King Philip's War
Encyclopedia
King Philip's War, sometimes called Metacom
's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American
inhabitants of present-day southern New England
and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet
, known to the English as "King Philip". Major Benjamin Church emerged as the Puritan hero of the war; it was his company of Puritan rangers and Native American allies that finally hunted down and killed King Philip on August 12, 1676. The war continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine
frontier) after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay
in April 1678.
The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth-century Puritan
New England. In little over a year, nearly half of the region's towns were destroyed, its economy was all but ruined, and much of its population was killed, including one-tenth of all men available for military service. Proportionately, it was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America. More than half of New England's ninety towns were assaulted by Native American warriors.
King Philip's War was the beginning of the development of a greater American identity, for the trials and tribulations suffered by the colonists gave them a group identity separate and distinct from subjects of the English Crown.
and Massasoit
, Metacomet's father and chief of the Wampanoag tribe. Salem
, Boston
, and several small towns were established around Massachusetts Bay
between 1628 and 1640. The building of towns such as Windsor, Connecticut
(est. 1633), Hartford, Connecticut
(est. 1636), Springfield, Massachusetts
(est. 1636), and Northampton, Massachusetts
(est. 1654), on the Connecticut River
and towns such as Providence, Rhode Island
, on Narragansett Bay
(est. 1636), progressively encroached on Native American territories. Prior to King Philip's War, tensions fluctuated between different groups of Native Americans and the colonists, but relations were generally peaceful. As the colonists' small population grew larger over time and the number of their towns increased, the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot
, and other small tribes were each treated individually (many were traditional enemies of each other) by the English officials of Rhode Island
, Plymouth
, Massachusetts Bay
, Connecticut
and New Haven
. The New Englanders continued to expand their settlements along the coastal plain and up the Connecticut River valley. By 1675 they had established a few small towns in the interior between Boston and the Connecticut River.
had been significantly reduced by pandemic
s of smallpox
, spotted fever
, typhoid and measles
brought by contact with European fishermen, starting in about 1618, two years before the first colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, had been settled.
Shifting alliances between different Algonkian
peoples and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois
), represented by leaders such as Massasoit
, Sassacus
, Uncas
and Ninigret
, and the colonial polities of Massachusetts Bay Colony
, Plymouth Colony
, Rhode Island
and Connecticut
, negotiated a troubled peace for several decades.
Metacom, known to the English as "King Philip", became Sachem
of the Pokanoket
and Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy after the death in 1662 of his older brother, the Grand Sachem Wamsutta
. Well known to the English before his ascension as paramount chief to the Wampanoag, Metacom distrusted the colonists. Wamsutta had been visiting the Marshfield
home of Josiah Winslow
, the governor of Plymouth Colony
, for peaceful negotiations, and suddenly collapsed and died just after leaving the town.
Metacom began negotiating with other Native American tribes against the interests of the Plymouth Colony soon after the deaths of his father Massasoit
in 1661, the Plymouth colony's greatest ally, and his brother Wamsutta in 1662. For almost half a century after the colonists' arrival, Massasoit had maintained an uneasy alliance with the English as a source of desired trade goods and a counter-weight to traditional enemies, the Pequot
, Narragansett, and the Mohegan. Massasoit's price was colonial incursion into Wampanoag territory as well as English political interference. Maintaining good relations with the English became increasingly difficult, as the English were plying local Natives with alcohol and then obtaining their marks on illegal land sale documents. The colonists' refusal to stop this practice combined with Wamsutta's suspicious death eventually led to Metacom's War.
, a Native American Christian convert ("Praying Indian
") and early Harvard
graduate, translator, and adviser to Metacom, contributed to the outbreak of the war. He spread a rumor to Plymouth Colony officials alleging King Philip's attempts to arrange Native American attacks on widely dispersed colonial settlements. King Philip was brought before a public court to answer to the rumors and after the court admitted it had no proof, it warned him that any other rumors—baseless or otherwise—would be rewarded with further confiscations of Wampanoag land and guns. Not long after, Sassamon was murdered; his body was found in an ice-covered pond (Assawompset Pond
), allegedly killed by a few of Philip's Wampanoag, angry at his betrayal.
On the testimony of a Native American witness, the Plymouth Colony officials arrested three Wampanoag, who included one of Metacom's counselors. A jury, among whom were some Indian members, convicted the men of Sassamon's murder; they were hanged on June 8, 1675, at Plymouth. Some Wampanoag believed that both the trial and the court's sentence infringed on Wampanoag sovereignty. On June 20, a band of Pokanoket
, possibly without Philip's approval, attacked several isolated homesteads in the small Plymouth colony settlement of Swansea
. Laying siege to the town, they destroyed it five days later and killed several inhabitants and others coming to their aid. Officials from Plymouth and Boston
responded quickly; on June 28 they sent a military expedition that destroyed the Wampanoag town at Mount Hope
(modern Bristol, Rhode Island
).
s enclosing most of the houses. The region included about 10,500 Indians, including 4000 Narragansett of western Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut, 2400 Nipmuck of central and western Massachusetts
, and 2400 combined in the Massachusetts and Pawtucket tribes, living about Massachusetts Bay and extending northwest to Maine. The Wampanoag and Pokanoket of Plymouth and eastern Rhode Island by then numbered fewer than 1000 each. The various tribes, though unconnected in government, spoke dialects of the same Algonquian
language, and shared a similar culture.
and Dartmouth
(July 8), Mendon
(July 14), Brookfield
(August 2), and Lancaster
(August 9). In early September they attacked Deerfield
, Hadley
, and Northfield
(possibly giving rise to the Angel of Hadley
legend.)
The New England Confederation
declared war on the Native Americans on September 9, 1675. The next colonial expedition was to recover crops from abandoned fields for the coming winter and included almost 100 farmers/militia. They were ambush
ed and soundly defeated in the Battle of Bloody Brook
(near Hadley) on September 18, 1675.
