Gnadenhutten massacre

This article is about the 1782 massacre in Ohio, U.S.. For the Gnadenhütten massacre in 1755 in Pennsylvania, see Gnadenhütten massacre (Pennsylvania).
Gnadenhutten massacre
Part of the American Revolutionary War
An 1852 woodcut depicting the massacre
LocationGnadenhutten, Ohio Country
DateMarch 8, 1782
Attack type
Mass killing
Deaths96 killed
PerpetratorsPennsylvania Militia
Moravian Christian Indian Martyrs
Burial site of the Moravian Martyrs
DiedMarch 8, 1782, Gnadenhutten, Ohio
Martyred byU.S. militiamen
Venerated inMoravian Church
Major shrineGnadenhutten, Ohio
FeastMarch 8

The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing of 96 pacifist Moravian Christian Indians (primarily Lenape and Mohican) by U.S. militiamen from Pennsylvania, under the command of David Williamson, on March 8, 1782, at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio Country, during the American Revolutionary War.[1][2][3]

Due to their commitment to Christian pacifism, the Moravians did not take sides during the American Revolutionary War, which caused them to be viewed with suspicion by both the British and the Americans.[4] As the Moravians were collecting crops, Pennsylvania militia encountered them and falsely promised the Moravians that they would be "relocated away from the warring parties."[5] Once they were gathered together, however, the American militia rounded the unarmed Moravians up and said that they planned to execute them for being spies, charges that the Moravians rebutted.[5][6]

The Moravians asked their captors to be allowed to pray and worship on the night before their execution; they spent the night before their death praying as well as singing Christian hymns and psalms.[7] Eighteen of the U.S. militiamen were opposed to the killing of the pacifist Moravians, though they were outvoted by those who wanted to murder them; those who opposed the murder did not participate in the massacre and separated themselves from the killers.[8][2][9] Before murdering them, the American soldiers "dragged the women and girls out into the snow and systematically raped them."[10] As they were being killed, the Moravians sang "hymns and spoke words of encouragement and consolation one to another until they were all slain".[11] Believing in nonresistance, they pleaded for their lives to be spared, but did not fight back against their persecutors.[12][6][13][14]

Moravian missionary David Zeisberger declared the slain Lenape and Mahican as Christian martyrs, who are remembered in the Moravian Church.[11][15][16][17] More than a century later, Theodore Roosevelt called the massacre "a stain on frontier character that the lapse of time cannot wash away."[18]

The shrine to the Moravian Christian Indian Martyrs includes a monument that was erected and dedicated ninety years after the Gnadenhutten massacre by a Chief of the Christian Munsee tribe; the graves of the victims contain "bones [which] were gathered by the faithful missionaries some time after the massacre".[19][20][21] It also includes a large Christian cross dedicated to the Moravian Munsee and Christian Mahican Martyrs by a member of the tribe and descendant of one of the slain.[22][6][21] With the site of the village being preserved, a reconstructed mission house and cooper's house were built there.[23] 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.

  1. ^ "Gnadenhutten", Ohio History Central (Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  2. ^ a b Ricky, Donald (1 January 2009). Native Peoples A to Z: A Reference Guide to Native Peoples of the Western Hemisphere. Native American Book Publishers. ISBN 978-1-878592-73-6.
  3. ^ Diary of David Zeisberger. R. Clarke & Company. 1885. p. xxvii.
  4. ^ Dennis, Yvonne Wakim; Hirschfelder, Arlene (1 December 2018). Native American Landmarks and Festivals: A Traveler's Guide to Indigenous United States and Canada. Visible Ink Press. ISBN 978-1-57859-694-2.
  5. ^ a b Tucker, Spencer; Arnold, James R.; Wiener, Roberta (30 September 2011). The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 331. ISBN 978-1-85109-697-8.
  6. ^ a b c Davis, Cindy (12 March 2017). "Event marks massacre of Moravian Delaware Indians in Gnaden". The Times Reporter. Archived from the original on 18 July 2021. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  7. ^ Ricky, Donald (1 January 2001). Encyclopedia of North Dakota Indians. Somerset Publishers. p. 343. ISBN 978-0-403-09632-9.
  8. ^ Gutchess, Alan D. (2016). "The Forgotten Survivors of Gnadenhutten". Western Pennsylvania History Magazine. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  9. ^ Schultz, Kevin M. (1 October 2015). HIST4, Volume 1. Cengage Learning. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-305-53395-0.
  10. ^ Thompson, Robert (12 March 2013). A Woman of Courage on the West Virginia Frontier: Phebe Tucker Cunningham. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62584-011-0.
  11. ^ a b Diary of David Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary among the Indians of Ohio. R. Clarke & Company. 1885. pp. 80–81, 83.
  12. ^ The Westerners Brand Book, Volumes 5-9. 1948. p. 31.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Schutt2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ James Bradley Finley (1855). The Christian Miscellany and Family Visiter, Volume 1. John Mason. pp. 20, 21.
  15. ^ The Moravian, Volumes 104-106. Board of Christian Education and Evangelism of the Moravian Church. 1959. p. 10. The service was concluded, traditionally, in the cemetery in which the ninety Christian Indian martyrs lie buried.
  16. ^ Zrinski, Tara (9 September 2011). "Guest Minister Reminds Moravians of Pacifist Roots". Patch. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  17. ^ Michel, Bernard E. (1952). Moravian Travel Guide. Comenius Press. p. 12. A monument on the cemetery memorializes the martyred Indians.
  18. ^ Roosevelt, Theodore, The Winning of the West, Volume 2, p. 145. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1889.
  19. ^ Wilcox, Frank N. (1933). Ohio Indian Trails (2 ed.). The monument to the Moravian martyrs at Gnadenhutten stands upon the site of the Indian town, now the modern cemetery. The small mounds mark the graves of the victims whose bones were gathered by the faithful missionaries some time after the massacre. At Goshen, a short distance up the Tuscarawas, is the grave of the leader Zeisberger.
  20. ^ Stewart, G.T.; Gallup, C.H. (1899). The Firelands Pioneer. Firelands Historical Society. p. 246. In the village cemetery, where lie the dead of a century, stands a huge granite monument. This graceful shaft marks the resting place of ninety Christian Indian martyrs whose ruthless butchery furnishes one of the darkest pages in American history.
  21. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Stein2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Valentini, Kyle (15 March 2019). "Gnadenhutten Remembrance Day observed in the village". The Bargain Hunter. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
  23. ^ "History of Gnadenhutten" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-01-21. Retrieved 2015-04-28.