workingclasshistory:

On this day, 8 March 1782, the Gnadenhutten massacre took place in Ohio, when American forces in the revolutionary war massacred 96 Christian Lenape native Americans. The Lenape had been removed by British-allied native Americans and placed in a new village called Captive Town with insufficient rations. So some of them returned to their old village to collect food and crops they had been forced to abandon, until one day a unit of Pennsylvania militia rode in. They falsely accused the Lenape of undertaking raids in Pennsylvania, ignored their denials and voted to kill them. After learning of the decision, the Lenape spent the night praying and singing Christian hymns. On the morning of 8 March, the militia tied up each native American, hit them in the head with a mallet and killed them by scalping. They murdered 39 children, 29 women and 28 men. Then they stole all of their belongings and burned their village to the ground, leaving their bodies in a pile. Two boys managed to survive, despite one of them being scalped, and lived to tell people about what happened. No criminal charges were filed against the killers. https://ift.tt/2EJpEUg