. During the attack, nearly all of Springfield's buildings were burned to the ground., including the town's grist mill. Most of the Springfielders who escaped unharmed took cover at Miles Morgan
's house, a resident who had constructed one of Springfield's only fortified blockhouse
s. An Indian servant who worked for Morgan managed to escape and later alerted the Massachusetts Bay troops under the command of Major Samuel Appleton
, who broke through to Springfield and drove off the attackers. Morgan's sons were famous Indian fighters in the territory. The Indians in battle killed his son, Peletiah, in 1675. Springfielders later honored Miles Morgan with a large statue in Court Square
, the center of Springfield's urban Metro Center
.
led a combined force of colonial militia against the Narragansett tribe. The Narragansett had not been directly involved in the war, but they had sheltered many of the Wampanoag women and children. Several of their warriors were reported in several Indian raiding parties. The colonists distrusted the tribe and did not understand the various alliances. As the colonial forces went through Rhode Island, they found and burned several Indian towns which had been abandoned by the Narragansett, who had retreated to a massive fort in a swamp. Led by an Indian guide, on December 16, 1675, the colonial force found the Narragansett fort near present-day South Kingstown
. A combined force of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut militia numbering about 1,000 men, including about 150 Pequots and Mohicans, attacked the fort. The battle that followed is known as the Great Swamp Fight
. It is believed that the militia killed about 300 Narragansett (exact figures are unavailable). The militia burned the fort (occupying over 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) of land) and destroyed most of the tribe's winter stores.
Many of the warriors and their families escaped into the frozen swamp. Facing a winter with little food and shelter, the entire surviving Narragansett tribe was forced out of quasi-neutrality and joined the fight. The colonists lost many of their officers in this assault: about 70 of their men were killed and nearly 150 more wounded.
Throughout the winter of 1675–76, Native Americans attacked and destroyed more frontier settlements in their effort to expel the English colonists. Attacks were made at Andover
, Bridgewater
, Chelmsford
, Groton
, Lancaster
, Marlborough
, Medfield
, Millis
, Medford
, Portland
, Providence
, Rehoboth
, Scituate
, Seekonk
, Simsbury
, Sudbury
, Suffield
, Warwick
, Weymouth
, and Wrentham
, including what is modern-day Plainville
. The famous account written and published by Mary Rowlandson
after the war gives a colonial captive's perspective on it. It was part of a genre known as captivity narrative
s.
The spring of 1676 marked the high point for the combined tribes when, on March 12, they attacked Plymouth Plantation. Though the town withstood the assault, the natives had demonstrated their ability to penetrate deep into colonial territory. They attacked three more settlements: Longmeadow (near Springfield), Marlborough, and Simsbury were attacked two weeks later. They killed Captain Pierce and a company of Massachusetts soldiers between Pawtucket and the Blackstone's settlement. Several colonial men were allegedly tortured and buried at Nine Men's Misery
in Cumberland
, as part of the Native Americans' ritual treatment of enemies. The natives burned the abandoned capital of Providence to the ground on March 29. At the same time, a small band of Native Americans infiltrated and burned part of Springfield while the militia was away.
The tide of war slowly began to turn in the colonists' favor later in the spring of 1676, as it became a war of attrition
; both sides were determined to eliminate the other. The Native Americans had succeeded in driving the colonists back into their larger towns, but the Indians' supplies, nearly always sufficient for only a season or so, were running out. The colony of Rhode Island became an island colony for a time, as the few hundred colonists were driven back to Newport
and Portsmouth
on Aquidneck Island
. The Connecticut River towns with their thousands of acres of cultivated crop land, known as the bread basket of New England, had to manage their crops by working in large armed groups for self protection. Towns such as Springfield, Hatfield, Hadley and Northampton fortified their defenses, reinforced their militias and held their ground, though attacked several times. The small towns of Northfield and Deerfield, and several others, were abandoned as settlers retreated to the larger towns.
The towns of the Connecticut colony escaped largely unharmed, although more than 100 militia died in the actions. The colonists were re-supplied by sea from wherever they could buy supplies. The English government did not have sufficient manpower to send any reinforcements. The war ultimately cost the colonists over £100,000—a significant amount of money at a time when most families earned less than £20/yr. Taxes were raised to cover its costs. Over 600 colonial men, women and children were killed, and twelve towns were totally destroyed with many more damaged. Despite this, they eventually emerged victorious. The Native Americans lost many more people. They were dispersed out of New England or put on reservations. They never recovered their former power in New England. The hope of many to integrate Indian and colonial societies was abandoned, as the war and its excesses bred bitter resentment on both sides.
The Wampanoag and Narragansett hopes for supplies from the French in Canada were not met, except for some small amounts of ammunition obtained in Maine. The colonists allied with the Mohegan and Pequot tribes in Connecticut as well as several Indian groups in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. King Philip and his allies found their forces continually harassed. In January 1675/76 Philip traveled westward to Mohawk territory, seeking, but failing to secure, an alliance. The Mohawks—traditional enemies of many of the warring tribes—proceeded to raid isolated groups of Native Americans, scattering and killing many. Traditional Indian crop-growing areas and fishing places in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut were continually attacked by roving patrols of combined Colonials and friendly Native Americans. The allies had poor luck finding any place to grow more food for the coming winter. Many Native Americans drifted north into Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Canada
. Some drifted west into New York
and points farther west to avoid their traditional enemies, the Iroquois
.
In April 1676 the Narragansett were defeated and their chief, Canonchet, was killed. On May 18, 1676, Captain William Turner of the Massachusetts Militia and a group of about 150 militia volunteers attacked a large fishing camp of Native Americans at Peskeopscut on the Connecticut River (now called Turners Falls, Massachusetts
). The colonists claimed they killed 100–200 Native Americans in retaliation for earlier Indian attacks against Deerfield colonist settlements and homesteads, and for disputes over foraging rights on abandoned planting fields. Turner and nearly 40 of the militia were killed during the retreat. With the help of their long-time allies the Mohegans, the colonists won at Hadley on June 12, 1676, and scattered most of the survivors into New Hampshire
and points farther north. Later that month, a force of 250 Native Americans was routed near Marlborough
. Other forces, often a combined force of colonial volunteers and Indian allies, continued to attack, kill, capture or disperse bands of Narragansett as they tried to return to their traditional locations. The colonists granted amnesty to Native Americans who surrendered and showed they had not participated in the conflict.
