Quakers shoulder arms

What happened

The Moravian Indians of Nain and Wechquetank came to Philadelphia in November 1763, sent down by the governor because the people of Northampton County were determined to cut them all off. Rothbard says they were jeered and cursed at every stop. They were lodged on Province Island, then sent to New York, refused there, and brought back to the barracks in the Northern Liberties on 24 January 1764. A fortnight later the Paxton Boys, who had already butchered the Conestoga Indians of Lancaster County, were marching on the city for them. The Moravian missionaries kept a diary. On 4 February eight cannon were mounted in the square behind a breastwork. On the 5th two hundred citizens were on guard, and on the 6th, after bells rang at midnight, two citizen companies, including many Quakers carrying arms, marched in. Rothbard says the situation was enough to stretch absolute pacifism to the breaking point, and he adds that Franklin treated the marchers as citizens with grievances rather than murderers. The Paxton party turned back at Germantown after a delegation met it. The Indians stayed under guard in the barracks for more than a year, and a third of them died there of smallpox before they could go home.