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CHAPTER 3

The First Frontier Crisis

The spring thaw did not come quickly enough. Soon after Thomas Wright’s murder, rumors of Indian war began circulating. Animosity between Indians and colonists turned deadly in the spring of 1728 when a confluence of events made war appear imminent. As officials tried to avoid the colony’s first conflict, they had to either confront the issue of expansion that the founders of the government had ignored—or face the potentially deadly consequences.

The most dangerous threat to stability during the crisis was the belief held by some colonists that Pennsylvania had “frontiers,” a new development on the geopolitical landscape of the colony. These “frontier inhabitants,” as they called themselves, petitioned their government for the support they believed they deserved. At the height of this uncertainty, groups of colonists who feared an imminent invasion formed unofficial militias to provide protection and launch raids on Indian groups. The ad hoc mobilizations eventually resulted in several clashes between Indians and colonists and caused the death of several Indians. The government, primarily through proprietary offices, adapted and averted war by using the levers of the state that the Frame of 1701 left to the proprietor to reestablish order on these “frontiers.”

After the crisis passed, proprietary officials realized that they needed a stronger presence in regions of new colonial settlement. They thus devised a means to solve the problems they encountered in 1728: new counties. Through this legal entity, they could maintain order while also providing a renewed sense of security to colonists living far from the colonial capital. Justices of the peace, sheriffs, and courts could be used to implement state policy and prevent such crises from happening again. The frontier crisis of 1728 thus exposed the problems of the Frame of 1701, and proprietary officials solved the problem through an ad hoc means of colony building that would guide expansion until the American Revolution.

Figure 5. Sites of Pennsylvania’s first frontier crisis, 1728. In May 1728, a group of colonists calling themselves “frontier inhabitants” because they feared an Indian invasion clashed with a group of Native American warriors near modern-day Pottstown. The violence created a crisis that obliged the governor to travel there to assert his authority over the organizers. He then traveled to Conestoga to reassure Native Americans and colonists in the region that the colony remained committed to peace. The government also took a step to address the problems western areas posed to stability: they created a new county, Lancaster, which could help the government maintain order in new settlements near the Susquehanna.

“The Frontier Inhabitants of Pennsylvania”

The frontier crisis began on April 18, 1728, when James LeTort, a Frenchman who renounced his national allegiance to become one of Pennsylvania’s most prominent traders, arrived in Philadelphia carrying dire news. According to LeTort’s sources, Pennsylvania was about to suffer an invasion on a scale unknown in British North America. His story was convoluted. It involved the French-allied Miamis residing near Lake Erie combining with the Delawares and Five Nations living in Pennsylvania and New York to launch a joint invasion of Pennsylvania and New York. If he was right, Pennsylvania was about to develop frontiers for the first time in its history.¹

LeTort’s information was so explosive that he soon found himself testifying before the Provincial Council. The council responded coolly to Le-Tort’s concern. They too had sources of information, and none indicated trouble. But LeTort’s report did remind the council that a treaty between the government and allied Indians was long overdue. “In the mean time,” the council advised the governor, “the present circumstances of our affairs with the Indians rendered it necessary, that these people should be taken notice of and visited by the Governor.” The governor agreed and promised that he would “undertake the journey, whenever he can be informed … that the Indians were returned from hunting, for he understood there was scarce any Indians at present at or about Conestogoe.” Lest anyone accuse him of delaying, he made clear to the council that “nothing should be wanting on his part to establish and confirm the good understanding that had hitherto subsisted between this government and these people.”²

Meanwhile, on May 3, a couple of weeks after LeTort’s visit, John Wright, the same justice of the peace who handled the Thomas Wright murder the previous fall, sent the governor more troubling news. War between the Conestogas and Shawnees, two Native American groups allied with the colony, was imminent. A few days before, two Shawnees had murdered a Conestoga man and woman. The enraged Conestogas demanded the Shawnees turn over the accused. The Shawnees acceded, but the prisoners managed to escape. The Conestogas responded by organizing a party of young men “painted for warr, all armed.” Wright ended his report with a plea: “The Governor’s pressence pritty speedily is absolutely necessary at Constogo to settle affares amongst the Indians.”³

Soon colonists living near these warring Indians banded together, fearing that the Indians were preparing an assault on their homes. These colonists also reconsidered their position within the polity and saw something new appear on their landscape: a “frontier.” In a desperate plea sent to the governor on April 29, a petition bearing the signature of over eighty men whose English and German last names reflected the growing diversity of the colony declared that they were “the frontier inhabitants of Pennsylvania.” “Alarmed by a nois of the Indians,” they wrote, “women in childbed” were fleeing their homes, and “several families have left their plantations with what effects they could possibly carry.” The few remaining men who chose to stay asked Gordon to act so that they “may be freed from these alarms, for yet we are informed that the Indians are consulting measures against us.” As the “frontier inhabitants” stated, they felt crushing “fears” and imminent “danger.” They believed their homes now formed a frontier because Indians were planning an invasion, and, as “frontier inhabitants,” they expected their government to put them at ease—to “be freed from these alarms.” As their words indicated, this crisis struck at the fundamental obligation a government owed to its loyal subjects.⁴

