Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782

An Act of Unfathomable Cruelty that Presaged Post-Revolutionary America’s Treatment of Native Americans
On March 8, 1782, a group of western settlers killed nearly one hundred unarmed and peaceful Indians who had converted to Christianity under the tutelage of missionaries from the Church of the United Brethren. The murders were cold-blooded and heartless; roughly two-thirds of those executed were women and children. Its brutality stunned Benjamin Franklin in far-away France. He wrote: “th...