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Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment
William Penn established Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment" in which Europeans and Indians could live together in harmony. In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans.
Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War. In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of "right of conquest," the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs. They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys. The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into
anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims. The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of "right of conquest."
Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace.
Kenny recounts how rapacious frontier settlers, most of them of Ulster extraction, began to encroach on Indian land as squatters, while William Penn's sons cast off their father's Quaker heritage and turned instead to fraud, intimidation, and eventually violence during the French and Indian War. In 1763, a group of frontier settlers known as the Paxton Boys exterminated the last twenty Conestogas, descendants of Indians who had lived peacefully since the 1690s on land donated by William Penn near Lancaster. Invoking the principle of "right of conquest," the Paxton Boys claimed after the massacres that the Conestogas' land was rightfully theirs. They set out for Philadelphia, threatening to sack the city unless their grievances were met. A delegation led by Benjamin Franklin met them and what followed was a war of words, with Quakers doing battle against Anglican and Presbyterian champions of the Paxton Boys. The killers were never prosecuted and the Pennsylvania frontier descended into
anarchy in the late 1760s, with Indians the principal victims. The new order heralded by the Conestoga massacres was consummated during the American Revolution with the destruction of the Iroquois confederacy. At the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States confiscated the lands of Britain's Indian allies, basing its claim on the principle of "right of conquest."
Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this engaging history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 7, 2009
26 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Kenny
24 books13 followersKevin Kenny is Professor of History and Glucksman Professor in Irish Studies at New York University. He received his Ph.D. in American History from Columbia University in 1994, where his dissertation won the Bancroft Award. He taught at the University of Texas from 1994 to 1999 and at Boston College from 1999 to 2018. His first book, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (Oxford University Press, 1998) examines how traditions of Irish rural protest were transplanted into industrial America. His second book, The American Irish: A History (Longman, 2000), offers a general survey of the field. A third book, Peaceable Kingdom Lost (Oxford University Press, 2009) analyzes the unraveling of William Penn’s utopian vision of harmonious co-existence between Native Americans and European colonists. Professor Kenny’s latest book, Diaspora: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2013), examines the origins, meaning, and utility of a central concept in the study of migration, with particular reference to Jewish, African, Irish, and Asian history. He is also editor of Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2004) and he has published articles on immigration in the Journal of American History and the Journal of American Ethnic History among other venues. His latest book, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford University Press, 2023), explains how slavery shaped immigration policy as it moved from the local to the national level in the period from the American Revolution through the end of Reconstruction.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 3, 2025
Peaceable Kingdom Lost is about William Penn's dream of having white people and native Americans living in peace with one another. But his dream went wrong when a small band of Conestoga Indians, who lived peacefully in the Lancaster area in the eighteenth century, were murdered by the Paxton Boys in cold blood.
January 24, 2012
A really interesting look at the colonial breakdown of Pennsylvania. It is a critical look at all sides of the equation. It was really ineresting to read about the breakdown of what William Penn envisioned at the hands of his sons and great nephew, but also to read a critical look at the intent behind the original "holy experiement". Excellent look into the underlying problems that the colonies carried into the American Revolution.
June 15, 2013
This history begins with William Penn's relatively noble and unique treatment of the Native Americans when he founded Pennsylvania and ends with the Revolutionary War, showing that by that time Penn's vision of "A Peaceable Kingdom" was lost
The "villians" in the story were the "Paxton boys" who did not respect Penn's vision, any treaty, and believed that all Indians should be killed and their land then justly taken by the victor. The chapters on the wholesale murder of peaceful Native Americans who were ostensibly under government protection are the most upsetting. But the author shows a complex story, the inner conflicts of Quakers in government and how the Penn family's refusal to be taxed to provide for the defense of western Pennsylvania helped erode any respect for the government institutions that could have protected Indian lives and property. One of the most interesting tangents of the story were the Quakers of Philadelphia when the Paxton boys marched on Philadelphia intending to murder Native Americans living there. Many Quakers abandoned their pacifist beliefs to take arms to protect the lives of the Indians living there
Another interesting story is Ben Franklin's involvement in the political battle against the Paxton boys and the ultimately futile efforts to bring the Paxton boys to justice instead of lionizing them as was being done in the Western Frontier
The "villians" in the story were the "Paxton boys" who did not respect Penn's vision, any treaty, and believed that all Indians should be killed and their land then justly taken by the victor. The chapters on the wholesale murder of peaceful Native Americans who were ostensibly under government protection are the most upsetting. But the author shows a complex story, the inner conflicts of Quakers in government and how the Penn family's refusal to be taxed to provide for the defense of western Pennsylvania helped erode any respect for the government institutions that could have protected Indian lives and property. One of the most interesting tangents of the story were the Quakers of Philadelphia when the Paxton boys marched on Philadelphia intending to murder Native Americans living there. Many Quakers abandoned their pacifist beliefs to take arms to protect the lives of the Indians living there
Another interesting story is Ben Franklin's involvement in the political battle against the Paxton boys and the ultimately futile efforts to bring the Paxton boys to justice instead of lionizing them as was being done in the Western Frontier
May 26, 2018
This fascinating yet sobering book traces the disintegrating relationship between the Pennsylvania colonists and the original Native Americans from the promising beginning of William Penn's "Peaceable Kingdom" in 1682 to the horrific massacre of the "protected" Conestoga Indians by the Paxton Boys in 1763. It reveals a region in turmoil due to land wars, cultural differences, and power struggles; and shows the sharp divisions between the Proprietary Penns, the pacifist Quakers, the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, the Iroquois Federation, and the subjugated Delaware and Shawnee Indians that led to the chaotic battlefield of the Pennsylvania frontier during the 18th century. An eye-opening account of the historical context in Pennsylvania on the eve of the Revolutionary War.