The appearance of a frontier in Pennsylvania threatened to bring the colony’s experiment with peace to an end. In official records up to 1728, Pennsylvanian officials most often spoke of “frontiers” to describe other British colonies, such as New York, that faced potential invasions from France or Native Americans. The only document comparable to the 1728 petition was an earlier 1701 petition from the Lower Counties (today Delaware) to the proprietor when settlers there feared a seaborne invasion by the French during Queen Anne’s War. The 1701 petitioners drew upon the language of frontier prevalent in the Atlantic world by describing their position as the “weak and naked … frontiers … and dayly threatened with an approaching war.” Their fears proved unfounded, and no other petitions from frontier inhabitants were tendered until twenty-seven years later. In 1728, the petition submitted to the governor showed that the conception of a frontier as a zone of invasion remained, as did the language of vulnerability and desperation. But in marked contrast to the 1701 petitioners, the 1728 petitioners feared an Indian invasion from the west at a time when neither the colony nor the empire was at war.⁵

As the 1728 petition made clear and as the future would later bear out, frontiers caused colonists who lived in such regions to feel a series of emotions: fear, a desire for the government’s protection, and an expectation that leading individuals—often a general, governor, or prominent community member—would serve as their guardian. But acting like a “frontier government,” as Penn had dubbed New York in 1701, posed a problem for Gordon and other officials in 1728. The petition Gordon received that spring meant that the government had to do something, but it was unclear what. Governments had a duty to defend frontier areas because security was a government’s responsibility to its members. In Pennsylvania, this obligation fell to the proprietorship. To ignore the plea of these colonists might weaken proprietary authority in the minds of the “frontier inhabitants” who looked to him for the support he promised. Worse, the government’s failure to act might force these colonists to take matters into their own hands. Gordon’s task was to calm the fears without escalating tensions and possibly leading the colony into a war of its own making.

Taken together, Gordon and his council realized that the letter from Wright and the petition from the frontier inhabitants meant something serious was afoot in the western areas of the province. They reacted to the growing uncertainty by speeding up the schedule for a long overdue treaty with the Indian groups on the Susquehanna. The council remained confident that the governor could use the meeting to reconcile the Conestogas and Shawnees.

Events, however, interceded and forced Gordon to act sooner than planned. On the morning of May 10, just a few days after receiving Wright’s missive and the petition, Gordon received an emergency express from Mahanatawny, a small town in western Philadelphia County that housed one of the colony’s early iron works. The contents of the message changed everything. “A party of foreign Indians were fallen in amongst our Inhabitants in these parts,” it said. A group of about twenty colonists had responded by forming a militia to defend the settlement. A skirmish ensued. One Pennsylvanian was dead; the colonists may have killed the Indian captain, “a Spanish Indian” they called him; the colonists expected more violence soon; they needed the governor.⁶

Gordon raced to the site to investigate and prevent further hostilities. When he arrived later that afternoon, he knew that he had entered a frontier zone. “The country,” he reported, “[was] in very great disorder.” A new group of petitioners greeted him, this one from Colebrookdale. “We have suffered and is like to suffer by the ingians,” the seventy-eight signers told Gordon. Evoking the language of the previous petition, they said they were “your poor afflicted people” with “poor wives and children” who daily felt the threat of invasion. Gordon talked to many others who were “under great apprehensions” that “numbers of Indians [were] coming to attack them.” He discovered a group of German settlers who had turned a mill in New Hanover into a makeshift fort, while others congregated at homes “in order to defend themselves.” Some were, Gordon later recounted, “so incensed, that they seemed determined to kill any Indian they could find.” This was a war zone in which people expected an attack any moment, and they looked to their governor to protect them from it.⁷

Gordon remained above the fray. He looked into the causes of the skirmish by conducting a series of interviews to separate fact from fiction. His investigation revealed that the attack was not as violent nor as large as first reported. The supposedly large group of Indians marauding about the settlements turned out to number only eleven. The colonists, uncertain of what the Indians were up to, created a militia to approach these strangers. As the colonial delegation neared the Indians, someone opened fire. The colonists told Gordon the Indians shot first; he had his suspicions. In any case, both sides fired. The Indians fled. The “Spanish Indian” reportedly killed in action likely survived unscathed. Gordon found that the colonist who was supposedly killed instead “appeared only to be slightly wounded in the belly.” Privately, Gordon admitted that “he could not help thinking that our people had given some provocation.”⁸

Gordon’s hunch was right. In time, it would become apparent that the invading Indians were Shawnees, a group allied with the colony. Conflict always seemed to follow the Shawnees. At the moment, they were at odds with both the Conestogas and another group called the Flatheads who were from the Ohio River Valley. Prepared to do battle with one or the other, the Shawnees were indeed dressed for war when they encountered the ad hoc Pennsylvania militia. But their intended targets were other Natives, not the European newcomers.⁹

Such nuance was lost amid the fear of self-described “frontier inhabitants,” however. As new arrivals to the new world who were fueled by rumors and stories about Indians who lived beyond in “the woods,” they tended to think of all Native Americans as the same—as “Ingians,” as the Colebrookdale petition put it. They viewed the warlike maneuvers of the Shawnees in the darkest possible light and grew certain that this initial foray portended future invasions.¹⁰

