"You know well," Thayendanega said, "that the white chief Brodhead came here and murdered nearly all the residents of Goschachgunk who remained behind while their neighbors fled. Thus was their trust in the white man rewarded. That is what can happen to you. Even Chief White Eyes was murdered by them while in the very act of talking peace!"
Abraham was not impressed. The white men, he said, knowing the Moravian Indians were no longer Delawares and not their enemies, would leave them alone. No, they would not leave. God would protect them as he already had.
Captain Matthew Elliott from Detroit, representing the British, who were demanding that these Indians he moved away, stepped forward with an angry wave of his hand. He had had quite enough of this coaxing: they were not offering a choice but delivering an order. "What do you know of God?" he said condescendingly. "Can you really be so ignorant as to believe that because you have been, as they say, 'converted' and changed your name from Chief Netawatwees to Abraham, that this provides you protection of God? I tell you that God will not help you here once we begin to attack these Pennsylvanians in earnest. The whites will try to retaliate and you will be killed. Can't you understand that it is for your own protection that we have requested you to leave? We hoped you would be wise enough to do no without being forced. Instead, we find you a stupid, stubborn old man." He pointed to Thayendanega. "Chief Brant here has three hundred warriors waiting outside the village. Once again I say you must take up new residence on the Sandusky River. You have no choice. Go, or we will destroy your homes and your missions."
"But what of our corn, our other crops?" Elliott shook his head. 'They would have to leave them behind. But there was no need to worry. He would see to it personally that the Moravian Indians would be given sufficient food to sustain them throughout the winter."
Abraham sighed. He could not believe his friends, the Americans, would hurt them, but this ultimatum worried him. They had worked long and hard with the missionaries to establish their three towns on the Tuscarawas - Salem, Gnadenhutten and Schoenbrun - and the thought of the homes of his people and their missions being destroyed was distressing to contemplate. There was really no need for him to be unreasonable about it. Perhaps after a winter on the Upper Sandusky River matters would have settled down enough so that they could come back. He nodded resignedly.
"We will go," he said.
Regardless of the British promises to provide food enough to sustain them through the winter, the Moravian Indians suffered severe famine. What supplies did occasionally come out of Detroit were meager in the extreme and nowhere near enough to tide them over, even on far less than adequate rations. The Wyandots and the few Delewares in the vicinity of Upper Sandusky were of little help. Not only had their own crops been skimpy last fall, but they were too engaged in their frequent raids into the Pennsylvania country. Besides, they looked rather scornfully upon any Indian who would willingly renounce his own tribal designation to take up the name Moravian.
Abraham had thrice journeyed to Detroit to plead for food; and now, at last, he returned with good news. No, the British had no food for them, but they had given Abraham permission to lead a hundred and fifty of his followers back to the three Tuscarawas River towns on a temporary visit for the purpose of gathering up what portion of their unharvested corn crop still remained on the stalks.
They would leave at once.
Most of his people had fallen asleep now and Abraham stared unseeingly into the darkness of the big room. During the past two days of talk with the white chief Williamson and many of his men, he was able to reconstruct how such an unbelievable thing had happened. Yet, even as he reviewed it there was something of a nightmare quality about it all, a pervading unreality; in one corner of his mind he still felt that with the dawn he would awaken to find that all that had transpired was nothing but a wild dream.
Exactly two weeks ago he had led his hundred and fifty Moravian Indian followers on the overland journey to the forks of the Muskingum, arriving at the southernmost of their three towns, Salem, late in the afternoon. They had been delighted to find more corn had survived the winter than anticipated, and no Abraham had directed the fifty residents of this town to gather up the corn while he and the remainder continued upriver to Gnadenhutten and Schoenbrun, fifty staying at each of those villages also.
The days had gone by swiftly as the three separate parties worked in their fields, gathering and stripping the corn from the husks during the day and then, around the evening fires, shelling it off the cobs into large buckskin bags.
Meanwhile, Colonel David Williamson and his company of one hundred had arrived within a mile of Gnadenhutten and camped there. In the morning, observing Abraham end some of his followers at work in the cornfield on the opposite side of the river, fifteen volunteers had accompanied Williamson to the location. They crossed the river unseen in a large boatlike sugar-sap trough, two at a time: a vine rope was used by those still on shore to pull the empty boat back to them. When all sixteen were safely across, the remainder of the army marched into Gnadenhutten. There they found only two Indians, a man and his wife, both of whom they killed instantly with tomahawks lest they raise an alarm.
Williamson's squad, on approaching the Indians far out in the cornfield, found them much more numerous than expected. There were forty-eight-men, women and boys-nearly all of whom had weapons with them. His men behind him, Williamson approached in a friendly manner, holding up his hand in greeting. The Indians smiled and waved and followed Abraham as he moved to greet them.