November 14, 2017
William Penn set out to create a colony of religious and ethnic tolerance in what is now Pennsylvania. This is the story of how all that changed when peaceful Indians were massacred to acquire their land and the resulting Indian wars. An interesting story about the colonial expansion.
January 26, 2025
Harrisburg NRCS October BC
East Shore Area Library
Genuinely incredible I ever got through this. Good yet disturbing information with well-cited sources on the early PA settlers’ repeated attacks on Natives, but I have read takeout menus better written than this. This is definitely an academic text, though, so I guess I should’ve known better.
2.5 ⭐️
East Shore Area Library
Genuinely incredible I ever got through this. Good yet disturbing information with well-cited sources on the early PA settlers’ repeated attacks on Natives, but I have read takeout menus better written than this. This is definitely an academic text, though, so I guess I should’ve known better.
2.5 ⭐️
December 2, 2024
How did Pennsylvania deteriorate from a (relatively) free-thinking colony founded in 1682 by William Penn, a pacifist Quaker known fondly to tribal leaders as "Onas," that sought to "acquire" territory from Indians only by peaceful treaty-based purchases, to a state that within about a century had assimilated or violently expelled virtually all of its first peoples?
The avatar for this transition, pace Kenny, was the slaughter in late 1763 in Lancaster County of last remnants of the peaceful Conestogas by the Paxton Boys, a vigilant group of mostly Ulster Presbyterians who anticipated by 100 years General Philip Sheridan's appalling maxim that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. Many of them hailed from Paxton, now Harrisburg, only a few miles west of where my namesake German ancestor settled at that time in what is now Dauphin County. Hence my interest in the book.
This is a model monograph. The book is well written, and the author draws mostly from contemporary primary sources. It's a comprehensive account of relations between the government and inhabitants of the Province of Pennsylvania and the peoples who were living there when Penn arrived, but it doesn't get bogged down in a surfeit of details. Highlights include the great power politics that led to the Seven Years' War and Pontiac's War, which threw frontier Pennsylvania, i.e., everywhere but Philadelphia and its immediate environs, into strife, chaos, and insecurity, and, of course, the extended account of the atrocities of the Paxton Boys and the colonial government's failure to reckon with them and what they symbolized. Particularly sobering is Kenny's treatment of the feckless, grasping, and incompetent John Penn.
My only quibble is the rather brisk and unsatisfactory discussion of the Revolutionary period, which culminated in the expulsion or extermination of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, the Delawares, the Shawnees, and the other less populous indigenous nations. Why and how this happened with such speed is not sufficiently set out.
But a satisfying read.
The avatar for this transition, pace Kenny, was the slaughter in late 1763 in Lancaster County of last remnants of the peaceful Conestogas by the Paxton Boys, a vigilant group of mostly Ulster Presbyterians who anticipated by 100 years General Philip Sheridan's appalling maxim that the only good Indian was a dead Indian. Many of them hailed from Paxton, now Harrisburg, only a few miles west of where my namesake German ancestor settled at that time in what is now Dauphin County. Hence my interest in the book.
This is a model monograph. The book is well written, and the author draws mostly from contemporary primary sources. It's a comprehensive account of relations between the government and inhabitants of the Province of Pennsylvania and the peoples who were living there when Penn arrived, but it doesn't get bogged down in a surfeit of details. Highlights include the great power politics that led to the Seven Years' War and Pontiac's War, which threw frontier Pennsylvania, i.e., everywhere but Philadelphia and its immediate environs, into strife, chaos, and insecurity, and, of course, the extended account of the atrocities of the Paxton Boys and the colonial government's failure to reckon with them and what they symbolized. Particularly sobering is Kenny's treatment of the feckless, grasping, and incompetent John Penn.