Gordon found himself in a quandary. The frontier settlers were no idle threat to his government. By taking on war-making powers, they challenged his fundamental powers as captain-general and undermined the authority of government. Gordon had to assert governmental control by quelling such independent military actions. Failure to do so would mean the colony lacked a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, the fundamental claim to legitimacy upon which all governments rest. Conversely, he also had to quell the fears of these “frontier inhabitants” who looked to him for aid. Gordon’s quandary was made all the more difficult because he oversaw a colony that had virtually no military history or culture. Gordon recognized the easy combustibility of the situation and used his authority to “quiet the country.” He told settlers to cool their anti-Indian sentiment by warning them that “any rash act might be attended with fatal consequences.” The governor’s very presence likely calmed concerns too, but the promise of powder and lead in the event of an attack probably had the greatest effect.¹¹

By the evening of May 11, Gordon felt satisfied that he had successfully defused the situation. But as he began to pack to return to Philadelphia, another express arrived, this one from Samuel Nutt, a local justice of the peace, that forced Gordon to cancel his journey.¹²

“Arms and Ammunition …in Order to Defend Our Fronteers”

As the governor was making his rounds in Mahanatawny, Walter Winter, a Welsh farmer living in the small village of Cucussea in Chester County, was making his own rounds. Along the way, he ran into a German settler who was abuzz with news. He told Winter that Indians had just killed “sundry Dutchmen.” Winter, fearful for his and his family’s safety, raced through his neighborhood spreading the news and calling for people to collect at his house “to defend themselves against the Indians.” As he “was making fast the windows, in case any attempt should be made upon them,” the son of his neighbor John Roberts approached with more desperate news. An Indian “with a bow and a great number of arrows” was stationed outside his father’s house, poised to attack. The boy asked Winter for help. Winter grabbed his gun, loaded it with a bullet and swan shot, and enlisted his brother John and father-in-law, Morgan Herbert.¹³

As the crew ran over a small bridge that led to Roberts’s house, they “saw an Indian man, some women, and some girls sitting on a wood pile.” They also saw John Roberts standing in his doorway with a rifle cocked on his shoulder. As Walter, who was leading the charge, came within twenty-five yards, the Indian man stood and, Winter later swore, put an arrow “to the string of the bow.” Winter raised his rifle and pulled the trigger, releasing the bullet and swan shot. The shot sprayed the man’s chest, throwing him on his back. Walter then commanded the others to shoot.¹⁴

Chaos ensued. Following Walter’s lead, John Winter fired, hitting one of the women. The two young girls bolted, seeking safety in the woods. Walter and John ran to the woodpile. While John, in the words of his brother, “knocked another of the Indian woman’s brains out” with the butt of his gun, Walter grabbed the bow and arrow and pursued the children. He shot at one and, although the record is not clear, appears to have struck and injured her. John pursued the girls too and caught the other one, beat her with his gun, and left her for dead in the woods. As Walter returned to Roberts’s house with his captive in tow, he saw the Indian man “staggering” into a nearby swamp. The other Indian woman, who had apparently survived the initial assault, now had an axe wound in her head, a deathblow dealt by John Roberts.¹⁵

The next day the Winter brothers, Morgan Herbert, and “sundry others” ventured to the Indians’ cabin nearby, a sign that these settlers were familiar with, perhaps even knew, their victims. There they found the girl John had left in the woods. She was alone in her family’s home, frightened, and “much hurt about the head and face.” They sent her to Walter Winter’s house to join her sister. The crew then returned to the scene of the carnage. After burying the two dead women in a shallow grave, they brought their two young prisoners to George Boone, a mill owner and the local justice of the peace. They expected he would applaud their actions. They even hoped that the justice of the peace would reward them for their war prizes. Shocked at what he heard and saw, Boone took custody of the girls for their protection. He apparently let the Winters go, however, likely because he did not have the proper warrants to arrest them. He did rush out dispatches to the other justices of the peace to warn them that there could be retaliatory attacks. One of these justices, Samuel Nutt, sent an express to Patrick Gordon that alerted him to the murders and asked him to delay his return to Philadelphia.¹⁶

Fear turned into outright panic as word of the murder spread throughout the communities. Most expected “the Indians will fall down upon us very suddenly,” causing all but twenty men to flee the area around Boone’s district. Boone stayed, however, and with the twenty remaining turned his mill into a fort. Stocked with a thousand bushels of wheat and flour, they “resolved to defend ourselves to the last extremity.” Boone, writing to Gordon the day after the murders, promised that they would “not quit our habitation if we can have any succor from you.” He asked the governor to send “arms and ammunition … in order to defend our fronteers” and, perhaps more important, “send some messengers to the Indians” in a last-ditch effort to prevent the expected invasion. Boone believed the situation desperate. Failure to defend these “fronteers,” these zones now vulnerable to a feared invasion, Boone added, would leave the colony “desolate and destroyed.”¹⁷

Boone’s reference to this territory becoming a “fronteer” revealed once again the significance of the word to colonists. Boone and others who lived on perceived “fronteers” began to imagine their place in the polity in a new way and, as a result, began to expect their government, especially the governor who was the captain-general of the colony, to provide them with “succor.” These demands only became stronger and more desperate as the perception of being on a frontier solidified.