"l come with good news," Williamson said blandly. "We have been sent here to take you back with us to the neighborhood of Fort Pitt where in the future you will be protected from all harm. You may quit your work here now, for there is no need. Soon you will be given good food in abundance, warm clothing and sturdy shelter.
Abraham broke into a wide smile and shook Williamson's hand warmly and, for those of his followers who had only partially understood, he translated. There were cries of joy and relief from all.
These Indians remembered how last year some of their people had been taken to Fort Pitt in similar manner and had been well treated by the commander of the fort and finally dismissed with fine gifts and tokens of lasting friendship. Under these circumstances it was not at all surprising that Abraham ordered his people, at Williamson's request, to surrender their arms as a token of good faith.
Abraham placed himself and his people under Colonel Williamson's protection and, again at the officer's request, sent a pair of runners to nearby Salem to tell his people at this village to come at once to Gnadenhutten.
Now the entire party recrossed the Tuscarawas, but as they came into the center of the village they found themselves surrounded by men with weapons aimed at them. Puzzled, Abraham asked what was wrong. Williamson refused to answer, but instead ordered the wrists of each Indian bound behind him. The mission and the largest house in the village were side by side and the prisoners were marched into the two buildings, men and boys into the former and the women into the latter. Once inside they were forced to sit on the floor and their ankles were thereupon bound as well.
After two hours the Salem group showed up, walking along happily, talking and laughing. They were greeted outside the town by Williamson and some of hrs men who shook their hands and smiled and told them their brothers were waiting for them in the mission and that Abraham had said for them to turn over their arms to him. Without suspicion they did so and then followed him into the village, only to have the same scene that had greeted Abraham reenacted.
The chief shook his head sadly as the new prisoners were brought in. How could this have happened? Did it mean that they were to be taken back and held as hostages at Fort Pitt for some purpose? For only one thing was he grateful-that he had not mentioned the third village of Schoenbrun above them, to whom he had planned sending another messenger after crossing the river.
A total of ninety-eight men. women and boys now sat or lay bound in the two buildings. Outside, a strong ring of guards had been stationed and there was no hope of escape. Thus they remained the rest of the day and through the night, being provided with neither food nor water nor toilet facilities. It was a terrible night and few of the captives slept.
In the morning. Colonel Williamson called a meeting of all his men to determine what should be done with the Indians. He spoke to them in a flat, emotionless voice.
"The question before us now," he said. "is whether these Moravian Indians, who are Delawares, should be taken as prisoners to Fort Pitt or be put to death." Some of the men were startled at this, but Williamson went on: "I might remind you of the damage nearly all of you have suffered at the hands of the Indians. And I might further remind you that General Brodhead's strict orders were that the Dela- wares should be taught an unforgettable lesson. To my way of thinking, imprisonment is hardly such a lesson."
He shot his cold dark glance over the assembled men and then concluded, "l now ask those of you who are in favor of saving their lives to step out and form a second rank." The manner in which he said it, and the thinly masked violence in his eyes, was clear indication that he expected no one to step forward.
A few braved his wrath, but only a few. One at a time they stepped out, but when the movement had ended only Thirteen of the hundred had voted for mercy. The majority had ruled; the ninety-eight captives would be executed. It was Williamson himself who told Abraham of the judgment of his "court" and he seemed to revel in the sound of the phrase "put to death"-as it rolled off his tongue.
Shocked and unbelieving, Abraham finally recovered enough to speak. "I call upon God as witness that my people are perfectly innocent of any crime against you. We are prepared and willing to suffer this death, Yet this much I ask of you: when we were converted from our heathen ways and baptized, we made a solemn promise to the Lord that we would live unto Him and endeavor to please Him alone in this world. But we know, too, that we have been wayward in many respects, and therefore we wish to have the night granted to us to pour out our hearts before Him in prayer and beg His mercy and pardon."
Williamson considered and then shrugged. It made little difference, actually. God had better have mercy on them, because he certainly wouldn't. The request was granted.
As word of the sentence spread through the captives in the mission and then jumped the gap to the women prisoners next door, a great wailing of terror arose which gradually subsided to weeping among the women and some of the smaller boys. Abraham spoke to them at length, reassuring them that God had not forsaken them and that, if it was His will that they should die thus, they should accept it with calmness and a certain joy in the knowledge that they would soon be in the presence of their Heavenly Father. At one point he put his back against the wall and managed to slide himself up along it until he regained his feet.
"My children, hear me," he said. "Our sentence is fixed and we shall soon all depart unto our Savior. This I must say now: I have sinned in many ways and have grieved the Lord with my disobedience, not walking as I ought to have done. But still I will cleave to my Savior, with my last breath, and hold Him fast, though I am so great a sinner. He will forgive me all my sins and not cast me out."
