Gnadenhutten massacre The Gnadenhutten massacre , also known as the Moravian massacre , was the killing on March 8 , 1782 , during the American Revolutionary War , of 96 Christian Lenape ( Delaware ) by colonial American militia from Pennsylvania . The militia attacked Lenape at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhütten , Ohio . The site of the village has been preserved . A reconstructed mission house and cooper ' s house were built there , and a monument to the dead was erected . The burial mound is marked and has been maintained on the site . The village site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In an unrelated event in 1755 during the French and Indian War ( part of the Seven Years War ) , Native Americans allied with the French massacred 11 missionaries and converted Munsee Lenape at a Moravian mission village in Pennsylvania that bore the same name . The term " Gnadenhutten massacre " usually applies only to the 1782 event in Ohio . Background . During the American Revolution , the Munsee - and Unami - speaking Lenni Lenape ( also called Delaware ) bands of the Ohio Country were deeply divided over which side , if any , to take in the conflict . Years earlier , many Lenape had migrated west to Ohio from their territory on the mid - Atlantic coast to try to escape colonial encroachment , as well as pressure from Iroquois tribes from the north . They resettled there , with bands in several villages around their main village of " Coshocton " . These villages were named Schoenbrunn , Gnadenhutten , and Salem and located on what was then called the Muskingum River . Modern geography places Coshocton on the Muskingum River and the three smaller villages on the Tuscarawas River . By the time of the Revolutionary War , the Lenape found their villages lay between the western frontier strongholds of the war ' s opponents : the American colonists ' military outpost at Fort Pitt ( Pittsburgh ) and the British with Indian allies around Fort Detroit , Michigan . Some Lenape decided to take up arms against the American colonials and moved to the northwest , closer to Fort Detroit , where they settled on the Scioto and Sandusky rivers . Those Lenape sympathetic to the United States remained at Coshocton , and leaders signed the Treaty of Fort Pitt ( 1778 ) with the Americans . Through this , the Lenape hoped to establish the Ohio Country as a state inhabited exclusively by Native Americans , as part of the new United States . A third group of Lenape , many of them converted Christian Munsee and Unami , lived in several mission villages led by David Zeisberger and other Moravian Christian missionaries . They spoke the Munsee and the Unami dialects of Delaware , an Algonquian language . White Eyes , the Lenape chief who had negotiated the treaty , died in 1778 , reportedly of smallpox . Years later , George Morgan , a colonial diplomat to the Lenape and Shawnee during the American Revolution , wrote to Congress that White Eyes had been murdered by American militia . Many Lenape at Coshocton eventually joined the war against the Americans . In response , Colonel Daniel Brodhead led an expedition out of Fort Pitt and on 19 April 1781 destroyed Coshocton . Surviving residents fled to the north . Colonel Brodhead convinced the militia to leave the Lenape at the Moravian mission villages unmolested since they were peaceful and neutral . Brodhead ' s having to restrain the militia from attacking the Moravian villages was a reflection of the brutal nature of frontier warfare . Violence had escalated on both sides . Relations between regular Continental Army officers from the East , such as Brodhead , and western militia were frequently strained . The tensions were worsened by the American government ' s policy of recruiting some Indian tribes as allies in the war . Western militiamen , many of whom had lost friends and family in Indian raids against settlers ' encroachment , blamed all Indians for the acts of some . Removal and massacre . In September 1781 , British - allied Indians , primarily Wyandot and Lenape , forced the Christian Indians and missionaries from the Moravian villages . They took them northwest toward Lake Erie to a new village , called " Captive Town " , on the Sandusky River . The British took the missionaries David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder under guard back to Detroit , where they tried the two men on charges of treason . The British suspected them of providing military intelligence to the American garrison at Fort Pitt . The missionaries were acquitted . ( Historians have established Zeisberger and Heckewelder did keep the Americans informed of the movements of the British and their Indian allies . ) The Indians at Captive Town were going hungry because of insufficient rations . In February 1782 , more than 100 returned to their old Moravian villages to harvest the crops and collect stored food they had been forced to leave behind . The frontier war was still raging . In early March 1782 , the Lenape were surprised by a raiding party of 160 Pennsylvania militia led by Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson . The militia rounded up the Christian Lenape and accused them of taking part in raids into Pennsylvania . Although the Lenape denied the charges , the militia held a council and voted to kill them . Refusing to take part , some militiamen left the area . One of those who opposed the killing of the Moravians was Obadiah Holmes , Jr . Among his observations of the incident was that " one Nathan Rollins & brother had had a father & uncle killed took the lead in murdering the Indians , . . . & Nathan Rollins had tomahawked nineteen of the poor Moravians , & after it was over he sat down & cried , & said it was no satisfaction for the loss of his father & uncle after all " . After the Lenape were told of the vote , they spent the night praying and singing hymns after requesting time to prepare for death . They spent the night in 2 buildings , one for men and one for women and children . The next morning on 8 March , the militia brought the Lenape to one of 2 " killing houses " , one of men and the other for women and children . There the militia tied the Indians , stunned them with mallet blows to the head , and killed them with fatal scalping cuts . In all , the militia murdered and scalped 28 men , 29 women , and 39 children . They piled the bodies in the mission buildings and burned the village down . They also burned the other abandoned Moravian villages . Two Indian boys , one of whom had been scalped , survived to tell of the massacre . The militia collected the remains of the Lenape and buried them in a mound on the southern side of the village . Before burning the villages , they had looted , gathering plunder which they needed 80 horses to carry : furs for trade , pewter , tea sets , clothing , everything the people held . Aftermath . Although many European - American settlers were outraged by the Gnadenhutten massacre , frontier people , embittered by the ferocious warfare , generally supported the militia ' s actions . Despite talk of bringing the murderers to justice , no criminal charges were filed and the war rolled on . The Lenape allies of the British sought revenge for the Gnadenhütten massacre . When General George Washington heard about the massacre , he ordered American soldiers to avoid being captured alive . He feared what the hostile Lenape would do to captured Americans . Washington ' s close friend William Crawford was captured while leading an expedition against Lenape at Sandusky . Crawford had not been at Gnadenhutten but was killed for revenge . After being ritually tortured by the Lenape and Wyandot , he was burned at the stake . Captain Charles Bilderback did participate in the Gnadenhutten massacre . In June 1782 , he survived the Crawford expedition ' s defeat , but seven years later in June 1789 he was captured by hostile Lenape in Ohio who tortured and killed him . David Williamson , the officer who led the Gnadenhutten massacre , survived the 1782 Crawford expedition . In 1814 , decades after the war , he died in poverty . In 1810 , Tecumseh reminded William Henry Harrison , " You recall the time when the Jesus Indians of the Delawares lived near the Americans , and had confidence in their promises of friendship , and thought they were secure , yet the Americans murdered all the men , women , and children , even as they prayed to Jesus ? " Legacy . A mission house and cooper ' s shop were reconstructed on the site of the village . A monument was erected in honor of those massacred . The burial mound is present at the memorial site . The village site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places .