Moreover, in 1728, these imagined frontiers had a profound effect on unifying settlers in this crisis zone out of a shared sense of danger. Many historians have treated the ethnically diverse population of Pennsylvania as segregated, divided along lines of ethnicity, religion, and custom. Certainly, there were ethnic and other antagonisms within Pennsylvania, but these enmities fueled few, if any, acts of violence. The shared fear of invasion that these “frontier inhabitants” felt, however, brought them together. The spark that sent the Welshman Walter Winter on his murderous rampage came when he heard from a German man that Indians had killed “sundry Dutchmen.” Gordon had witnessed this unity upon his arrival. The petition for help he received from the people of Colebrookdale had signatures of men from many different ethnicities, with none other than John Roberts’s name at the top. In times of crisis, the all-encompassing “Indians” formed a coherent enemy that helped mute whatever ethnic tensions may have existed in times of peace. Indeed, the ease with which information flowed throughout the settlements and the shared support that followed shows how colonists regularly forged crosscultural ties. The foundation of fear that cemented their bond also escalated tensions between colonists and Indians during the frontier crisis of 1728, ultimately ending with a small but powerful group of “frontier inhabitants” killing a group of Indians indiscriminately.¹⁸

“Might Lawfully Kill Any Indian Whom They Could Find”

Before the Winters’ attack, many worried the colony was on the brink of full-scale war. Now some believed war inevitable. It fell to Patrick Gordon to change that. Gordon, as the proprietor’s representative and the captain-general charged with military matters and Indian relations, had to hew a fine line. He understood the stakes. Like most others in the region, he feared that “this piece of barbarity might stirr up the Indians to revenge it on our inhabitants in these parts.” The solution, he knew, was for the government to play a forceful role in implementing its policies and establishing its authority. Success, Gordon hoped, would keep the peace. In order to do so, he would have to use all of the implied powers the governor had.¹⁹

First, as the chief magistrate, he issued a hue and cry instructing all sheriffs, coroners, constables, and others to search “with horse and with foot” for the Winter brothers. That same day, word came that the manhunt had already ended in Philadelphia County. Andrew Hamilton and Edward Farmer, both justices of the peace, had apprehended the Winter brothers and Morgan Herbert in western Philadelphia County.²⁰

Gordon and some justices of the peace interviewed the men, hoping to learn what had led them to murder. The Winters’ explanations revealed the dangerous logic used by people who believed they lived on a frontier, especially one formed against Native Americans. When the Winters defended their actions, they evoked the rules of war. They argued that after hearing of Indians murdering “some white men,” they felt that they “might lawfully kill any Indian whom they could find.” Indeed, they believed that they should have received a reward for their actions, as if they had captured an enemy. Officials showed no sympathy and confined the men. On May 15, Farmer and Hamilton sent the men under heavy guard to Chester County’s jail for trial. They also issued an arrest warrant for John Roberts.²¹

Gordon next shifted his role to chief diplomat and performed damage control with the colony’s Native allies. He ordered the coroner to dig up the bodies of the murdered Indians and give them “a decent burial.” He also provided the relatives of the slain with four valuable cloth blankets, called strouds, to lay upon the graves, in recognition of Indian custom, and gave strouds to the two surviving girls. He also found a resident willing to care for the girls’ wounds. These acts, he hoped, would show the respect the colony held for their Indian allies and their customs.²²

Gordon also took the proactive step of sending messages to leaders of important Native American groups “to acquaint them with this unhappy accident.” He explained to them that colonists had heard “some stories … that there were many hundreds” of Indians approaching who were intent on invasion. The news “raised an alarm” among settlers as word spread. “An accident” followed in which “four wicked white men killed a peaceable good Indian Man and two women.” Gordon assured them that this singular act of a few bad men did not reflect the sentiments of the colony, for the murders “raised a horror in me and all the good people about me.” He promised that those accused of the murder would “suffer in the same manner as if they had killed so many white people, for that we make no difference.” Gordon hoped his actions and words would demonstrate the colony’s true values to both Native Americans and colonists.²³

Gordon’s actions captured the contrast between the government’s policy toward Indians and the more hardened view held by the Winters and their many sympathizers in the west. As Pennsylvania expanded as a colony, as its relations with Indians became more complex, and as its population grew more dispersed and diverse, officials in charge of running the colony increasingly confronted the thorny issue of Native Americans’ legal status. They could easily make new immigrants subjects, but Indians were another matter. Since William Penn’s landing, colonial officials agreed that Native Americans were not subjects to the Crown nor were they Pennsylvanians, yet they also deserved the protection of government.

Solving this problem was fundamental to governing in colonial North America. Officials tasked with enforcing laws needed to determine who received the government’s protections. Pennsylvania had gone to great lengths to create naturalization codes to ensure that non-English immigrants from Europe would be loyal to the proprietor and Crown, in exchange for which they received the full rights and protections afforded British subjects. But Natives posed a different problem. William Penn had once imagined a judicial system with mixed juries in which Indians and colonists served as coequals. That never came to be, but the legislature had enacted codes that clarified the protections Indians could expect through the legal system.²⁴

The law for regulating Indian-colonial interactions that was passed in 1715, for instance, provided greater clarity on Indians’ legal rights and revealed how Pennsylvania legislators thought of their Native neighbors. Moreover, the beliefs distilled in this law represented the underlying assumptions that drove Gordon’s actions. The law left little doubt as to the legal protections afforded allied Indians. Within the bounds of Pennsylvania, they would receive the same rights as any colonist. Presaging the words Gordon used to assuage Native Americans in 1728, the earlier law stated that any personal assault against an Indian by a colonist would be prosecuted by Pennsylvania “as if the said offense was committed against any natural born subject of Great Britain.” Conversely, the governor’s council dealt with all cases in which settlers accused Indians of violence. In that way, Pennsylvania’s colonial government claimed absolute sovereignty over all Euro-Americans and offered its protection to Natives against these newcomers.²⁵