Philip's allies began to desert him. By early July, over 400 had surrendered to the colonists, and Philip took refuge in the Assowamset Swamp, below Providence, close to where the war had started. The colonists formed raiding parties of Native Americans and militia. They were allowed to keep the possessions of warring Indians and received a bounty on all captives. Philip was ultimately killed by one of these teams when he was tracked down by colony-allied Native Americans led by Captain Benjamin Church and Captain Josiah Standish
of the Plymouth Colony
militia at Mt. Hope, Rhode Island
. Philip was shot and killed by an Indian named John Alderman
on August 12, 1676. Philip was beheaded, then drawn and quartered (a traditional treatment of criminals in this era). His head was displayed in Plymouth for twenty years. The war was nearly over except for a few attacks in Maine that lasted until 1677.
The war in the south largely ended with Metacom's death. Over 600 colonists and 3,000 Native Americans had died, including several hundred native captives who were tried and executed or enslaved
and sold in Bermuda
. The majority of the dead Native Americans and many of the colonials died as the result of disease, which was typical of all armies in this era. Those sent to Bermuda included Metacom's son (and also, according to Bermudian tradition, his wife). A sizable number of Bermudians today claim ancestry from these exiles. Members of the Sachem's extended family were placed for safekeeping among colonists in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. Other survivors joined western and northern tribes and refugee communities as captives or tribal members. Some of the refugees would return on occasion to southern New England. The Narragansett, Wampanoag, Podunk, Nipmuck, and several smaller bands were virtually eliminated as organized bands, while even the Mohegans were greatly weakened.
Sir Edmund Andros
negotiated a treaty with some of the northern Indian bands on April 12, 1678, as he tried to establish his New York-based royal power structure in Maine
's fishing industry. Andros was arrested and sent back to England at the start of the Glorious Revolution
in 1689. James II
, Charles II's
younger brother, was forced to vacate the British throne. Sporadic Indian and French raids plagued Maine, New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts for the next 50 years as France
encouraged and financed raids on New England settlers. Most of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island was now nearly completely open to New England's continuing settlement, free of interference from the Native Americans. Frontier settlements in New England would face sporadic Indian raids until the French and Indian War
(1754–1763) finally drove the French authorities out of North America in 1763.
King Philip's War, for a time, seriously damaged the recently arrived English colonists' prospects in New England. But with their extraordinary population growth rate of about 3% a year (doubling every 25 years), they repaired all the damage, replaced their losses, rebuilt the destroyed towns and continued on with establishing new towns within a few years.
The colonists' defense of New England brought them to the attention of the British royal government which soon tried to exploit them for its own gain—beginning with the revocation of the charter of Massachusetts Bay in 1684 (enforced 1686). At the same time, an Anglican
church was established in Boston in 1686, ending the Puritan
monopoly on religion in Massachusetts. The legend of Connecticut's Charter Oak
stems from the belief that a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the colony's charter as Andros tried unsuccessfully to revoke their charter and take over their militia. In 1690, Plymouth's charter was not renewed, and its inhabitants were forced to join the Massachusetts government. The equally small colony of Rhode Island, with its largely Puritan dissident settlers, maintained its charter – mainly as a counterweight and irritant to Massachusetts. The Massachusetts General Court
(the main legislative and judicial body) was brought under nominal British government control, but all members except the Royal Governor and a few of his deputies were elected from the various towns as was the practice.
Nearly all layers of government and church life (except in Rhode Island) remained Puritan, and only a few of the so-called "upper crust" joined the Anglican church. Most New Englanders lived in self-governing towns and attended the Congregational or dissident churches that they had already set up by 1690. New towns, complete with their own militias, were nearly all established by the sons and daughters of the original settlers and were in nearly all cases modeled after these original settlements. The many trials and tribulations between the British crown and British Parliament for the next 100 years made self government not only desirable but relatively easy to continue. The squabbles with the British government would eventually lead to Lexington
, Concord
and the Battle of Bunker Hill
by 1775, a century and four generations later. When the British were forced to evacuate Boston in 1776, only a few thousand of the over 700,000 New Englanders went with them.
King Philip's War joined the Powhatan wars of 1610–14, 1622–32
and 1644–46 in Virginia, the Pequot War
of 1637 in Connecticut, the Dutch-Indian war
of 1643 along the Hudson River
and the Iroquois Beaver Wars
of 1650 in a list of ongoing uprisings and conflicts between various Native American tribes and the French, Dutch, and English colonial settlements of Canada, New York, and New England.
In response to King Philip's War and King William's War
(1689–97), many colonists from northeastern Maine relocated to Massachusetts and New Hampshire to avoid Wabanaki
Indian raids.
Metacomet
Metacomet , also known as King Philip or Metacom, or occasionally Pometacom, was a war chief or sachem of the Wampanoag Indians and their leader in King Philip's War, a widespread Native American uprising against English colonists in New England.-Biography:Metacomet was the second son of Massasoit...
's War, Metacomet's War, or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
inhabitants of present-day southern New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–76. The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet
Metacomet
Metacomet , also known as King Philip or Metacom, or occasionally Pometacom, was a war chief or sachem of the Wampanoag Indians and their leader in King Philip's War, a widespread Native American uprising against English colonists in New England.-Biography:Metacomet was the second son of Massasoit...
, known to the English as "King Philip". Major Benjamin Church emerged as the Puritan hero of the war; it was his company of Puritan rangers and Native American allies that finally hunted down and killed King Philip on August 12, 1676. The war continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
frontier) after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay
Casco Bay
Casco Bay is an inlet of the Gulf of Maine on the southern coast of Maine, New England, United States. Its easternmost approach is Cape Small and its westernmost approach is Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth...
in April 1678.
The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth-century Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
New England. In little over a year, nearly half of the region's towns were destroyed, its economy was all but ruined, and much of its population was killed, including one-tenth of all men available for military service. Proportionately, it was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in the history of North America. More than half of New England's ninety towns were assaulted by Native American warriors.
