all received the hatchet! Men, women, and little children were every one inhumanly murdered in cold blood!
The barbarous men who committed the atrocious fact, in defiance of government, of all laws human and divine, and to the eternal disgrace of their country and color, then mounted their horses, huzzaed in triumph, as if they had gained a victory, and rode off unmolested!
The bodies of the murdered were then brought out and exposed in the street, till a hole could be made in the earth to receive and cover them.
But the wickedness cannot be covered; the guilt will lie on the whole land, till justice is done on the murderers. The blood of the innocent will cry to Heaven for vengeance.
It is said that Shehaes being before told, that it was to be feared some English might come from the frontier into the country, and murder him and his people, he replied: “It is impossible; there are Indians, indeed, in the woods, who would kill me and mine, if they could get at us, for my friendship to the English; but the English will wrap me in their matchcoat, and secure me from all danger.” How unfortunately was he mistaken!
Another proclamation has been issued, offering a great reward for apprehending the murderers, in the following terms, viz.:
John Penn
“Whereas on the twenty-second day of December last, I issued a proclamation for the apprehending and bringing to justice a number of persons, who, in violation of the public faith, and in defiance of all law, had inhumanly killed six of the Indians, who had lived in Conestogo manor, for the course of many years, peaceably and inoffensively, under the protection of this government, on lands assigned to them for their habitation; notwithstanding which, I have received information, that on the twenty-seventh of the same month, a large party of armed men again assembled and met together in a riotous and tumultuous manner, in the county of Lancaster, and proceeded to the town of Lancaster, where they violently broke open the workhouse, and butchered and put to death fourteen of the said Conestogo Indians, men, women, and children, who had been taken under the immediate care and protection of the magistrates of the said county, and lodged for their better security in the said workhouse, till they should be more effectually provided for by order of the government; and whereas common justice loudly demands, and the laws of the land (upon the preservation of which not only the liberty and security of every individual, but the being of the government itself depends) require, that the above offenders should be brought to condign punishment: I have, therefore, by and with the advice of the council, published this proclamation, and do hereby strictly charge and command all judges, justices, sheriffs, constables, officers, civil and military, and all other his Majesty’s faithful and liege subjects within this province, to make diligent search and inquiries after the authors and perpetrators of the said last-mentioned offence, their abettors and accomplices, and that they use all possible means to apprehend and secure them in some of the public gaols of this province, to be dealt with according to law.
And I do hereby further promise and engage, that any person or persons who shall apprehend and secure, or cause to be apprehended and secured, any three of the ringleaders of the said party, and prosecute them to conviction, shall have and receive for each the public reward of two hundred pounds; and any accomplice, not concerned in the immediate shedding the blood of the said Indians, who shall make discovery of any or either of the said ringleaders, and apprehend and prosecute them to conviction, shall, over and above the said reward, have all the weight and influence of the government, for obtaining his Majesty’s pardon for his offence.
Given under my hand, and the great seal of the said province, at Philadelphia, the second day of January, in the fourth year of his Majesty’s reign, and in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and sixty-four.”
John Penn.
By his Honor’s command,
Joseph Shippen, Jr., Secretary.
God save the King.”
These proclamations have as yet produced no discovery, the murderers having given out such threatenings against those that disapprove their proceedings, that the whole country seems to be in terror, and no one dare speak what he knows; even the letters from thence are unsigned in which any dislike is expressed of the rioters.
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 into 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 hand and mouths they can set at nought that express demand, 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 endeavour to show, by a few examples from books and history, the sense those people have had of such actions.
Homer wrote his poem, called the Odyssey, some hundred years before the birth of Christ. He frequently speaks of what he calls not only the duties, but the sacred rites of hospitality, exercised towards strangers while in our house or territory, as including, besides all the common circumstances of entertainment, full safety and protection of person from all danger of life, from all injuries, and even insults. The rites of hospitality were called sacred, because the stranger, the poor, and the weak, when they applied for protection and relief, were from the religion of those times supposed to be sent by the Deity to try the goodness of men, and that he would avenge the injuries they might receive where they ought to have been protected. These sentiments, therefore, influenced the manners of all ranks of people, even the meanest; for we find that when Ulysses came as a poor stranger to the hut of Eumæus, the swineherd, and his great dogs ran out to tear the ragged man, Eumæus drave them away with stones, and
“ ‘Unhappy stranger!’ (thus the faithful swain
Began, with accent gracious and humane)
‘What sorrow had been mine, if at my gate
Thy reverend age had met a shameful fate!
But enter this my lonely roof, and see
Our woods not void of hospitality.’
He