But the act created different means for punishing transgressions. Gone were the hopeful days of William Penn’s juries of both Indians and colonists. The Assembly realized that Indians might not have a fair trial if they had to face a jury of European settlers. Therefore, instead of integrating Indians within the traditional legal system of the colony, the law established an alternative legal framework to deal with colonists’ accusations against Indians: the Provincial Council would be the judge and jury. Giving the council, a proprietary institution, such power also reinforced its role in conducting diplomacy for the colony, since the trial of a Native person would undoubtedly affect Indian relations.²⁶

Historians have used acts such as this one as windows into the broader cultural values of a past society. Often historians treat laws that formalize differences between groups as institutionalizing power relationships in which a dominant group restricts rights and opportunities for the minority group. Sometimes historians see in these distinctions the roots of racism. In 1715, the Pennsylvania Assembly created one system that applied to Euro-Americans who committed violence against Indians and another that applied to Native Americans who committed violence against colonists. But the 1715 Pennsylvania statute was not meant to be restrictive. In fact, its intent was the opposite. Although its authors recognized that colonists were unlikely to be impartial judges of Indians, the Pennsylvania code and others like it hoped to address potential power imbalances by giving Indians certain rights and protecting them against the prejudices that regular colonists might hold against them. Even if this law captured a gloomy reality of everyday Indian–white relations, perhaps even tacitly acknowledging the racial antagonisms of common settlers, it also showed the government’s continued attempt to offer Indians the protection of the colonial government.²⁷

In the spring of 1728, however, war now seemed possible, if not imminent. Gordon hoped to maintain Pennsylvania’s tradition of peace, but he had to prepare for the potential for war as well. Before he left for Philadelphia, he used his powers as the captain-general to create a “commission” that would “gather the inhabitants together and put them in a posture of defence” after the murders in case of retaliation. By creating an official authority to oversee militias and defenses, Gordon hoped to take the power away from unofficial and unregulated volunteer militias that could inadvertently start war—that indeed may have just thrown the colony headlong into its first war—and place official authority in the hands of commissioners he knew and trusted.²⁸

“A Strong League and Chain of Friendship”

Gordon returned to Philadelphia on May 15. Upon his return, he decided to make clear the colony’s position toward its Indian neighbors and allies. Gordon had seen firsthand the virulence of anti-Indian feelings, and he used the power of proclamation to counter such sentiments and enforce Pennsylvania policy. In a series of decrees that were posted throughout communities and read to and by settlers, he reiterated Pennsylvania’s policy of peace with Natives with whom the colony had “a firm alliance and sincere friendship.” Gordon identified specific Indian groups as allies and explained Pennsylvania’s policy of friendship toward them. Settlers were told to treat “the Delawares, Conestogoes, Ganawese, Shawanese, Mingoes or those of the Five Nations, or any other coming and demeaning themselves peaceably amongst us … with the same civil regard they would an English subject.”²⁹

Proclamations would only go so far. Gordon also had to demonstrate Pennsylvania’s intentions to Indians and colonists. He began preparing a grand treaty ceremony—perhaps the largest the colony had held—on the banks of the Susquehanna. He wanted to meet with the Indians who seemed poised for war and to reaffirm Pennsylvania’s peaceful intentions, and he wanted to calm settlers whose nerves were on edge.³⁰

At that point, the Assembly got involved for the first time. They agreed that war was a real possibility and that a treaty was the most likely way to avoid it. After some minor squabbling, they gave Gordon £100 for diplomatic gifts. At that time, £100 was not a paltry sum: with this money the government was able to buy twenty-five coats, twenty blankets, twenty duffels, twenty-five shirts, one hundred pounds of gunpowder, two hundred pounds of lead, five hundred flints, fifty knives, and foodstuffs. Moreover, the materials the government intended to give the Indians—ammunition and arms—signaled the government’s view that these Indians were not threats. This singular act was the only role the Assembly played in the entire affair, evidence of both the small part this institution played in problems dealing with expansion and the prominent role proprietary institutions played in the lives of colonists and Indians alike.³¹

On May 26, the treaty ceremony began. The official records state that fifteen Indian delegates sat around the treaty fire with many more watching. Representatives came from the Conestogas, Delawares, Ganaweses (also Conoys or Piscataways), and Shawnees. The Indians and Pennsylvanians had three interpreters each because of the many different languages spoken. In addition to the large Indian presence, over two hundred settlers, many of whom feared war with these Indian groups, came to witness the treaty. The large attendance reflected the stakes.³²

All eyes were on Gordon. Recent events were surely on his mind as he spoke, and Gordon’s intended audience was as much the multitude of colonists around him as the Indians before him. He began his opening speech by evoking the memory of William Penn as a way to rekindle a common bond. Penn, he recounted, had entered into “a strong league and chain of friendship” that had made the two groups “as one people,” a common phrase used in these treaties to denote a close alliance. Gordon, as the governor appointed by Penn’s heirs, stood before the Indians at the treaty “in their stead.” His charge, he told his counterparts, was “to love all the Indians as their brethren.”³³