King Philip's War was the beginning of the development of a greater American identity, for the trials and tribulations suffered by the colonists gave them a group identity separate and distinct from subjects of the English Crown.
Background
Plymouth, Massachusetts, was established in 1620 with significant early help from Native Americans, particularly SquantoSquanto
Tisquantum was a Patuxet. He was the Native American who assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World and was integral to their survival. The Patuxet tribe was a tributary of the Wampanoag Confederacy.-Biography:Squanto's exact date of birth is unknown but many historians...
and Massasoit
Massasoit
Massasoit Sachem or Ousamequin ,was the sachem, or leader, of the Pokanoket, and "Massasoit" of the Wampanoag Confederacy. The term Massasoit means Great Sachem.-Early years:...
, Metacomet's father and chief of the Wampanoag tribe. Salem
Salem, Massachusetts
Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...
, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, and several small towns were established around Massachusetts Bay
Massachusetts Bay
The Massachusetts Bay, also called Mass Bay, is one of the largest bays of the Atlantic Ocean which forms the distinctive shape of the coastline of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. Its waters extend 65 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts Bay includes the Boston Harbor, Dorchester Bay,...
between 1628 and 1640. The building of towns such as Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population was estimated at 28,778 in 2005....
(est. 1633), Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
(est. 1636), Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
(est. 1636), and Northampton, Massachusetts
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Northampton's central neighborhoods, was 28,549...
(est. 1654), on the Connecticut River
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
and towns such as Providence, Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, on Narragansett Bay
Narragansett Bay
Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound. Covering 147 mi2 , the Bay forms New England's largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor, and includes a small archipelago...
(est. 1636), progressively encroached on Native American territories. Prior to King Philip's War, tensions fluctuated between different groups of Native Americans and the colonists, but relations were generally peaceful. As the colonists' small population grew larger over time and the number of their towns increased, the Wampanoag, Nipmuck, Narragansett, Mohegan, Pequot
Pequot
Pequot people are a tribe of Native Americans who, in the 17th century, inhabited much of what is now Connecticut. They were of the Algonquian language family. The Pequot War and Mystic massacre reduced the Pequot's sociopolitical influence in southern New England...
, and other small tribes were each treated individually (many were traditional enemies of each other) by the English officials of Rhode Island
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original English Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of North America that, after the American Revolution, became the modern U.S...
, Plymouth
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
, Massachusetts Bay
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, Connecticut
Connecticut Colony
The Connecticut Colony or Colony of Connecticut was an English colony located in British America that became the U.S. state of Connecticut. Originally known as the River Colony, it was organized on March 3, 1636 as a haven for Puritan noblemen. After early struggles with the Dutch, the English...
and New Haven
New Haven Colony
The New Haven Colony was an English colonial venture in present-day Connecticut in North America from 1637 to 1662.- Quinnipiac Colony :A Puritan minister named John Davenport led his flock from exile in the Netherlands back to England and finally to America in the spring of 1637...
. The New Englanders continued to expand their settlements along the coastal plain and up the Connecticut River valley. By 1675 they had established a few small towns in the interior between Boston and the Connecticut River.
Disease and war
The Native American population throughout the NortheastNortheastern United States
The Northeastern United States is a region of the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau.-Composition:The region comprises nine states: the New England states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont; and the Mid-Atlantic states of New...
had been significantly reduced by pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
s of smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, spotted fever
Spotted fever
A spotted fever is a type of tick-borne disease which presents on the skin.Types include:* Mediterranean spotted fever* Rocky Mountain spotted fever* Queensland tick typhus...
, typhoid and measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
brought by contact with European fishermen, starting in about 1618, two years before the first colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts, had been settled.
Shifting alliances between different Algonkian
Algonquian peoples
The Algonquian are one of the most populous and widespread North American native language groups, with tribes originally numbering in the hundreds. Today hundreds of thousands of individuals identify with various Algonquian peoples...
peoples and the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
), represented by leaders such as Massasoit
Massasoit
Massasoit Sachem or Ousamequin ,was the sachem, or leader, of the Pokanoket, and "Massasoit" of the Wampanoag Confederacy. The term Massasoit means Great Sachem.-Early years:...
, Sassacus
Sassacus
Sassacus was a Pequot sachem....
, Uncas
Uncas
Uncas was a sachem of the Mohegan who through his alliance with the English colonists in New England against other Indian tribes made the Mohegan the leading regional Indian tribe in lower Connecticut.-Early life and family:...
and Ninigret
Ninigret
thumb|Ninigret in 1681, painting currently at the [[Rhode Island School of Design Museum]]Ninigret was a seventeenth century sachem of the eastern Niantic Native American tribe in New England. Ninigret allied with the English settlers and Narragansetts against the Pequots...
, and the colonial polities of Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
, Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, negotiated a troubled peace for several decades.
Failure of diplomacy
Sachem
A sachem[p] or sagamore is a paramount chief among the Algonquians or other northeast American tribes. The two words are anglicizations of cognate terms from different Eastern Algonquian languages...
of the Pokanoket
Pokanoket
The Pokanoket tribe is the headship tribe of the many tribes that make up the Wampanoag Nation, which was at times referred to as the Pokanoket Nation or the Pokanoket Confederacy or known as the Pokanoket Country...
and Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy after the death in 1662 of his older brother, the Grand Sachem Wamsutta
Wamsutta
Wamsutta , also known as Alexander Pokanoket, as he was called by New England colonists, was the eldest son of Massasoit and a sachem of the Wampanoag native American tribe. His sale of Wampanoag lands to colonists other than those of the Plymouth Colony brought the Wampanoag considerable power,...
. Well known to the English before his ascension as paramount chief to the Wampanoag, Metacom distrusted the colonists. Wamsutta had been visiting the Marshfield
Marshfield, Massachusetts
Marshfield is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on Massachusetts's South Shore. The population was 25,132 at the 2010 census.See also: Green Harbor, Marshfield , Rexhame, Marshfield Hills, and Ocean Bluff and Brant Rock....
home of Josiah Winslow
Josiah Winslow
Josiah Winslow was an American Pilgrim leader. He served as governor of Plymouth Colony from 1673 to 1680.Born in Plymouth Colony , he was son of Edward Winslow and Susanna White. In 1651 in London, with his father, he married Penelope Pelham, daughter of Herbert Pelham, the first treasurer of...
