"A Time of Sifting and Winnowing:" The Paxton Riots and Quaker Non-Violence in Pennsylvania

"A TIME OF SIFTING AND WINNOWING:" THE PAXTON RIOTS AND QUAKER NON-VIOLENCE IN PENNSYLVANIA By David Sloan* The Quaker struggle in Pennsylvania to maintain the principles of Christian non-violence within the exigencies of a colonial setting provides one of the most fascinating chapters in the religious and social history of early America, certainly deserving the careful scholarship devoted to it. However, one aspect of that struggle, the Quaker reaction to the first massive public deviation from the "Peaceable Principle," has not yet received adequate attention. A careful examination of this important crisis provides further illumination of the path eventually taken toward a resolution of the disturbing dichotomy between faith and practice.1 The immediate cause of this deep schism within the Society of Friends was the march of the "Paxton Boys," an armed force of frontiersmen who held the city of Philadelphia under siege for an entire week in early February 1764. Their grievances were legion: unequal representation, unfair legal procedures, a weak Indian policy, and general insensitivity to frontier suffering, to name but a few. Particularly ominous was frontier rage over the activities of the "Friendly Association"—a recently-formed, Quaker-dominated *Department of History, University of Arkansas. The author wishes to thank Professor Wilbur R. Jacobs, University of California, Santa Barbara, for his guidance in the preparation of earlier drafts of this article. 1. Reviews of major interpretations of the subject are available in Joseph E. Illick, "The Writing of Colonial Pennsylvania History," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XCIV, no. 1 (January, 1970), 3-25; Edwin Bronner, '"The Quakers and Non-Violence in Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania History, XXXV (1968), 1-21; and Ralph L. Ketcham, "Conscience , War, and Politics in Pennsylvania, 1755-1757," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., XX, no. 3 (July, 1963), 416-439; recent studies include Richard Baumann, For the Reputation of Truth: Politics, Religion and Conflict Among the Pennsylvania Quakers, 1750-1800 (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1971); Hermann Wellenreuther, Glaube und Politik in Pennsylvania 1681-1776; die Wandlungen der Obrigkeitsdoktrin und des Peace Testimony der Quaker (Köln: Bohlau, 1972); Jack D. Marietta, "Conscience, die Quaker Community, and the French and Indian War," PMHB, XCV, No. 1 (January 1971), pp. 3-27; and David Kobrin, "The Saving Remnant: Intellectual Sources of Change and Decline in Colonial Quakerism, 1690-1810" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1968). 3 4 QUAKER HISTORY "third force" in Indian relations—for to the Quakers it was but the most recent indication of backcountry hatred of the Society. Ultimately cooler heads prevailed, arbitration replaced arms, and the crisis passed.2 For the Quakers, however, the crisis had just begun. The days of tension and the nights of terror, passed amidst dire predictions of summary justice for all Quakers, had shaken the faith. Fear of grisly reprisals against them had driven many Quakers into a public, highly visible recantation of the non-violent way. In the aftermath of the march, the Society of Friends quietly confronted this direct clash between principle and practice—a confrontation that was to have much significance for the future.3 The general atmosphere was hardly conducive to restrained, orderly reassessment. Outside the meetinghouses, in the inns and houses of the city, townspeople were busily constructing myths of bravery and cowardice to fill the void left by the departing frontiersmen . Idle conversation was rapidly transformed into heated discussion. Vociferous champions of each side quickly appeared, and in the ensuing noise, the spectacle of Quakers bearing arms took its place as the chief topic of discussion. Hostile witnesses vied with one another to entrap the "broad-brimmed politicians" in their own web of hypocrisy.4 "Pamphlets are daily dispersed here to the inflaming of People's Minds," observed one disturbed Quaker, "... in many of which the Quakers are very ill treated & the 2.See Brooke Hindle, "The March of the Paxton Boys," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Ill (October, 1946), 461-488, and the more extensive treatment in David Sloan, "The Paxton Riots, A Study of Violence and Passive Resistance in Colonial Pennsylvania" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1970) . 3.The actual number of Quakers who bore arms in the Paxton crisis...