He then outlined the principles and protocols that held this alliance together. He recited nine rules, each representing a link in the chain of friendship. Indians and Pennsylvanians were to keep all paths clear and open between Indian territories and Pennsylvania, a literal and metaphoric statement that meant both groups should travel and trade freely and keep clear communication. Another stated that Pennsylvanians and Indians were to welcome one another into their homes and treat them “as their friends,” not enemies. Finally, he addressed the dangers rumors posed to this peace. Neither Indians nor colonists should believe rumors, he said. When stories of strife between the two sides spread, he advised that both colonists and Indians should seek out leaders for the truth before acting rashly. Then he apologized for the violence. “There are wicked people in all nations,” Gordon said, and he promised to try and execute the Winters for violating the foundation of trust that cemented this alliance.³⁴

The Indians reacted with enthusiasm. Tawenna, a Conestoga delegated to respond to Gordon’s speech, said that they “greatly rejoyced [in] their hearts that they have had no such speech made to them since the time that the great William Penn was amongst them, all was good and nothing was amiss.” Tawenna spoke from experience. He had heard William Penn speak at the 1701 treaty where the Conestoga formalized their alliance with Penn by giving Pennsylvania sole rights to lands on the banks of the Susquehanna in exchange for Pennsylvania’s promise to preserve a small plot for the Conestoga and to provide the Conestoga with protection from both European and rival Indian nations. Tawenna’s reference to Penn living among them also suggests that he was present when Penn made his celebratory visit to their town.³⁵

Since the time of this earlier treaty, Tawenna had seen the colony grow. He had seen the effects of colonists pushing further west and had witnessed the violence between Indians and colonists engendered by this expansion. But he was hopeful that the foundation of peace laid by that earlier treaty was still firm. The two groups were, he said, evoking Penn’s principles, truly “one people … one body and one heart.” He then told Gordon not to “grieve too much” over the Winters’ murder of the Delaware because they recognized it as “rash inconsiderate actions” of individuals behaving independent of the colony. Tawenna then addressed the murder of Thomas Wright, the colonist killed by Indians in a drunken melee the previous fall and an issue Gordon had raised in the course of his speech to show that both sides were not without guilt. Tawenna explained that the guilty Indians belonged to “the Menysincks [Delawares], who are of another nation, and therefore they can say nothing to it.” In so doing, Tawenna laid out the expectations Indians had for dealing with such intercultural violence. Indian groups expected to be treated as distinct groups, not an amalgamated whole. Gordon recognized this distinction in his response, noting “that since the Indian, who killed the Englishman … is not of their nation, he would demand Justice from that Nation to which he belonged.”³⁶

The discussion of Wright and the Winters exposed the unclear and yet pragmatic legal status of Indians in Pennsylvania. On a practical level, Indians’ legal status was never entirely coherent nor was it ever explicitly explained. Indians and colonial officials had come to a mutual understanding through ad hoc mediations and diplomacy. What was clear was that Indians as individuals within Pennsylvania had some legal rights, but Indians were not entitled to the same legal system as colonists because they were not British subjects and there was no naturalization path for them (nor, of course, did they seek such a path). As Gordon noted in his reply to Tawenna, the government recognized that individual Indians belonged to specific groups—in Gordon’s word, “nations”—and that while these groups might be held liable for the actions of their members, they should not be expected to police other Indian “nations.” Individual Indians were thus clearly not members of the colony, but they were affiliated with it. Indeed, keeping Indians separate from the colony was important for Pennsylvania’s expansionist aims. By recognizing Indian groups as separate polities that collectively owned the land, the proprietors could legally secure their title in the eyes of the British Empire.

Perhaps the best way to summarize how Pennsylvania treated Indians as both individuals and groups was that they were in but not of Pennsylvania and the British Empire. Pennsylvania did not claim to exert its authority over Indian-on-Indian violence or relations between Indian groups (though it certainly had an interest in and influence over both). The authority of the colonial government, instead, extended only to violence between colonists and Indians, and especially to violence that happened within areas that were part of the established jurisdiction of the colony and not “the woods”—a term that often meant areas of crosscultural interaction beyond official colonial settlement. Thus, all colonists were squarely under the dominion of their colony no matter where they roamed, but Indians only fell under Pennsylvania’s jurisdiction when it came to contact involving colonists. Such a status comported with Indians’ views in which they wanted to be independent of Pennsylvania but allied to it, as their preference for diplomacy over legal trials suggested. Indians’ status may not have been clear, but its ambiguity during these years was effective in practice nonetheless.³⁷

After the governor received the Indians’ message, some of his advisers pulled him aside. They noted that many of the colonists who had assembled to watch the proceedings were those who lived closest to Indian groups and most feared an Indian war. They told Gordon to “press the Indians to declare to him if they suffered any grievances or hardship from this government, because several reports had been industriously spread abroad as if they had some just cause of complaints.” Gordon followed their advice. The Indians responded: “They had no cause of complaint, that William Penn and his people had still treated them well, and they had no uneasiness.” Their direct statement eased the anxiety of the populace by rejecting the rumors that circulated.³⁸

The treaty was a smashing success. The colony rejoiced from the banks of the Susquehanna to the shores of the Delaware. Word of the speeches reached Philadelphia before Gordon did, and Philadelphians cheered what they heard. When Gordon approached the city, a large crowd awaited him. The American Weekly boasted that the welcoming “cavalcade” was “a far greater number than has ever been known to meet together on such an occasion at any time before in this province.” Gordon’s reception in Philadelphia shows the public’s widespread awareness that the colony’s distinctive history of peace was threatened by this frontier crisis. The treaty preserved Pennsylvania’s tradition.³⁹

The reception in Indian Country mirrored that of colonial society. Leaders of allied Indian groups who were unable to attend the treaty sent messages of support after hearing the speeches. One did add a hint of concern to his otherwise supportive words, noting that he hoped “the back inhabitants may be cautioned not to be so ready to attack the Indians as they were at that time.” It was a subtle critique of the government as much as it was of the people. The Indians expected Pennsylvania’s government to better enforce its authority within its own populace.⁴⁰

With the crisis averted, proprietary officials resolved to improve their ability to maintain order. The rumors of Indian war showed the power of the spoken word, and officeholders used the institutions at their disposal to combat the uncertainty fueled by loose talk. The lessons of the crisis continued to reverberate at a Court of Quarter Sessions held in Philadelphia a couple of weeks after the murders. The judges took advantage of the opportunity to tell the jurors who had come from all over to disseminate the government’s message. Before adjourning, the court noted that “it is true something has happened which raised the notice and concern not only of the government but of every good man; but it is really surprising to hear of the many, idle groundless and lying stories which have been bruited and thrown out to alarm and disturb the people, some of which have risen from ignorance and fear.” The jurors were then instructed that as they “dispersed in several parts of the country, you may as occasion offers in all conversations endeavor to quiet the minds of the people.” They ended their instruction with a striking observation: “The truth is, that the Indians are more calm and prudent than some of our people.”⁴¹

Proprietary officials did more than just offer proclamations and apologies. They also acted on the colony’s promise of justice. If Pennsylvania was to assert its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, it needed to punish the murderers who challenged this monopoly. The Winters were tried in court in June. The trial was, in effect, a contest between official policy toward Indians and the powerful anti-Indian sentiment of colonists beyond Philadelphia. The jurors in Chester County, likely composed of Quaker settlers who still dominated its eastern parts, found the accused guilty on June 19. On July 3, the brothers were hung (Morgan Herbert was given a reprieve), a clear symbol that Pennsylvania’s government still abided by William Penn’s promise. The council even set the execution date at a time convenient for Indians so they could witness justice being served. This execution was the first in four years, and another would not happen for three more; it was so significant that two newspapers in Boston reported on it.⁴²

As the murderous events of 1728 made clear, expansion posed a threat to peace with friendly Indians and to the colony itself, in large part because interactions between colonists and Indians could quickly turn violent. New towns in western regions turned into “frontiers,” and the existence of such frontiers posed challenges to both the colonial government and to the overarching ideological foundation of the colony. The emergence of these frontiers in the geopolitical imagination of western colonists forced government officials to act by strengthening the government’s claims of sovereignty and power over its people. All totaled, Gordon’s invitation for settlers to witness the treaty, the creation of commissions for defense, the proclamations, the court orders, and the final execution of the Winter brothers represented a colonial government establishing itself by asserting its authority in newly settled and distant regions. Notably, nearly all of these actions came from proprietary officials or through institutions the proprietor controlled.

“Bringing Those Who Too Frequently Fly Thither for Refuge, Under the Same Subjection to the Laws with the Rest of His Majesty’s Subjects”

Although officials were able to ease tensions in 1728, colonists continued to push west, beyond the traditional center of Philadelphia and the three original counties. Squatters and runaway servants began crossing the Susquehanna River, raising the ire of Native groups who objected to their presence. Reports of violence and disorder became commonplace.⁴³

Officials realized that they needed to adapt further to deal with this new growth. County creation became the logical outcome. As the colony expanded, so too should its government. A county centralized government authority in areas of recent colonial settlement by extending legal institutions to enforce laws and restrain settlers. Officials also hoped the county would have a positive influence on colonial development by creating a series of administrative offices that would better serve the needs of colonists.

The founding of Lancaster County in 1729 established a general protocol for the future. First, colonists in the underserved area sent a request for a new county. In this case, prominent and well-connected settlers James Wright, the justice at the center of the Wright murder in 1727, and Samuel Blunston organized a petition asking for greater government because of their desperate situation. The signers made clear that they expected a new county would help institute what this region so desperately needed: order. To that end, they promised to build a courthouse to enforce the law. Gordon concurred that such a division would “greatly conduce not only … the peace, good Order, and Ease of those Inhabitants in particular, but also to the Security of the whole Government, by bringing those who too frequently fly thither for Refuge, under the same Subjection to the Laws with the rest of his Majesty’s Subjects.”⁴⁴

Lancaster County may have solved the problem settlers in the western region faced, but it also exposed a fundamental problem of the Frame of 1701. The earlier frames of government, especially Penn’s first Frame, described a means for political expansion to occur. In the earlier Frame, the Provincial Council, the elected upper house, controlled the development of new land. Representation also shifted in the original Frame as populations changed, a process Penn devised to ensure that no area amassed too much political power. The Frame of 1701, however, left all of these issues unaddressed. In the final version, the Provincial Council as an independent legislative unit was abolished, and representation in the Assembly referred only to the original counties, with each of these receiving the same number regardless of population.

