After the Paxton Boys murdered several inhabitants of the Conestoga’s village (top), colonial authorities placed the remaining Conestoga in “protective” custody in a Lancaster workhouse (right). On December 28, 1763, Paxton Boys broke into the workhouse and brought the Conestoga out into the courtyard (opposite). “Ghost River” depicts the ensuing massacre symbolically by the destruction of the wampum belt that had formalized the peace treaty between the Conestoga, Lenape and Quaker authorities in 1682 (below).


any primary sources from the Conestoga In- dians. So the trio traveled to the site of the two massacres. They spoke with scholars, inter- viewed and enjoyed potlucks with Lenape and other local Indigenous community leaders, worked with an advisory council and exam- ined wampum belts, diaries and contempo- rary political cartoons. Timothy Truman, renowned writer and illustrator of the “Scout” comic book series, also generously shared his knowledge about Indigenous lifeways, mate- rial culture and dress. “The conventional history says that the


Conestoga were all wiped out, end of story,” says Fenton. But many Conestoga intermar- ried with the neighboring Lenape, so their kin and traditions do live on. “As a result, I feel we have an obligation to the people today to tell their story,” he says. But then how to tell it with a fresh perspective and not let the con-


18 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2019


ventional colonial narrative hijack the story? After all, the Paxton Boys have often been cast as heroes, or at least the only important play- ers in those disturbing events. They began by creating complex Indian characters. “Indians get too often stereotyped as


either savages or victims,” says Francis, who founded the Indigenous Comic Con (now Indigenous Pop X, or IndigiPopX). He says those perspectives offer no complexity, no room for real people, so he made a point to give the Conestoga in “Ghost River” names, personalities and realistic feelings. “I may not have documentation of their thoughts when the Quakers confined the remaining Cones- toga in Lancaster after the first attack, but the human response by anyone to that situation would be, ‘Whoa! What’s going on here?’” To emphasize that the Conestoga weren’t merely victims, Francis depicts them stand-


ing firmly on their feet, although the record remains unclear about how events exactly unfolded. And so that the Paxton Boys do not take over the story, Francis has chosen to ob- scure the faces of the murderers. That enabled the narrative to keep the story focused on the Conestoga themselves. He also didn’t want to dwell on dead bod-


ies. Alvitre, of the Tongva people in Ventura, California, came up with the idea to portray the massacre scenes through a wampum belt—beads strung together that told stories, honored relationships and treaties and often served as currency. By revealing the bodies in the beadwork, Alvitre illustrated the violence through the eyes of the Conestoga people. Alvitre has drawn every illustration by


hand. She found an extra-fine ink nib from the 1880s at a flea market, which enabled her to create illustrations that mimic 18th-century


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