My only quibble is the rather brisk and unsatisfactory discussion of the Revolutionary period, which culminated in the expulsion or extermination of the Six Nations of the Iroquois, the Delawares, the Shawnees, and the other less populous indigenous nations. Why and how this happened with such speed is not sufficiently set out.
But a satisfying read.
January 24, 2020
In Kevin Kenny's fine discourse appear all the tropes of American social politics to this day: a lazy, crime-prone, dependent minority in league with liberal elites to deprive hard-working middle-class homeowners from enjoying peace and prosperity - and their right to bear arms in self-defense; while a corporate establishment plays all sides against the middle. Ironically I finished reading this on July 4th, a day of mourning for more than British interests in Pennsylvania.
Even without modern mass media in colonial Pennsylvania the Conestoga massacre became the My Lai case of its day. Even then it was morally impossible to defend the "Paxton Boys": they were not engaged in self-defense against marauding war parties, but perpetrated the racially-motivated murder of peaceful and unarmed persons. It was equally an act of political contempt for these Indians' liberal Quaker benefactors and the "state regulators" coddling them. The Paxton Boys' definition of democracy prevailed during the American Revolution, a cautionary note for those flaunting the halo of American exceptionalism. The praxis of crude self-interest at the local level over land, politics and race remain clearly seen in this incident and its repercussions; why more inclusive standards have always had such an uphill struggle in American society.
Even without modern mass media in colonial Pennsylvania the Conestoga massacre became the My Lai case of its day. Even then it was morally impossible to defend the "Paxton Boys": they were not engaged in self-defense against marauding war parties, but perpetrated the racially-motivated murder of peaceful and unarmed persons. It was equally an act of political contempt for these Indians' liberal Quaker benefactors and the "state regulators" coddling them. The Paxton Boys' definition of democracy prevailed during the American Revolution, a cautionary note for those flaunting the halo of American exceptionalism. The praxis of crude self-interest at the local level over land, politics and race remain clearly seen in this incident and its repercussions; why more inclusive standards have always had such an uphill struggle in American society.
November 21, 2022
I had seen this on bookstore/library shelves for years, and intended to read it (in part because I know Prof. Kenny and I had a feeling it would read pretty well). But I never got around to it. And then I got hired to teach colonial history in Pennsylvania. So there's no putting it off any longer! It's now a must.
And it was very good! It is an academic history book, of course, but as I suspected, it reads very well. I think anyone interested in Pennsylvania history in particular would be interested. It worked particularly well for me, because a) I need to write a lecture about the tensions between the frontier settlers/squatters/regulators and the coastal city people and this is perfect for that, b) I need to improve my lectures on Native Americans and add some mid-Atlantic material, and c) I never really understood this distinctly Pennsylvania tension between the Quakers and everyone else. Basically, my PA themed lectures last semester were fair to middling, and next semester they will be much improved.
Also, Kenny writes about how the Scotch Irish/Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley built a fort called "Forty Fort" and that is hilarious. Still a town! Pennsylvania has the best town names in America.
And it was very good! It is an academic history book, of course, but as I suspected, it reads very well. I think anyone interested in Pennsylvania history in particular would be interested. It worked particularly well for me, because a) I need to write a lecture about the tensions between the frontier settlers/squatters/regulators and the coastal city people and this is perfect for that, b) I need to improve my lectures on Native Americans and add some mid-Atlantic material, and c) I never really understood this distinctly Pennsylvania tension between the Quakers and everyone else. Basically, my PA themed lectures last semester were fair to middling, and next semester they will be much improved.
Also, Kenny writes about how the Scotch Irish/Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley built a fort called "Forty Fort" and that is hilarious. Still a town! Pennsylvania has the best town names in America.
September 9, 2020
I picked up this book with the intent of reading it in the future, but suddenly found it a perfect way to start my investigation of the Paxton Boys Uprising for one of my grad school classes. Kevin Kenny gives great insight into the Paxton Uprising and the descent of the Pennsylvania Colony from a shining light of respect for their fellow humans to a massacre precipitated by discontent among settlers.
August 6, 2023
As someone without a whole lot of interest in colonial era history, I thought this was a really good look at the history of the PA frontier and the impact of Paxton. The only thing I thought would've been interesting (and was alluded to at the end) was a little bit of historiography on how the Paxton Boys were remembered more heroically after the revolution and later.