Together then they prayed long into the night, until at last only Abraham remained awake, staring into the darkness and asking himself again how this incredible thing could have happened. But now, as it became lighter in the high mission room, where so many times over the years he and his people had prayed and held services, he could hear them coming and called aloud to his people to awaken and say their final prayers.
Fully twenty men entered the room, led by Captain Charles Builderback who, by the drawing of lots, had been given the honor of starting off the execution. Builderback ordered that the captives be stood on their feet and faced against the walls, shoulder to shoulder around the room. There was just barely space enough for this.
The day before, as the lots were being drawn, the remark had been made that Abraham long flowing hair would make a fine scalp and so now Builderback, having been handed a large cooper's mallet by one of his men, stepped up behind Abraham and without a word dealt him a blow which caved in the entire back of his skull. The Indian dropped instantly, and even as the chief's legs and arms jerked spasmodically, Builderback cut away the scalp and held it aloft in triumph while his men cheered lustily.
Moving now in a clockwise fashion from Abraham, Builderback felled thirteen more in succession, each blow making a hideous smacking sound. Following this fourteenth execution, however, Builderback blew out a great gust of air and handed the mallet to Private George Bellar.
"My arm's failing me," he said. "You go on in the same way. I think I've done pretty well."
Bellar grinned wickedly and, as Captain Builderback began scalping his last thirteen victims, the private carried on, using both hands and bringing the mallet down with such force that often bits of skull and bloody gray matter splattered his front. But Bellar played out quickly, too, and only managed to murder eleven before he was forced to hand the mallet to the next man. In the distance, sounds of a similar nature could be heard coming from the house next door. But still there were no cries, no pleas for mercy. It was too much for Private Otho Johnston, who abruptly vomited and then fled out the door with the laughter of his companions following him.
But Johnston had left the door ajar mud and now two of the victims closest to this portal-both of them boys of about fourteen-glanced at one another and nodded. All through the night they had worked on their bonds until they had finally gotten them off. With great care they had replaced them, but so loosely that a single exertion would cast them off both wrists and ankles.
At the instant the club next thudded into the head of a victim, the two boys threw off their ties and leaped out the door. They darted around the building and were practically into the woods before the cry was raised of their escape, but there was no pursuit. The consensus among the soldiers was that once in the woods no one would be able to find them. Besides, they were only boys. Let them go. ,p> And go they did, running as they had never run, until they felt their hearts must burst, and crying as they ran--crying for their lost chief and their lost parents and brothers and sisters and other relatives, crying for their lost companions and neighbors, crying for their lost world.
They ran the full seven miles to Schoenbrun.
Back in Gnadenhutten the massacre continued until all ninety-six of them--thirty-five men, twenty-seven women and thirty-f our boys--had been killed and scalped, not including the pair who had been tomahawked on the army's arrival here. Then, Colonel Williamson ordered both the mission and the house containing the women to be set afire. As the roaring flames made ashes of their crime, they set off to the north. While the executions were in progress, a scout had come: in to report that he had found another village like this one just a little way upstream.
But when they got there, they found Schoenbrun abandoned.
Reaction to the Moravian Massacre, as it quickly came to be known, varied in different areas of the country, but mostly it was disapproving at best. The frontiersmen in Kentucky were shocked and dismayed at the barbarism of the act and a distinct undercurrent of fear ran through them that the retaliation, when it came, might spread to involve them. The frontiersmen in Pennsylvania were somewhat awed that such a thing had happened, but there were remarkably few who spoke out against it and many who asserted that the Indians had "got what they deserved." There was even speculation among them of mounting a second invasion of the same type. Leaders in the east were deeply disturbed by the news, but few, if any, had a true realization of what a cold-blooded, premeditated mass murder it had been. Besides which, they had worries of their own; the peace treaty negotiations with Great Britain in Paris were hogging down; political problems were besieging the new states; and the problem of establishing a federal government was rearing its head.
The Moravian missionaries were utterly devastated by the news, scarcely able to comprehend the enormity of what had happened, realizing with guilt that had they stayed at Lichtenau with their converts the tragedy might have been averted. The British in Detroit were appalled by it and yet were quick to assess its propaganda value, using it to light even brighter fires of unrest among the Indians. They even went so far in trying to prove the benevolence of "the great white father across the sea" that a company of Redcoats was dispatched at once to the Upper Sandusky River region to escort the remaining Moravian Indians to a quiet area to build a new village far from danger, a site along the banks of the Thames River in Ontario.
The Indians--all of them in general, and the Delawares in particular--were infuriated as they had never been before. They considered this massacre a wanton outrage of the blackest nature and a clear depiction of the real character of the Shemanese. They lived with one thought paramount in their minds now--total annihilation of these enemies. They had more than enough courage and fighting ability for the task. All they lacked were horses, cannons, gunpowder, firearms, food, supplies and manpower.