The Paxton Boys were a mob of settlers from Lancaster and Cumberland counties in Pennsylvania who formed in 1763 during Pontiac's War to defend themselves from Indigenous attacks on the frontier. The group of vigilantes claimed that the Conestoga people were colluding with the Lenape and Shawnee nations, who were actively attacking Pennsylvania's frontier settlements. According to historian Kevin Kenny, the Paxton Boys represented Pennsylvania's most aggressive colonists during this period.
In December 1763, the Paxton Boys murdered 20 unarmed Conestoga in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. This massacre was the first major action undertaken by the group. The violence did not end with this initial attack. In February 1764, the Paxton Boys marched on Philadelphia with the explicit intent of murdering the Moravian Lenape and Mohican people who had been relocated to the city for their protection. The march represented an escalation of their vigilante campaign and a direct threat to Indigenous peoples under colonial authority.
The immediate historical consequence of the march was that it was halted through diplomatic intervention. The Paxton Boys dispersed at Germantown after meeting with a delegation headed by Benjamin Franklin, preventing further violence in Philadelphia. The group's influence extended beyond this initial period: members of the Paxton Boys, particularly those led by Lazarus Stewart, later became involved in supporting settlers from Connecticut in the Wyoming Valley during both the Pennamite-Yankee Wars and the Revolutionary War, demonstrating how frontier vigilantism evolved into broader regional conflicts.
European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.
20 Conestoga murdered in December 1763
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