On March 8, 1782, approximately 160 Pennsylvania militia under Colonel David Williamson surrounded and massacred 96 Christian Delaware (Lenape) converts at the Moravian missionary settlement of Gnadenhütten in present-day Ohio. The Delaware had been relocated to the mission by Moravian missionaries and had adopted pacifist Christianity; they were unarmed. After confining the converts overnight, the militia voted to kill them and proceeded to bludgeon and scalp all 96 — 28 men, 29 women, and 39 children. The Gnadenhütten Massacre was one of the most atrocious acts of the Revolutionary War and provoked lasting outrage, even among contemporaries. It intensified Native American resistance and provided a rallying point for the allied Delaware and Wyandot forces that would defeat subsequent American expeditions including the Crawford Expedition.
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) grew from colonial resistance to British taxation without parliamentary representation — a dispute that radicalized through the Stamp Act (1765), the Townshend Acts (1767), and the Boston Massacre (1770). Fighting began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775; the Continental Congress declared independence on July 4, 1776. The Continental Army under George Washington faced severe shortages of supplies and troops, enduring the brutal winter at Valley Forge (1777–1778) before French alliance and French financing turned the military balance. Major engagements included Bunker Hill (1775), Trenton (1776), Saratoga (1777) — which secured French intervention — and Yorktown (1781), where British General Cornwallis surrendered to Washington. An estimated 25,000 American soldiers died in service, from combat, disease, and captivity. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognized American independence and ceded British territory east of the Mississippi, though it left unresolved questions about Indigenous land rights and the status of Loyalists.
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