Gnadenhutten Massacre

In September 1781, British-allied Native Americans forced Christian Native Americans and Moravian missionaries out of their Ohio mission villages, relocating them to a settlement called Captive Town on the Sandusky River. Facing starvation there, more than 150 of the Moravian Christian Indians were permitted in February 1782 to return to their former villages—including Gnadenhutten, Salem, and Schoenbrunn—to harvest crops they had left behind.

On March 4, 1782, a Pennsylvania militia force of about 160 men under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson marched into the Tuscarawas Valley. On March 6, the militia killed Joseph Schebosh Jr., a Moravian Christian, despite his pleas for his life. The militiamen then approached the Moravian Christian Indians in the fields, feigning goodwill and falsely promising to escort them to Fort Pitt for protection. The Indians handed over their guns and hatchets at the militia's request. Militiamen also lured residents from the nearby settlement of Salem to Gnadenhutten under the same false pretenses.

Once assembled at Gnadenhutten, the militia bound the Moravian Christian Indians and accused them of participating in raids into Pennsylvania, charges the Moravians denied. The militia held a vote on whether to kill them; eighteen militiamen opposed the killing and did not participate, separating themselves from the rest. The condemned were held overnight in two buildings—one for men, one for women and children—where they spent the night praying and singing hymns, while the militiamen reportedly became intoxicated on stolen communion wine. Before the killings, women and girls were reportedly taken outside and raped by militiamen.

On the morning of March 8, 1782, the militia led the Indians in small groups to two "killing houses," where they were bound, struck with mallets, and killed by scalping cuts. According to one militiaman's account, an individual named Nathan Rollins was said to have killed nineteen people himself. In total, the militia killed 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children—96 people. Two boys survived, one after being scalped, and escaped to warn others. Militiamen looted the village, using roughly 80 horses to carry away plunder, then burned Gnadenhutten and other abandoned Moravian villages.

No criminal charges were ever filed against those responsible. Surviving Moravian Christian Indians eventually resettled near the Thames River in present-day Ontario, and the U.S. Congress granted them three town sites in 1785 in response to the massacre. Missionary John Heckewelder later collected the remains of the victims and buried them in a mound at the village site, which is today listed on the National Register of Historic Places and includes a memorial shrine dedicated in stages, most recently in 2019.