Digital Paxton: Digital Collection, Critical Edition, and Teaching Platform

Primary Source Sets and Ghost River

This primary source set can be used in a history class engaging analysis of primary sources and attention to bias in those sources. This specific set uses the primary sources in Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga (Red Planet Books & Comics) in tandem with the interactive digital edition. Videos, images, and contextual essays offer useful perspectives on how the creative team behind the graphic novel, in consultation with historians and community members, create their own sources. The Paxton massacres offer a glimpse into the complicated relationship between Native Americans and colonists in the context of both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania history. Using the Ghost River primary sources, students will identify and trace how the perceptions of Native Americans and Quakers changed over time, how the creative team translated historical primary source materials into an historically-grounded graphic novel.

Lesson Objectives:
Essential Questions:
Grade Level: Grades 9-12

Pennsylvania State Standards:
Historical Background:

The relationship between Native Americans and European colonists contains many tragedies, including the Paxton massacres. These incidents occurred in December 1763 in Lancaster County when a mob from Paxtang Township murdered 20 Conestoga Indians (hence the name "Paxton Boys"). As a result of their attacks, Lenape and Moravian Indians were taken into Philadelphia for protection. Vowing to "inspect" those Indigenous peoples, the mob marched toward Philadelphia, where they were stopped just north of the city in Germantown. While the the situation "physically" diffused there, the argument continued in print, with the Paxton leaders arguing that they were justified in their attack on the Conestoga people. Prominent colonial leaders produced many primary source documents available today as print and manuscript records. Today, we know that the Paxton vigilantes murdered the Conestoga people in a white supremacist campaign that began in the Seven Years' War (also known as the French and Indian War)

Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga is a modern retelling and reinterpretation of the Paxton massacres. Editor Will Fenton, author Lee Francis IV, and artist Weshoyot Alvitre created this graphic novel to tell the story from point of view of the Indigenous peoples at the center of the story. The book is grounded with historical primary source documents, secondary contexts from leading historians, and interviews with surviving Indigenous peoples in Lancaster County. In re-centering this historical incident on the Conestoga people, Fenton, Francis, and Alvitre recast them not as victims but spouses, parents, children, and friends.

  1. Benjamin West, The Indians Giving a Talk to Colonel Bouquet in a Conference at a Council Fire (1766).
  2. General Forbes, Letter to Israel Pemberton (August 18, 1758).
  3. James Claypoole, Franklin and the Quakers (1764).
  4. D.A. Henderson, Account of the Indian Murders (December 27, 1763).
  5. James Claypoole, An Indian Squaw King Wampum Spies (1764).

In addition to the sources above, consider these videos integrated in the digital edition:
  1. Video on p.29
  2. Video on p.35
  3. Video on p.40 (with Weshoyot Alvitre)
  4. Video on p.45
  5. Video on p.57

Discussion Questions:
  1. How are Native Americans represented in primary sources? (Sources #1, #3, #5) 
  2. What type of adjectives are used to describe Native Americas, Quakers, and the Paxton vigilantes? 
    1. Are they positive or negative? 
    2. Note the author of the source. 
    3. Does the source support the Paxtons?
    4. Are they anti-Quaker? (Sources #2, #4; Videos #1, #2)
  3. What choices do the creative team make using these sources to create their graphic novel, and how do primary sources appear in Ghost River? (Videos #3, #4, #5)
  4. How is Benjamin Franklin represented?
    1. How does Franklin's representation compare to how you have seen him before?
    2. How does the creative team view his role in the Paxton massacres? (Source #3)
  5. How were local sites (Lancaster and Philadelphia) incorporated into Ghost River and to what end? (Video #4)

Teaching Activities:
  1. All of these events took place near Philadelphia. Teachers could bring students to key sites from the graphic novel (e.g. the Fulton Theater in Lancaster or the historical marker of Conestoga Indiantown). These sites hold a special place in the hearts and minds of survivors and their kin and couple help students forge an emotional connection with the story. Teachers can also take advantage of local primary source resources by arranging a class visit to the Library Company of Philadelphia.
  2. As indicated by the creators, Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga challenges typical narratives in history textbooks. Think about other narratives and how those might be challenged if you were taught from a different perspective. Specifically, research into other events involving Native Americans and European colonists. For example, how did Europeans “buy” Manhattan from the Lenape? Where did the $24 narrative originate from? How have primary sources reenforced this narrative? How have the Native American perspectives been marginalized by textbooks? For this assignment, write a proposal for a book similar to Ghost River with a different event.

Related Teaching Sources:
You may also download a printable version of this lesson.

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