lected partly from what the murderers themselves related to their friends at Pittsburgh, partly from the account given by the two youths, who escaped in the manner above described, and also from the report made by the Indian assistant Sam- uel of Schoenbrun, and by Anthony from Pittsburgh, all of whom agreed exactly as to the principal parts of their re- spective evidences."
The Rev. Joseph Doddridge, in his Notes upon the Settle- ment and Indian Wars of Western Virginia and Pennsylva- nia, published at Wheeling, in 1824, closes his narrative of this transaction with some observations, which, in justice to Colonel Williamson and his detachment, should accompany the indignant sketch of the Moravian historian :
"The pressure of the Indian war along the whole of the western frontier," Doddridge remarks, "for several years preceding the event under consideration, had been dread- fully severe. From early in the spring, until the commence- ment of winter, from day to day, murders were committed in every direction by the Indians. The people lived in forts which were in the highest degree uncomfortable. The men were harrassed continually with the duties of going on scouts and campaigns. There was scarcely a family of the first settlers, who did not, at some time or other, lose more or less of their number by the merciless Indians. Their cattle were killed, their cabins burned, and their horses carried off. These losses were severely felt by a people so poor as we were, at that time. Thus circumstanced, our people were exasperated to madness, by the extent and severity of the war. The unavailing endeavors of the American Congress
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to prevent the Indians from taking up the hatchet against either side in the revolutionary contest, contributed much to increase the general indignation against them; at the same time that those pacific endeavors of our government divided the Indians amongst themselves, on the question of war or peace with the whites. The Moravians, part of the Dela- wares, and some others, faithfully endeavored to preserve peace; but in vain. The Indian maxim was: "He that is not for us, is against us.' Hence the Moravian missionaries and their followers were several times on the point of being murdered by the warriors. This would have been done, had it not been for the prudent conduct of some of the war- chiefs.
"On the other hand, the local situation of the Moravian villages excited the jealousy of the white people. If they took no direct agency in the war, yet they were, as they were then called, 'Half way houses,' between us and the warriors, at which the latter could stop, rest, refresh them- selves and traffic off their plunder. Whether these aids, thus given to our enemies, were contrary to the laws of neutrality between belligerents, is a question which I wil- lingly leave to the decision of civilians. On the part of the Moravians, they were unavoidable. If they did not give or sell provisions to the warriors, they would take them by force. The fault was in their situation, not in themselves.
"The longer the war continued, the more our people com- plained of the situation of these Moravian villages. It was said that it was owing to their being so near us, that the warriors commenced their depredations so carly in the spring, and continued them until late in the fall.
" In the latter end of the year 1781, the militia of the fron- tier came to a determination to break up the Moravian villa-
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ges on the Muskingum. For this purpose a detachment of our men went out under the command of Col. David Wil- liamson, for the purpose of inducing the Indians with their teachers to move further off, or bring them prisoners to Fort Pitt. When they arrived at the villages they found but few Indians, the greater number of them having removed to Sandusky. These few were well treated, taken to Fort Pitt and delivered to the commandant at that station, who, after a short detention, sent them home again.
" This procedure gave great offence to the people of the country, who thought that the Moravians ought to have been killed. Col. Williamson, who, before this little campaign, had been a very popular man, on account of his activity and bravery in war, now became the subject of severe animad- versions on account of his lenity to the Moravian Indians. In justice to the memory of Col. Williamson I have to say, that although at that time very young, I was personally acquainted with him, and from my recollection of his con- versation, I say with confidence that he was a brave man, but not cruel. He would meet an enemy in battle, and fight like a soldier ; but not murder a prisoner. Had he possessed the authority of a superior officer in a regular army, I do not believe that a single Moravian Indian would have lost his life ; but he possessed no such authority. He was only a militia officer, who could advise, but not command. His only fault was that of too easy a compliance with popular opinion and popular prejudice. On this account his memory has been loaded with unmerited reproach.
" Several reports unfavorable to the Moravians had been in circulation for some time before the campaign against them. One was, that the night after they were liberated at Fort Pitt, they crossed the river and killed or made prisoners of a
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family of the name of Montour. A family on Buffalo creek had been mostly killed in the summer or fall of 1781, and it was said by one of them, who, after being made prisoner, made his escape, that the leader of the party of Indians who did the mischief was a Moravian. These, with other reports, of similar import, served as a pretext for their de- struction, although no doubt they were utterly false.
" Should it be asked, what sort of people composed the band of murderers of these unfortunate people ?- I answer, they were not miscreants or vagabonds : many of them were men of the first standing in the country. Many of them were men who had recently lost relatives by the hand of the sav- ages : several of the latter class found articles which had been plundered from their own houses, or those of their rel- atives, in the houses of the Moravians. One man, it is said, found the clothes of his wife and children, who had been murdered by the Indians but a few days before. They were still bloody : yet there was no unequivocal evidence, that these people had any direct agency in the war. Whatever of our property was found with them, had been left by the warriors in exchange for the provisions which they took from them. When attacked by our people, although they might have defended themselves, they did not. They never fired a single shot. They were prisoners, and had been promised protection. Every dictate of justice and humanity required that their lives should be spared. The complaint of their villages being 'half-way houses for the warriors,' was at an end, as they had been removed to Sandusky the fall before. It was, therefore, an atrocious and unqualified murder. But by whom committed ? By a majority of the campaign ? For the honor of my country, I hope I may safely answer this question in the negative. It was one of those convulsions of
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the moral state of society, in which the voice of the justice and humanity of a majority is silenced by the clamor and violence of a lawless minority. Very few of our men imbrued their hands in the blood of the Moravians. Even those who had not voted for saving their lives, retired from the scene of slaughter with horror and disgust. Why then did they not give their votes in their favor ? The fear of public indignation restrained them from doing so. They thought well: but had not heroism enough to express their opinions. Those who did so, deserve honorable mention for their intrepidity. So far as it may hereafter be in my power, this honor shall be done them : while the name of the murderers shall not stain the pages of history from my pen at least."
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