, the governor of Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
, for peaceful negotiations, and suddenly collapsed and died just after leaving the town.
Metacom began negotiating with other Native American tribes against the interests of the Plymouth Colony soon after the deaths of his father Massasoit
Massasoit
Massasoit Sachem or Ousamequin ,was the sachem, or leader, of the Pokanoket, and "Massasoit" of the Wampanoag Confederacy. The term Massasoit means Great Sachem.-Early years:...
in 1661, the Plymouth colony's greatest ally, and his brother Wamsutta in 1662. For almost half a century after the colonists' arrival, Massasoit had maintained an uneasy alliance with the English as a source of desired trade goods and a counter-weight to traditional enemies, the Pequot
Pequot
Pequot people are a tribe of Native Americans who, in the 17th century, inhabited much of what is now Connecticut. They were of the Algonquian language family. The Pequot War and Mystic massacre reduced the Pequot's sociopolitical influence in southern New England...
, Narragansett, and the Mohegan. Massasoit's price was colonial incursion into Wampanoag territory as well as English political interference. Maintaining good relations with the English became increasingly difficult, as the English were plying local Natives with alcohol and then obtaining their marks on illegal land sale documents. The colonists' refusal to stop this practice combined with Wamsutta's suspicious death eventually led to Metacom's War.
The war begins
John SassamonJohn Sassamon
John Sassamon, the shortened and Anglicized version of his actual name, Wassausmon, was born circa 1600 in or about the Blue Hills area, current Canton MA. He was a praying Indian whose intelligence in the service of the Puritans sparked the conflict known as King Philip's War.- Early Biography :He...
, a Native American Christian convert ("Praying Indian
Praying Indian
Praying Indian is a 17th century term referring to Native Americans of New England who converted to Christianity. While many groups are referred to by this term, it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages, known as praying towns by Puritan leader John Eliot.In 1646, the...
") and early Harvard
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
graduate, translator, and adviser to Metacom, contributed to the outbreak of the war. He spread a rumor to Plymouth Colony officials alleging King Philip's attempts to arrange Native American attacks on widely dispersed colonial settlements. King Philip was brought before a public court to answer to the rumors and after the court admitted it had no proof, it warned him that any other rumors—baseless or otherwise—would be rewarded with further confiscations of Wampanoag land and guns. Not long after, Sassamon was murdered; his body was found in an ice-covered pond (Assawompset Pond
Assawompset Pond
Assawompset Pond is a reservoir/pond within the towns of Lakeville and Middleboro, in southeastern Massachusetts. It shares its waters with Long Pond and openly-connected with Pocksha Pond. These lakes provides a source of drinking water to the city of New Bedford, the largest city in southeastern...
), allegedly killed by a few of Philip's Wampanoag, angry at his betrayal.
On the testimony of a Native American witness, the Plymouth Colony officials arrested three Wampanoag, who included one of Metacom's counselors. A jury, among whom were some Indian members, convicted the men of Sassamon's murder; they were hanged on June 8, 1675, at Plymouth. Some Wampanoag believed that both the trial and the court's sentence infringed on Wampanoag sovereignty. On June 20, a band of Pokanoket
Pokanoket
The Pokanoket tribe is the headship tribe of the many tribes that make up the Wampanoag Nation, which was at times referred to as the Pokanoket Nation or the Pokanoket Confederacy or known as the Pokanoket Country...
, possibly without Philip's approval, attacked several isolated homesteads in the small Plymouth colony settlement of Swansea
Swansea, Massachusetts
Swansea is a town in Bristol County in southeastern Massachusetts.It is located at the mouth of the Taunton River, just west of Fall River, 47 miles south of Boston; and 12 miles southeast of Providence, Rhode Island....
. Laying siege to the town, they destroyed it five days later and killed several inhabitants and others coming to their aid. Officials from Plymouth and Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
responded quickly; on June 28 they sent a military expedition that destroyed the Wampanoag town at Mount Hope
Mount Hope (Rhode Island)
Mount Hope is a small hill in Bristol, Rhode Island overlooking the part of Narragansett Bay known as Mount Hope Bay. The elevation of the summit is 209 feet, and drops sharply to the bay on its eastern side. Mount Hope was the site of a Wampanoag village...
(modern Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol is a town in and the historic county seat of Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 22,954 at the 2010 census. Bristol, a deepwater seaport, is named after Bristol, England....
).
Population
The white population of New England totaled about 80,000 people, including 16,000 men of military age. They lived in 110 towns, of which 64 were in Massachusetts. Many towns had built strong garrison houses for defense, and others had stockadeStockade
A stockade is an enclosure of palisades and tall walls made of logs placed side by side vertically with the tops sharpened to provide security.-Stockade as a security fence:...
s enclosing most of the houses. The region included about 10,500 Indians, including 4000 Narragansett of western Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut, 2400 Nipmuck of central and western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts is a loosely defined geographical region of the U.S. state of Massachusetts which contains the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley, and some or all of the Swift River Valley. The region is always considered to include Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties, and the...
, and 2400 combined in the Massachusetts and Pawtucket tribes, living about Massachusetts Bay and extending northwest to Maine. The Wampanoag and Pokanoket of Plymouth and eastern Rhode Island by then numbered fewer than 1000 each. The various tribes, though unconnected in government, spoke dialects of the same Algonquian
Algonquian languages
The Algonquian languages also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the Ojibwe language, which is a...
language, and shared a similar culture.
Early engagements
The war quickly spread, and soon involved the Podunk and Nipmuck tribes. During the summer of 1675, the Native Americans attacked at MiddleboroughMiddleborough, Massachusetts
Middleborough is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 21,117 as of 2008.For geographic and demographic information on the village of Middleborough Center, please see the article Middleborough Center, Massachusetts....
and Dartmouth
Dartmouth, Massachusetts
Dartmouth is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States established in 1664. The population was 30,665 at the 2000 census. It is the location of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth....
