An Almost Friend: Papunhank, Quakers, and the Search for Security amid Pennsylvania's Wars, 1754–65

THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY Vol. CXXXVIII, No. 3 (July 2014) An Almost Friend: Papunhank, Quakers, and the Search for Security amid Pennsylvania's Wars, 1754–65 P APUNHANK WANTED NO PART OF WAR.1 The community he had gathered of Delawares, Nanticokes, and Munsees in the early 1750s hung in the balance as violence raged across major portions of the British and French mainland colonial empires from 1754 to 1765, even seeping to the edges of imperial centers in Quebec, Montreal, and Philadelphia. In Pennsylvania, within Indian country and colonial settlements alike, religious leaders struggled to map out paths for their peoples to avoid destruction. Papunhank's followers coalesced around his reform message, which combined an emphasis on the wisdom of ancient native ways with a willingness to benefit from the resources other communities The author would like to thank Rachel Wheeler, John Grigg, and the reviewers and editors of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography for their insightful readings of this essay and their many helpful recommendations. He also wishes to thank the Fletcher Jones Foundation for its generous support of his research. 1 Eighteenth-century sources offer many spellings of Papunhank's name, including Papunhang, Papoonan, Papounan, Papunchay, Papunehang, Papunahung, Papanohal, and Paypunehay. Knowledge about Papunhank comes almost exclusively from Quaker, Moravian, and government documents, RICHARD W. POINTER July 238 some of which record transcriptions and translations of his speeches. A number of the Quaker sources present him in idealized form. Nevertheless, I believe there is sufficient diversity in the sources and enough consistency in how Papunhank is represented within those materials to have some reasonable certainty about his thinking, values, and motives. Recent historians have paid increased attention to him, but he has yet received no comprehensive study. Valuable discussions may be found in works by Gregory Evans Dowd, Amy Schutt, Jane Merritt, Peter Silver, Siegrun Kaiser, Patrick Erben, and Geoffrey Plank, cited throughout this article. A religious tract celebrating Papunhank's Christian conversion and postconversion life was published in Ireland in the 1820s: John Papunhank A Christian Indian of North America: A Narrative of Facts 1820 (Dublin, n.d.; repr., London, [2010]). possessed. From his town of Wyalusing along the north branch of the Susquehanna River, Papunhank pursued various strategies to maintain the community's viability amid a decade of war, none more important than searching for key allies who could aid his people politically and spiritually . Naturally, he sought productive relationships with other Indians, especially larger numbers of eastern Delawares and the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. But he also endeavored to make himself valuable to the Pennsylvania government and to explore connections with EuroAmerican pacifist Christians. Ultimately, Papunhank joined himself and a portion of his community to the Moravians, but not before seriously considering a close attachment to the Friends. During the first half of the 1760s, his band and influential members of the Society of Friends were drawn to one another, each believing the other had something valuable to offer. Crafting an alliance appeared to hold great promise. Yet, in the end, that promise dissipated almost as quickly as it arose, and Papunhank and Philadelphia Quakers went their separate ways. Exploring the encounters between Papunhank and Friends provides a glimpse of one Indian leader's attempts to grapple with the immense challenges of the mid-eighteenth century by obtaining new sources of spiritual and political power. Given his quest for security amid the pressures and perils of the early 1760s, Papunhank could have been expected to cast his lot with Quakers. The reasons why he did not give insight into the complex webs of relations between Munsees, other Indians, Quakers, Moravians, colonial governments, and other political factions that shaped the lives of natives and Euro-Americans in the mid-Atlantic. These connections evolved against a backdrop of persistent violence and war, and Papunhank's band operated in this dangerous environment with far fewer resources and options than their Quaker counterparts. But both parties maintained a strong belief that building strategic alliances could benefit the cause of peace and, in turn, their peoples' hopes, dreams, and security. AN ALMOST FRIEND 2014 239 Religious Reform and a Holy Experiment Pennsylvania...

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