Susquehannock

The Susquehannock were an Iroquoian-speaking people whose fortified towns stood along the Susquehanna and its tributaries. Fields surrounded their villages, and the river carried them toward Chesapeake Bay and the fur trade. Settlements moved over time as people cultivated new ground and pursued their trade. In the seventeenth century their country was caught between colonial expansion and wars with the Haudenosaunee.

After severe losses and a siege in Maryland in 1675, Susquehannock survivors sought new homes. A community later formed on the Conestoga River with Susquehannock and Seneca inhabitants. In December 1763 the Paxton Boys, a group of Pennsylvania settlers, attacked Conestoga Town and killed residents; others who had been placed in protective custody at Lancaster were murdered shortly afterwards. The violence was part of a wider frontier war, although the Conestoga community had remained at peace with its neighbours.