November 23, 2023
This book provides a lot of important contextualization for understanding colonial Pennsylvania's poetical relationship with native polities, but ends up surprisingly sparse when addressing the ostensible core topic of the book. Ultimately presents an argument that isn't the right size for the evidence presented
June 28, 2023
Seems like William Penn could have spent some more time indoctrinating his kids…
November 29, 2017
I want to give a plug for this book because I think that it is so fantastically well done. Sure, it's an obscure topic, but I think that it is a valuable read for anyone who is interested in early American history. The stories told here are relevant not just for those who are interested in Pennsylvania history, but for those who want a clear-eyed view of the American story. So often, I find that my thinking about what happened with the Native Americans when Europeans came is a little bipolar, see-sawing between considering the horror of the Trail of Tears, and the nonsensical brain-washing that we were given as children (at least in my generation) of Native-Americans as a homogenous group of ignorant savages that needed to be taught how to farm. The truth is far more complex, and we would do well as a country to deeply consider what our ancestors did, and why. This author does a superb job of this, highlighting the delicate negotiations between the Iroquois, Delaware tribe and the colonial government. His coverage of the "walking purchase," the actions of Quaker founder William Penn's descendants, and the conflict between Quakers and the Scotch-Irish settlers is clear, and very readable, despite the book being very fact-dense. Mr. Kenny does not shy away from specifically recounting the horrors that were committed during this time, especially those committed by the Paxton Boys.
All in all, an excellent book. If you enjoy this book, you may want to consider reading The Whiskey Rebels (fiction about the western frontier of Pennsylvania shortly after the American Revolution), or Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (non-fiction about conflicts between European settlers and Native Americans in Florida, Louisiana and Georgia during the American Revolution).
All in all, an excellent book. If you enjoy this book, you may want to consider reading The Whiskey Rebels (fiction about the western frontier of Pennsylvania shortly after the American Revolution), or Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution (non-fiction about conflicts between European settlers and Native Americans in Florida, Louisiana and Georgia during the American Revolution).
April 15, 2016
This is a scholarly work complete with a vast bibliography and copious end notes and a first chapter that sums up the whole story as if it were a dissertation. It's a heavy read that leaves no stone unturned in telling how William Penn's colony founded on peace and mutual respect of all religions and people including the Indians was torn apart my land hungry settlers intent on driving out the natives and grabbing the land. When a group of Scots-Irish Presbyterians from Paxton cannot find the "wild" Indians who have killed some people encroaching on their hunting lands, they settle for massacring some nearby Christian converts even to pursing the few survivors into the city of Lancaster and slaying the rest of the women and children there. Indian wars ensue with the Indians taking the side of the French in the French and Indian war and continuing to do battle as they are pushed into Ohio in King Philip's War. Lots of hatred and mayhem on both sides and a sad ending to a grand experiment.
I was saddened to learn that Ben Franklin disliked the German settlers because they kept to themselves and did not learn English. He suspected, wrongly, that they would not side with the colony in the Revolutionary War. He was wrong. And since I am descended from those Germans, I am glad of it.
I was saddened to learn that Ben Franklin disliked the German settlers because they kept to themselves and did not learn English. He suspected, wrongly, that they would not side with the colony in the Revolutionary War. He was wrong. And since I am descended from those Germans, I am glad of it.
September 5, 2011
Kevin Kenny’s Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment tells the story of conflicts between groups of Indians, Presbyterian settlers, the crown-aligned Anglican absentee proprietaries, and Quakers in pre-revolutionary Pennsylvania.
It was an interesting read, though a depressing one. Pennsylvania seems at the time to have been one massacre after another. The French and British chewing each other up, various Indian nations allying sometimes with one and sometimes with the other; Presbyterian settlers on a take-no-prisoners genocidal war of conquest aimed at anyone Indian, and then on a war against the unhelpful Quakers to the East; Indians butchering settler families; smallpox-laden gifts given to the Indians to reduce their numbers; Connecticut and Pennsylvania land speculators battling back and forth over land each claimed they had the right to steal from the Indians.
It was an interesting read, though a depressing one. Pennsylvania seems at the time to have been one massacre after another. The French and British chewing each other up, various Indian nations allying sometimes with one and sometimes with the other; Presbyterian settlers on a take-no-prisoners genocidal war of conquest aimed at anyone Indian, and then on a war against the unhelpful Quakers to the East; Indians butchering settler families; smallpox-laden gifts given to the Indians to reduce their numbers; Connecticut and Pennsylvania land speculators battling back and forth over land each claimed they had the right to steal from the Indians.
April 7, 2012
Excellent book covering a part of American history I had previously known little about. Fascinating period of history just on the eve of the Revolutionary War. It's also a very sad story, as it shows the roots of the American genocide of Native Americans.
July 30, 2010
It's very interesting to read about history that occurred in your own backyard.
March 12, 2012
Interesting topic and a valuable read, but a little hard to get through.
November 22, 2014
It was an interesting look at the meaning of the Paxton boys and the historical relationship between the native peoples of Pennsylvania and the Quaker settlement of that region.
April 15, 2016
Seems a pretty fair account of colonial vs. Indian.
June 23, 2021
Even when the colonists tried to go another way it still ends up in terror and bloodshed. Pre republic is as sinful as post republic.
February 7, 2026
Clear argument. Useful text for understanding what really happened and why surrounding the violence of the Paxton Boys.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews