All too many Americans did not distinguish between Indigenous allies and enemies, as at Conestoga, Pennsylvania. In 1763, during Pontiac’s War, a group of peaceful allied Indigenous people took refuge there. In December of that year, a group subsequently called the Paxton Boys murdered six individuals there, setting fire to their homes in the early dawn of a snowy day Another fourteen residents had been away at the time. The murderers followed them to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and proceeded to kill and mutilate them, too. Of the fourteen, eight were children. Killing children in a shelter marks another attempt at “total extirpation.”
Yet the Paxton killers were not finished, marching on to Philadelphia in January to threaten other allied Indigenous peo-ple there. Although they were halted, no charges were ever filed against them. The killers went back to their farms and families and lived on.
Not everyone shared their vicious vision. A lot of people in Philadelphia and elsewhere denounced them. The lines drawn were not simply between British officials and frontier vigilantes. Those further east-such as Benjamin Franklin-tended to keep steadier heads and hands. Franklin was an established printer and author, an inventor (most famously of the lightning rod and also of bifocals), promoter of education (including founding the school that became the University of Pennsylvania), and civic institutions (including the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society). He sympathized with Indigenous allies, producing a narrative condemning the Paxton killers.
Franklin, a consummate publicist, included the names of several of the murdered people. There was “John Smith;’ a Cayuga married to a woman named Peggy. There was “Betty, a harmless old Woman; and her Son Peter, a likely young Lad.” There was “Sally, whose Indian Name was Wyanjoy … esteemed by all that knew her.” He concluded: “Unhappy People! To have lived in such Times, and by such Neighbours!” He painted a vivid picture of their tragic end:”they fell on their Knees … in this Posture they all received the Hatchet! Men, Women and little Children-were every one inhumanly murdered!-in cold Blood!” He lamented: “the Guilt will lie on the whole Land, till Jus-tice is done on the Murderers. The Blood of the Innocent will cry to Heaven for Vengeance.” As he concluded,”Cowards can handle Arms … can wound, mangle and murder; but it belongs to brave Men to spare, and to protect.”
Ben Franklin took a lot of heat for his brave defense of indigenous people during the Pennsylvania Assembly elections of 1764. He and members of the pacifist Society of Friends (or Quakers) such as Israel Pemberton who favored accommodation became the subject of political attacks from the kind of individuals who supported the Paxton killers. One satire rendered literal the insult of “Indian lover.”