How A Graphic Novel Resurrected A Forgotten Chapter In American History

[TomSea]

How A Graphic Novel Resurrected A Forgotten Chapter In American History
February 26, 20206:11 AM ET
Jess Kung


Conestoga Indians walk into the woods.
Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia

Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, a new graphic novel and art exhibit, depicts a gruesome, footnoted event in American history — the Conestoga Massacre. The massacre was an act of brutality that killed an entire community of Native people and almost erased their voices from history. Ghost River hopes to give that voice back, reenvisioning the events through the eyes of Native people. ( The comic is available to read online.  A free exhibit featuring art from the book is running   at the Library Company of Philadelphia until April.)

The Conestoga Massacre took place in Pennsylvania in December of 1763, when a band of about 50 white settlers rode 40 miles from Paxton Township to </a href="https://librarycompany.org/research/exhibits/">  Conestoga Indian Town, (at the time, made up of 20 people).[/url]  The white settlers, later dubbed the Paxton Boys,   killed and mutilated six Conestoga in their homes, and then did the same for the remaining 14, who were sheltering in a workhouse nearby. In the course of an afternoon, Conestoga Indian Town was no more.


The Paxtons, who are intentionally drawn as faceless shadows, attack Conestoga Indiantown.
Weshoyot Alvitre/Library Company of Philadelphia

In addition to wiping out the Conestoga, the massacre ignited long-simmering tensions between Scots-Irish frontiersmen, which included the Paxton Boys, and the Quaker elite, who were perceived to be running the Pennsylvania government. People in the frontier believed that the Quakers gave resources to Native people at the expense of white settlers.    Over the course of the next few weeks, those tensions escalated, and in early 1764, white frontiersmen numbering in the hundreds marched east toward Philadelphia with the thinly masked intention of wiping out even more Native people.

But before they arrived in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin was able to deescalate the mob.....

See article at: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/02/26/806124981/how-a-graphic-novel-resurrected-a-forgotten-chapter-in-american-history?utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com

Again, one may read this online:  https://read.ghostriver.org/

The Quakers appeared to treat the Native Americans well.  Horrible story.

[truth_seeker]

My ancestor George Ricard was killed (with his brother Maturin) in 1706 by indians in Maine.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ricker-330

"On 4 Jun 1706, Maturin Sr. and his brother George died in an Indian raid. The editor of an article in NEH&GR, [Ricker, 1851] quotes from the Rev. John Pike's Journal, printed in the Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society, volume third: "June 4th, 1706, George Ricker, and Meturin Ricker, of Cochecho were slain by the Indians. George was killed running up the lane near the garrison. Meturin was killed in his field, and his little son carried Away." Usually a few of the houses in each town were strongly protected, or garrisoned, for community protection, and this one belonged to our ancestor John Heard whose granddaughter married into the Ricker line. Maturin's youngest son Noah was the one carried away by the Indians to Canada, where he was raised through childhood and later became a Catholic priest. Also killed in the raid were Mr. Evans, father-in-law of George Ricker, Richard and Nicholas Otis, Elizabeth Heard and several others. This account of the brothers' deaths is also given in 227, citing both the Journal of the Rev. ohn Pike and a letter of Rebecca Ricker recorded in the Haley Papers180.

snip

AND

"Athe Meeks, a revolutionary war soldier, moved to Kentucky, where he lived for a while before moving with his family to Spencer County, Indiana. He was killed by the Indians in a skirmish at his home in the year 1812. While in the process of taking the scalp from Athe Meeks, the Indian who killed him was also killed by William Meeks, the son of Athe, who lived nearby his father. Athe Meeks, Jr. was wounded in this same skirmish, by two other Indians who were later captured. One of the two captured Indians was Chief Set-Te-Down, Chief of the tribe. While being held captive in a log cabin, the Chief was mysteriously shot and killed. It was never learned who killed him, nor was there much effort made to try to learn, but it was suspicioned that William Meeks or possibly Charles, his brother, did it. William Meeks was left with two other men to guard the captured Indians. After a while, the two other men left, it is said, to get a drink of water, leaving William alone to guard the captured Indians. Returning after a while, they found the Chief had been shot and killed."

snip

https://www.ancestry.com/boards/surnames.meeks/770.1.1.1.1.1.1