Gordon recognized that the proprietary power implied in the Frame of 1701 made him responsible for managing expansion. In an address to the Assembly, he made clear that the authority to create a county was “wholly vested in the Proprietary” because it had to do with legal institutions. Nonetheless, he sought the approval of the Assembly because the new county would have representatives in that body. In a moment of accord between these two rival institutions, the legislature supported the new county, agreeing that it would provide more order.⁴⁵

But the Assembly faced a dilemma. The Frame of 1701 did not outline a process for expanding its membership. With the addition of a new county in 1729, the Assembly had to determine how many members the new unit would send. Rather than grant them the same eight members that the original and more populous counties sent, the Assembly granted the county half of that. The reasons for this decision are not entirely clear, although there are a number of possible explanations. The Assembly was protective of its authority and membership, and the representatives from Lancaster could upset the status quo. Moreover, Lancaster County was needed because its residents appeared unruly, and so the Assembly may have been concerned that these people’s representatives would prove similarly destabilizing. Finally, there were far fewer colonists than in the original counties, which made some sort of proportional allocation sensible.

The success of this expanded arm of the colonial government became apparent soon after its establishment. At about the same time the county was created, Captain Civility, the chief of the Conestogas, alerted the governor to an illegal settlement by Edward Parnel “and several other familys who were settled on the west side of the [Susquehanna] river.” Pennsylvania officials with stronger tools at their disposal acted just as decisively in honoring their treaty promises as they had in prosecuting the Winter brothers. Gordon vacated Parnel’s group “by Governor’s Order” and used the levers of the law to make sure his decree was enforced, sending out officials from Lancaster to torch their buildings. Officials also promised Civility that “no person should settle on that side of the river without our consent.” As one nineteenth-century historian remarked with surprise, “It is difficult to believe that as late as 1731 what was called an official map was published fixing the river Susquehanna as the extreme and western boundary of the province of Pennsylvania.” The Conestogas were not the only Natives who expressed concern with expanding settlements. The Shawnees also expressed displeasure with the new western settlements. To help allay such discontent, the government moved to “dispossess all persons settled on that side of the [Susquehanna] river” so “that those woods may remain free to the Indians.” Gordon used the offices of the new county to implement these orders and, in the process, helped restrain colonial settlement, while also reinforcing the centrality of proprietary authority.⁴⁶

While the county proved effective in curtailing unlawful expansion, in 1730, the institution faced a test reminiscent of the Winters’ murders. In the heat of late August 1730, word came to Joshua Lowe, the coroner for Lancaster County, that colonists had discovered three badly decomposed bodies near a small creek. Evidence suggested murder. Lowe went out to inspect. Though the bodies were hard to identify, he could tell that the dead were Indians who had had their skulls crushed. Lowe also knew that if colonists had killed these three people, then the tensions between Native and colonial society created by such an act could easily rekindle the fears of 1728.

Lowe decided to follow the terms of the alliance that Gordon outlined in his treaty speech. He alerted the Conestoga and Conoy Indians, the two groups who lived in the area, to the discovery and asked for help in investigating. They accepted. Lowe then convened a formal inquisition composed of colonists and Indians, a move that harkened back to Penn’s original vision of joint juries working together to maintain peace and cultivate mutual understanding. The jury quickly decided death by murder but concluded that the bodies were too far decomposed to say more than that. More important, they all agreed that Pennsylvanians bore no blame for the deaths.⁴⁷

Lowe knew there was more to this story, though he did not let his knowledge interfere with the official inquest. In a private letter to Gordon, he said that the dead Indians were likely a Delaware family and that the murderer was suspected to be the jealous husband of one of the Indian women. Lowe noted that since the crime involved an Indian killing another Indian, the colonial government had no responsibility to act. Lowe’s statement shows that the understanding of Indians’ legal status in the colony that had developed over time and through precedent had made its way down to the most local of officials. Through actions like Lowe’s, officials stationed far away from colonial capitals and even farther from the imperial center in England began to expand and assert colonial authority over new ground. While diplomats and political leaders could negotiate treaties, it was here, in areas of new settlement, that the colony was being created through the actions of local officials like Lowe who were implementing and enforcing policies and, in the process, establishing a functional government.⁴⁸

After the handling of the murders in 1730, Pennsylvania’s relations with Indians stood on solid ground. Later that year, Captain Civility hinted at the successful settlement of the 1728 crisis in a letter he sent to Gordon. He noted that the Conestogas had followed the spirit of Gordon’s 1728 speech—that “wee should not hurt any of your people”—and he thanked Gordon for doing the same by removing the squatters. But Civility’s letter also contained a worrisome subtext. Pennsylvanians—including some of the county officials who had promised Civility that they would stop encroachments—continued to secretly survey lands on the west side of the Susquehanna. New settlers from Maryland also began to appear, claiming that the land was their property and not Pennsylvania’s. The reemergence of this colonial rivalry in the wake of the frontier crisis of 1728 posed novel challenges to Pennsylvania’s colonial government as it tried to maintain an ordered and peaceful expansion while also trying to fend off an aggressive neighbor.⁴⁹