Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

JOHN PENN, Deputy Governor, November, 1763-1771.- In November, 1763, Governor Hamilton was superseded by John Penn, son of Richard Penn, who had come to the Colony in 1753, and had acted as President of the Council. During the fall and early winter following the Pontiac war, the condition of the Province along the frontier was deplorable. Notwithstanding the utmost vigilance of the inhabitants who had enrolled themselves as Rangers, many a hearthstone was laid waste. The Moravian and other friendly Indians were strongly suspected of treachery. Not that they themselves were guilty of the outrages, but receiving guns and ammunition, they traded them to the hostile roving bands. On strong representations made to the Government, after investigation by the Assembly, the Indians at the towns of Nain and Wichetunk were removed to Philadelphia.

Contiguous to the Scotch-Irish settlements of Donegal and Paxton, in what was then Lancaster County, was the Indian village of Conestoga, consisting of a score of men and women. They were a miserable set of savages; but Governor Penn, notwithstanding the earnest request of Colonel (Rev.) John Elder and John Harris, failed to remove them. Indian marauders and assassins were traced by Colonel Elder's indefatigable Paxton Boys, or Rangers, to Conestoga, and as no assistance or protection could be had from the government, they took measures to destroy every one. A number escaped, and were placed by the magistrates in the work-house at Lancaster for protection; but their retreat was broken into by the infuriated populace, and they met the fate of their brethren. In the destruction of the Conestogas several wellknown, blood-thirsty savages lurking there were killed.

This act of the frontiersmen, which aided eventually in giving peace to the borders, caused intense excitement in the interior counties, and Governor Penn issued several proclamations, offering rewards for the chief actors in that affair.

Meetings were held on the frontiers to protest against the measures of the Government, and delegates were appointed

to proceed to Philadelphia and lay before the Governor and the Council a statement of the condition of the inhabitants. The news of the coming of these representatives, augmented by numbers from Berks and the adjoining counties, created an alarm, and their object being misunderstood, the militia was called out.

The Moravian Indians were removed to Province Island, and placed under heavy guard; but feeling insecure, they asked to be sent to England. Governor Penn sent them for this purpose to New York; but the Governor of that Colony refused to allow them to enter his dominions, and Governor Franklin of New Jersey would not grant them permission to remain in his. They were obliged thus to return to Philadelphia, where they were placed in barracks for protection. The Paxton Boys, being then at Germantown, a committee, of which Franklin was a member, was sent by Governor Penn to confer with them. The majority of them, after some persuasion, returned to their homes, leaving Matthew Smith and James Gibson to plead their cause, who said in justification of their conduct, "That whilst more than a thousand families, reduced to extreme distress, during the last and present war, by the attacks of skulking parties of Indians upon the frontier, were destitute, and were suffered by the public to depend on private charity, a hundred and twenty of the perpetrators of the most horrid barbarities, were supported by the Province, and protected from the fury of the brave relatives of the murdered."* Prosecutions were commenced against some of the parties to the outbreak, but so many were implicated, and so excellent the character of many of them, that no convictions were ever secured. There were two policies advocated in the Colony towards the Indians at this time, which were in direct antagonism. "Whilst one party was laboring to destroy by fire and sword a perfidious and ferocious enemy, the other was striving to conciliate an offended friend." To attempt to pursue both of these policies at once could but result disastrously.

* Gordon, p. 408.

The British Ministry determined to prosecute the campaign of 1764 against the Indians with vigor along all the frontier. Pennsylvania was called on for one thousand troops. The Assembly voted fifty thousand pounds; but a difference of opinion arising respecting the interpretation of the agreement formed by the Proprietors with Franklin relative to assessments, the Governor withheld his assent to the bill, and the Assembly was finally forced, by the exigencies of the case, to modify it so as to meet his views; but adopted a series of resolutions condemnatory of the course of the Proprietors, and concluding, that, for the reasons set forth, "It was the opinion of the House, that the powers of government ought, in all good policy, to be separated from the power attending that immense property, and lodged where only they could be properly and safely lodged, in the hands of the king." After passing these resolutions, the House determined to adjourn to consult the people whether an address should be drawn praying his Majesty to take the Province under his immediate protection and government. After an interval of fifty days the Assembly again convened, and petitioned the king to assume the direct government of the Province, though upon the adoption of this policy, strong opposition was made by the venerable Isaac Norris, John Dickinson, and a few others. The Quakers, as a denomination, favored the change, and sent up a petition from their body urging it. In the elections which followed the sittings of this Assembly, a reaction seems to have taken place, and some of the old members, who had advocated the change, were defeated, among them Franklin; still there was a majority which favored it.

On the 7th of July, 1765, Governor Penn again declared war against the Shawanese and Delaware Indians, who had been practising hostilities with great barbarity, and early in August, Colonel Bouquet, with the Pennsylvania troops, started from Carlisle for Fort Pitt. By the 3d of October he had reached the forks of the Muskingum, a tributary of the Ohio, the very heart of the Indian territory, where were

« PreviousContinue »