Moravian missionary work among the Delaware and Mohican tribes in North America began in the mid-18th century. David Zeisberger, one of the best-known Moravian missionaries, came to the Ohio country with Delaware converts from a mission in western Pennsylvania and founded Schoenbrunn in the Tuscarawas Valley on May 3, 1772. Josua, a Mohican convert and missionary leader, led Mohican and Munsee Christians downriver and settled Gnadenhutten ("Tents of Grace") on October 9, 1772, and Zeisberger served as lead missionary at both villages. By 1775, Gnadenhutten had an estimated 200 inhabitants. The British, along with Wyandot and Delaware allies, suspected the Christian Indians of aiding the Americans, and in 1781 the inhabitants were forcibly removed to Captives' Town on the Sandusky River to ensure their allegiance to the British. Facing starvation there, a group was permitted to return to Gnadenhutten early in 1782 to harvest crops left behind when the village was abandoned. While gathering the harvest, they were mistaken for Indian raiders who had struck in western Pennsylvania a few weeks earlier, captured without incident, and sentenced to death by a group of Pennsylvania militia seeking revenge. The Christian Indians, with men in one cabin and women and children in another, prayed and sang all night before their executions. On March 8, 1782, an estimated 90 men, women, and children were brutally killed, and only two young boys were known to have escaped. The killings did not ease hostilities in western Pennsylvania, but fueled more attacks by Wyandot, Delaware, and Shawnee Indians.