(July 8), Mendon
Mendon, Massachusetts
Mendon is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,839 at the 2010 census.Mendon is very historic and is now part of the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, the oldest industrialized region in the United States.- Early history :The Nipmuc people...
(July 14), Brookfield
Brookfield, Massachusetts
Brookfield is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,390 at the 2010 census.-History:Brookfield was first settled in 1660 and was officially incorporated in 1718...
(August 2), and Lancaster
Lancaster, Massachusetts
Lancaster is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. Incorporated in 1653, Lancaster is the oldest town in Worcester County...
(August 9). In early September they attacked Deerfield
Deerfield, Massachusetts
Deerfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,750 as of the 2000 census. Deerfield is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area in Western Massachusetts, lying only north of the city of Springfield.Deerfield includes the...
, Hadley
Hadley, Massachusetts
Hadley is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts. The population was 4,793 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The area around Hampshire Mall and Mountain Farms Mall along Route 9 is a major shopping destination for the surrounding...
, and Northfield
Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 2,951 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
(possibly giving rise to the Angel of Hadley
Angel of Hadley
The Angel of Hadley is the central character in an apocryphal 17th-century legend combining the execution of Charles I in England, King Philip's War and Hadley, Massachusetts.-The legend:...
legend.)
The New England Confederation
New England Confederation
The United Colonies of New England, commonly known as the New England Confederation, was a short-lived military alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven. Established in 1643, its primary purpose was to unite the Puritan colonies against the Native...
declared war on the Native Americans on September 9, 1675. The next colonial expedition was to recover crops from abandoned fields for the coming winter and included almost 100 farmers/militia. They were ambush
Ambush
An ambush is a long-established military tactic, in which the aggressors take advantage of concealment and the element of surprise to attack an unsuspecting enemy from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind hilltops...
ed and soundly defeated in the Battle of Bloody Brook
Battle of Bloody Brook
The Battle of Bloody Brook was fought on September 12, 1675 between English colonial militia from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a band of Indians led by the Nipmuc sachem Muttawmp...
(near Hadley) on September 18, 1675.
The sack of Springfield
The next attack was organized on October 5, 1675, on the Connecticut River's largest settlement at the time, Springfield, MassachusettsSpringfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
. During the attack, nearly all of Springfield's buildings were burned to the ground., including the town's grist mill. Most of the Springfielders who escaped unharmed took cover at Miles Morgan
Miles Morgan
Miles Morgan was an English colonist of America, a pioneer settler of what was to become Springfield, Massachusetts...
's house, a resident who had constructed one of Springfield's only fortified blockhouse
Blockhouse
In military science, a blockhouse is a small, isolated fort in the form of a single building. It serves as a defensive strong point against any enemy that does not possess siege equipment or, in modern times, artillery...
s. An Indian servant who worked for Morgan managed to escape and later alerted the Massachusetts Bay troops under the command of Major Samuel Appleton
Samuel Appleton
Samuel Appleton was an American merchant and philanthropist, active in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Great Britain. The city of Appleton, Wisconsin was named in his honor by Amos Lawrence.-Biography:...
, who broke through to Springfield and drove off the attackers. Morgan's sons were famous Indian fighters in the territory. The Indians in battle killed his son, Peletiah, in 1675. Springfielders later honored Miles Morgan with a large statue in Court Square
Court Square
Court Square in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, is a park and National Historic District in the heart of Springfield's urban Metro Center neighborhood. Court Square is the City of Springfield's only topographical constant since its founding in 1636...
, the center of Springfield's urban Metro Center
Metro Center, Springfield, Massachusetts
Metro Center is the original colonial settlement of Springfield, Massachusetts, located beside a bend in the Connecticut River. As of 2011, Metro Center features a majority of Western Massachusetts' most important cultural, business, and civic venues...
.
The Great Swamp Fight
On November 2, Plymouth Colony governor Josiah WinslowJosiah Winslow
Josiah Winslow was an American Pilgrim leader. He served as governor of Plymouth Colony from 1673 to 1680.Born in Plymouth Colony , he was son of Edward Winslow and Susanna White. In 1651 in London, with his father, he married Penelope Pelham, daughter of Herbert Pelham, the first treasurer of...
led a combined force of colonial militia against the Narragansett tribe. The Narragansett had not been directly involved in the war, but they had sheltered many of the Wampanoag women and children. Several of their warriors were reported in several Indian raiding parties. The colonists distrusted the tribe and did not understand the various alliances. As the colonial forces went through Rhode Island, they found and burned several Indian towns which had been abandoned by the Narragansett, who had retreated to a massive fort in a swamp. Led by an Indian guide, on December 16, 1675, the colonial force found the Narragansett fort near present-day South Kingstown
South Kingstown, Rhode Island
South Kingstown is a town in Washington County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 30,639 at the 2010 census.South Kingstown includes the villages of Kingston, West Kingston, Wakefield, Peace Dale, Snug Harbor, Tuckertown, East Matunuck, Matunuck, Green Hill, and Perryville. Peace...
. A combined force of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut militia numbering about 1,000 men, including about 150 Pequots and Mohicans, attacked the fort. The battle that followed is known as the Great Swamp Fight
Great Swamp Fight
The Great Swamp Fight, or the Great Swamp Massacre, was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between colonial militia of New England and the Narragansett tribe in December of 1675.-Battle:...
. It is believed that the militia killed about 300 Narragansett (exact figures are unavailable). The militia burned the fort (occupying over 5 acres (20,234.3 m²) of land) and destroyed most of the tribe's winter stores.
Many of the warriors and their families escaped into the frozen swamp. Facing a winter with little food and shelter, the entire surviving Narragansett tribe was forced out of quasi-neutrality and joined the fight. The colonists lost many of their officers in this assault: about 70 of their men were killed and nearly 150 more wounded.
Native American victories
Andover, Massachusetts
Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...
, Bridgewater
Bridgewater, Massachusetts
For geographic and demographic information on the census-designated place Bridgewater, please see the article Bridgewater , Massachusetts.The Town of Bridgewater is a city in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, 28 miles south of Boston. At the 2000 Census, the population was 25,185...
