The Paxton Boys, also known as the Paxtang Boys or the Paxton Rangers, were a mob of settlers that murdered 20 unarmed Conestoga in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in December 1763. This group of vigilantes from Lancaster and Cumberland counties formed in 1763 to defend themselves from Indigenous attacks during Pontiac's War. The Paxton Boys justified their actions by claiming that the Conestoga were colluding with the Lenape and Shawnee who were attacking Pennsylvania's frontier settlements. According to historian Kevin Kenny, the Paxton Boys were Pennsylvania's most aggressive colonists.
A historically inaccurate 1841 lithograph of the Paxton Boys' massacre of the Conestoga at Lancaster, Pennsylvania in December 1763.
Pennsylvania Associators assemble after news of the Paxton Boys marching on Philadelphia, published 1764.
The Susquehannock, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is now Pennsylvania. Their name means “people of the muddy river.”
Susquehannock artifacts on display in the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg.
Depiction of a Susquehannock village from De nieuwe en onbekende weereld, of, Beschryving van America en 't zuid-land, written by Arnoldus Montanus and published in 1671.
