Yoked by Violence: The Paxton Boys, Representation, and a “humble Petition”

Abstract

A 1764 manuscript petition, a “humble Petition” from Lancaster County, differs substantially from the published Remonstrance that has been taken to represent the views of the Paxton Boys, who murdered 20 Native Americans in Lancaster County and attempted to destroy 140 more in the Philadelphia Barracks. The Remonstrance, which began with a Whiggish demand for increased legislative representation for frontier counties, has led historians to describe the Paxton Boys as frontier democrats who marched on Philadelphia to present grievances to the provincial government. The “humble Petition,” however, has little interest in legislative representation. It resembles the Declaration that defiantly defends the murders and threatens more. The “humble Petition,” then, enables us to reposition the Remonstrance as an expression of political elites—an early entry in the pamphlet war that followed the murders—who appropriated the Lancaster County murders to adjust power in Pennsylvania by means of the 1764 elections.