, Chelmsford
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Chelmsford is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town's population was 33,802. The Census Bureau's 2008 population estimate for the town was 34,409, ranking it 14th in population among the 54 municipalities in...
, Groton
Groton, Massachusetts
Groton is a town located in northwestern Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The population was 10,646 at the 2010 census. It is home to two noted prep schools: Groton School, founded in 1884, and Lawrence Academy at Groton, founded in 1793. The historic town hosts the National Shepley Hill Horse...
, Lancaster
Lancaster, Massachusetts
Lancaster is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in the United States. Incorporated in 1653, Lancaster is the oldest town in Worcester County...
, Marlborough
Marlborough, Massachusetts
Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 38,499 at the 2010 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the late 20th century after the construction of the...
, Medfield
Medfield, Massachusetts
Medfield is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 12,024 according to the 2010 Census. Medfield is an affluent community about 17 miles southwest of Boston....
, Millis
Millis, Massachusetts
Millis is a town in Norfolk County in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. It is a small town with a population of 7,891 according to the 2010 census. The town is approximately southwest of downtown Boston and is bordered by Norfolk, Sherborn, Holliston, Medfield, and Medway...
, Medford
Medford, Massachusetts
Medford is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States, on the Mystic River, five miles northwest of downtown Boston. In the 2010 U.S. Census, Medford's population was 56,173...
, Portland
Portland, Maine
Portland is the largest city in Maine and is the county seat of Cumberland County. The 2010 city population was 66,194, growing 3 percent since the census of 2000...
, Providence
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...
, Rehoboth
Rehoboth, Massachusetts
Rehoboth is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,172 at the 2000 census.-History:It was incorporated in 1643 making it one of the earliest Massachusetts towns to be incorporated. The Rehoboth Carpenter Family is among the founding families...
, Scituate
Scituate, Massachusetts
Scituate is a seacoast town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States, on the South Shore, midway between Boston and Plymouth. The population was 18,133 at the 2010 census....
, Seekonk
Seekonk, Massachusetts
Seekonk is a town in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States, on the Massachusetts border. It was incorporated in 1812 from the western half of Rehoboth. The population was 13,722 at the 2010 census. Until 1862, the town of Seekonk also included what is now the City of East Providence, Rhode...
, Simsbury
Simsbury, Connecticut
Simsbury is a suburban town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 23,234 at the 2000 census. The town was incorporated as Connecticut's twenty-first town in May 1670.-Early history:...
, Sudbury
Sudbury, Massachusetts
Sudbury is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, population 17,659. The town was incorporated in 1639, with the original boundaries including what is now Wayland. Wayland split from Sudbury in 1780. When first incorporated, it included and parts of Framingham, Marlborough, Stow...
, Suffield
Suffield, Connecticut
Suffield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It had once been within the boundaries of Massachusetts. The town is located in the Connecticut River Valley with the town of Enfield neighboring to the east. In 1900, 3,521 people lived in Suffield; and in 1910, 3,841. As of the...
, Warwick
Warwick, Rhode Island
Warwick is a city in Kent County, Rhode Island, United States. It is the second largest city in the state, with a population of 82,672 at the 2010 census. Its mayor has been Scott Avedisian since 2000...
, Weymouth
Weymouth, Massachusetts
The Town of Weymouth is a city in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, Weymouth had a total population of 53,743. Despite its city status, it is formally known as the Town of Weymouth...
, and Wrentham
Wrentham, Massachusetts
Wrentham is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,955 at the 2010 census.- History :Wrentham was first settled by the English in 1660 and officially incorporated in 1673. It was burned down during King Philip's War 1675-1676. For a short time, it was the...
, including what is modern-day Plainville
Plainville, Massachusetts
Plainville is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population as of the 2010 census was 8,264. Plainville is part of the Providence metropolitan area.- History :Plainville was originally a part of the town of Wrentham, Massachusetts...
. The famous account written and published by Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson
Mary Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held for 11 weeks before being ransomed. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and...
after the war gives a colonial captive's perspective on it. It was part of a genre known as captivity narrative
Captivity narrative
Captivity narratives are stories of people captured by "uncivilized" enemies. The narratives often include a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life. Barbary captivity narratives, stories of Englishmen captured by Barbary pirates, were popular...
s.
The spring of 1676 marked the high point for the combined tribes when, on March 12, they attacked Plymouth Plantation. Though the town withstood the assault, the natives had demonstrated their ability to penetrate deep into colonial territory. They attacked three more settlements: Longmeadow (near Springfield), Marlborough, and Simsbury were attacked two weeks later. They killed Captain Pierce and a company of Massachusetts soldiers between Pawtucket and the Blackstone's settlement. Several colonial men were allegedly tortured and buried at Nine Men's Misery
Nine Men's Misery
Nine Men's Misery is a site in current day Cumberland, Rhode Island where nine colonists were tortured by the Narragansett Indian tribe during King Philip's War...
in Cumberland
Cumberland, Rhode Island
Cumberland is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States, incorporated in 1746. The population was 33,506 at the 2010 census.-History:...
, as part of the Native Americans' ritual treatment of enemies. The natives burned the abandoned capital of Providence to the ground on March 29. At the same time, a small band of Native Americans infiltrated and burned part of Springfield while the militia was away.
Colonial comeback
Attrition warfare
Attrition warfare is a military strategy in which a belligerent side attempts to win a war by wearing down its enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and matériel....
; both sides were determined to eliminate the other. The Native Americans had succeeded in driving the colonists back into their larger towns, but the Indians' supplies, nearly always sufficient for only a season or so, were running out. The colony of Rhode Island became an island colony for a time, as the few hundred colonists were driven back to Newport
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
and Portsmouth
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Portsmouth is a town in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 17,389 at the 2010 U.S. Census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and of it is water. Most of its land area lies on Aquidneck...
on Aquidneck Island
Aquidneck Island
Aquidneck Island, located in the state of Rhode Island, is the largest island in Narragansett Bay. The island's official name is Rhode Island, and the common use of name "Aquidneck Island" helps distinguish the island from the state. The total land area is 97.9 km²...
