This is a sad article regarding the peace witness of the
Moravian Church, the Protestant body originally descended from the Hussites.
As of late I've been revisiting the history of the Moravians
and a good deal of Colonial and early American history in the Great Lakes
region. I can certainly recommend a couple of books that are a good place to
start:
Peaceable Kingdom Lost:
The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment by Kevin Kenny
and
The Scratch of a Pen:
1763 and the Transformation of North America by CG Galloway
as well as the following link:
John Yoder also deals extensively with the nature of Quaker
Pennsylvania's collapse in Christian
Attitudes to War, Peace, and Revolution.
There has been much discussion in Northwestern Pennsylvania
as of late regarding Brodhead's 1779 Expedition during the American Revolution.
Brodhead headed one of several prongs dispatched by Washington to eliminate the
Iroquois and punish them for remaining loyal to the British Crown.
Brodhead made his way up the Allegheny River and eliminated
what was left of the Indian villages along its shores. There was a small
skirmish at or near a place called Thompson's Island in Warren County
Pennsylvania, believed to be the only 'battle' of the Revolutionary War in
northwestern Pennsylvania. The area had already seen action during the French
and Indian War (Seven Years War) and the subsequent Pontiac's Rebellion.
Washington traversed the area and there were certainly some dramatic scenes,
particularly at places like Fort Venango, today's Franklin, Pennsylvania. The
fort and its commander were burned in 1763.
Brodhead continued up the Allegheny into New York, driving
the Seneca to join up with other Iroquois refugees at Fort Niagara. A few years
after the war ended they made peace with Washington and some were resettled on
the NY-PA border where some still live today. Later these lands were flooded by
the construction of the Kinzua Dam, made famous by the Johnny Cash song 'As
Long as the Grass Shall Grow'.
South of the Kinzua Dam and the site of the Thompson's Island
battle were the remnants of 'Refugee Towns', settlements of Lenape, Shawnee,
Mingo and other Indians that had been forced out of lands to the east. They had
settled in the 1750's near Tionesta Pennsylvania in Forest County. It was here
they encountered the Moravians in the person of David Zeisberger who arrived
the following decade.
Zeisberger is memorialized by PA Route 666 being named after
him. Sadly the locals have no idea who Zeisberger is and the term Moravian is
all but unknown. However the beautiful and somewhat wild and mysterious forest
road is an object of fascination due to its numeric identification. The highway
signs are frequently stolen and no doubt adorn many a teenager's wall. There is
a great deal of superstition regarding the road despite its being named after a
Protestant missionary.
Zeisberger preached to the Indians in the area and there's a
well known painting of him preaching at a place called Goschgoschink believed
to be a village today known as West Hickory, Pennsylvania. It was here he had a
confrontation with a medicine man who was later converted.
From there Zeisberger led some of these converted Indians
into Ohio and settled at a place called Gnadenhutten. They departed
Pennsylvania in the years just before the American Revolution broke out. By the
time Brodhead marched up the Allegheny in 1779 the Moravian mission and refugee
towns were abandoned.
There was a previous locale by the name of Gnadenhutten in
Eastern Pennsylvania, the site of a massacre during the French and Indian War.
In that instance Christian Indians and Moravian missionaries were killed by
other French allied Indians. It's sad to see how the European Imperial powers
manipulated the Indians to massacre each other. While it's true they certainly
warred prior to European colonialisation it cannot be doubted the extension of
European politics into North America exacerbated the bloodshed.
Sadly, the newer Gnadenhutten in Ohio would be the site of a
second massacre, this one occurring in 1782. This was at the hands of a
Pennsylvania militia largely comprised of Ulster-Scot Presbyterians and was
related to a second punitive Brodhead expedition, this time into Ohio. The
Moravians were known to peaceable and apart from the Quakers were the only
Christian group respected by the Indians, a tremendous testimony to be sure. Brodhead
urged the settlers to leave the Moravians and their Indian converts alone, but
the settlers were out for blood and many saints died at their hands.
Consequently many Lenape Indians (who were not converted)
waged a campaign of retaliation, famously executing Colonel William Crawford
who had led another expedition into Ohio to punish the Indians.
It's a sad story and all but forgotten. Even today I find
many historians struggling to understand and contextualize the Moravians vis-à-vis
the other Christian groups along the frontier.
The Moravians declined and today they have degenerated into
theological liberalism. If I'm in Eastern Pennsylvania I am sure to swing
through Bethlehem and Ephrata but sometimes I am more likely to 'feel' the
Moravian presence standing on the banks of the Allegheny. I'm reminded of their
tremendous missionary legacy. Hiking through the woods of the region it's hard
not to think of men like David Zeisberger going about God's work, transcending
the angst and troubles of the day.
They've largely lost their witness though at one time they
certainly impacted the world in their way. Far more orthodox than the Quakers I
cannot help but feel a certain affinity for them. Zeisberger straddled an
interesting world and it drives me to wonder about some of my own ancestors who
were Germans of Bohemia and Silesia that fled to the Rhineland in the late 17th
century. I'm guessing they abandoned the wastelands of the Thirty Years War.
Some of these same folk became Palatinate Germans who sailed to America in
1708-09 and settled in New York. Many were of Pietist background and would have
felt a certain affinity with the Moravians. They were cut from the same cloth
and from the same part of Central Europe.
It is a world all but forgotten, memorialized only by books
that few read and historical markers along roads that are all but ignored.