2021-07-04 12:04:10
Content Warning: Description of Proto-Nazi Genocidal Warcrime committed by American militia against Lenape people during the Revolutionary War. Heavy content.
The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing of 96 Christian Lenape by U.S. militiamen from Pennsylvania on March 8, 1782 at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio. It was the biggest war crime of the Revolutionary War.
In September 1781 British-allied Native Americans, primarily Wyandotte and Delaware, forced the Christian Native Americans and missionaries from the Moravian villages. They took them northwest toward Lake Erie to a new village called Captive Town on the Sandusky River. The British took the missionaries David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder under guard back to Fort Detroit, where they tried the two men on charges of treason: the British had suspected them of providing military intelligence to the American garrison at Fort Pitt. The missionaries were acquitted during the trial.
The Lenape at Captive Town were going hungry because of insufficient rations. In February 1782, more than 150 were allowed to return to their old Moravian villages to harvest the crops and collect stored food they had been forced to leave behind. The frontier war was still raging. In early March 1782, the Lenape were surprised by a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militia led by Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson who took them captive. The American militia rounded up the Christian Lenape and accused them of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania. Although the Lenape denied the charges, the militia held a council and voted to kill them. Refusing to take part, some militiamen left the area. One of those who opposed the killing of the Moravian Lenape was Obadiah Holmes, Jr. He wrote:
"One Nathan Rollins & brother [who] had had a father & uncle killed took the lead in murdering the Indians, ...& Nathan Rollins had tomahawked nineteen of the poor Moravians, & after it was over he sat down & cried, & said it was no satisfaction for the loss of his father & uncle after all".
After the Lenape were told of the American militia's vote, they requested time to prepare for death and spent the night praying and singing hymns. They were held in two buildings, one for men and one for women and children.
The next morning on March 8, the militia brought the Lenape to one of two "killing houses," one for men and the other for women and children. The American militia tied the Lenape, stunned them with mallet blows to the head, and killed them with fatal scalping cuts while they stood in line singing hymns to their death. In all, the militia murdered and scalped 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children. Two Lenape boys, one of whom had been scalped, survived to tell of the massacre. The militia piled the bodies in the mission buildings and burned the village down. They also burned the other abandoned Moravian villages.
The American militiamen had looted the villages prior to their burning. The plunder, which needed 80 horses to carry, included everything the people had held: furs for trade, pewter, tea sets, and clothing. A few years later, missionary Heckewelder collected the remains of the Lenape and buried them in a mound on the southern side of the village.
The site of the village has been preserved. A reconstructed mission house and cooper's house were built there, and a monument to the dead was erected and dedicated a century later. The burial mound is marked and has been maintained on the site; the village site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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