. The Connecticut River towns with their thousands of acres of cultivated crop land, known as the bread basket of New England, had to manage their crops by working in large armed groups for self protection. Towns such as Springfield, Hatfield, Hadley and Northampton fortified their defenses, reinforced their militias and held their ground, though attacked several times. The small towns of Northfield and Deerfield, and several others, were abandoned as settlers retreated to the larger towns.
The towns of the Connecticut colony escaped largely unharmed, although more than 100 militia died in the actions. The colonists were re-supplied by sea from wherever they could buy supplies. The English government did not have sufficient manpower to send any reinforcements. The war ultimately cost the colonists over £100,000—a significant amount of money at a time when most families earned less than £20/yr. Taxes were raised to cover its costs. Over 600 colonial men, women and children were killed, and twelve towns were totally destroyed with many more damaged. Despite this, they eventually emerged victorious. The Native Americans lost many more people. They were dispersed out of New England or put on reservations. They never recovered their former power in New England. The hope of many to integrate Indian and colonial societies was abandoned, as the war and its excesses bred bitter resentment on both sides.
The Wampanoag and Narragansett hopes for supplies from the French in Canada were not met, except for some small amounts of ammunition obtained in Maine. The colonists allied with the Mohegan and Pequot tribes in Connecticut as well as several Indian groups in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. King Philip and his allies found their forces continually harassed. In January 1675/76 Philip traveled westward to Mohawk territory, seeking, but failing to secure, an alliance. The Mohawks—traditional enemies of many of the warring tribes—proceeded to raid isolated groups of Native Americans, scattering and killing many. Traditional Indian crop-growing areas and fishing places in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut were continually attacked by roving patrols of combined Colonials and friendly Native Americans. The allies had poor luck finding any place to grow more food for the coming winter. Many Native Americans drifted north into Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Some drifted west into New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and points farther west to avoid their traditional enemies, the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...
.
In April 1676 the Narragansett were defeated and their chief, Canonchet, was killed. On May 18, 1676, Captain William Turner of the Massachusetts Militia and a group of about 150 militia volunteers attacked a large fishing camp of Native Americans at Peskeopscut on the Connecticut River (now called Turners Falls, Massachusetts
Turners Falls, Massachusetts
Turners Falls is an unincorporated village and census-designated place in the town of Montague in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,441 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
). The colonists claimed they killed 100–200 Native Americans in retaliation for earlier Indian attacks against Deerfield colonist settlements and homesteads, and for disputes over foraging rights on abandoned planting fields. Turner and nearly 40 of the militia were killed during the retreat. With the help of their long-time allies the Mohegans, the colonists won at Hadley on June 12, 1676, and scattered most of the survivors into New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
and points farther north. Later that month, a force of 250 Native Americans was routed near Marlborough
Marlborough, Massachusetts
Marlborough is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 38,499 at the 2010 census. Marlborough became a prosperous industrial town in the 19th century and made the transition to high technology industry in the late 20th century after the construction of the...
. Other forces, often a combined force of colonial volunteers and Indian allies, continued to attack, kill, capture or disperse bands of Narragansett as they tried to return to their traditional locations. The colonists granted amnesty to Native Americans who surrendered and showed they had not participated in the conflict.
Philip's allies began to desert him. By early July, over 400 had surrendered to the colonists, and Philip took refuge in the Assowamset Swamp, below Providence, close to where the war had started. The colonists formed raiding parties of Native Americans and militia. They were allowed to keep the possessions of warring Indians and received a bounty on all captives. Philip was ultimately killed by one of these teams when he was tracked down by colony-allied Native Americans led by Captain Benjamin Church and Captain Josiah Standish
Josiah Standish
Capt. Josiah Standish, son of Capt. Myles Standish, was born abt 1633 in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts. He died on 19 March 1690 in Preston, New London County, Connecticut. A Captain in the Plymouth Colony Militia who participated in King Philip's War, Standish, along with Captain Benjamin...
of the Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
militia at Mt. Hope, Rhode Island
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol is a town in and the historic county seat of Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 22,954 at the 2010 census. Bristol, a deepwater seaport, is named after Bristol, England....
. Philip was shot and killed by an Indian named John Alderman
John Alderman
John Alderman was a praying Indian who shot and killed the rebellious Native American leader Metacomet in 1676, while taking part in a punitive expedition led by Captain Benjamin Church....
on August 12, 1676. Philip was beheaded, then drawn and quartered (a traditional treatment of criminals in this era). His head was displayed in Plymouth for twenty years. The war was nearly over except for a few attacks in Maine that lasted until 1677.
Aftermath
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
and sold in Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
. The majority of the dead Native Americans and many of the colonials died as the result of disease, which was typical of all armies in this era. Those sent to Bermuda included Metacom's son (and also, according to Bermudian tradition, his wife). A sizable number of Bermudians today claim ancestry from these exiles. Members of the Sachem's extended family were placed for safekeeping among colonists in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. Other survivors joined western and northern tribes and refugee communities as captives or tribal members. Some of the refugees would return on occasion to southern New England. The Narragansett, Wampanoag, Podunk, Nipmuck, and several smaller bands were virtually eliminated as organized bands, while even the Mohegans were greatly weakened.
Sir Edmund Andros
Edmund Andros
Sir Edmund Andros was an English colonial administrator in North America. Andros was known most notably for his governorship of the Dominion of New England during most of its three-year existence. He also governed at various times the provinces of New York, East and West Jersey, Virginia, and...
negotiated a treaty with some of the northern Indian bands on April 12, 1678, as he tried to establish his New York-based royal power structure in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
's fishing industry. Andros was arrested and sent back to England at the start of the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
in 1689. James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...
, Charles II's
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
younger brother, was forced to vacate the British throne. Sporadic Indian and French raids plagued Maine, New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts for the next 50 years as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
encouraged and financed raids on New England settlers. Most of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island was now nearly completely open to New England's continuing settlement, free of interference from the Native Americans. Frontier settlements in New England would face sporadic Indian raids until the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
(1754–1763) finally drove the French authorities out of North America in 1763.
King Philip's War, for a time, seriously damaged the recently arrived English colonists' prospects in New England. But with their extraordinary population growth rate of about 3% a year (doubling every 25 years), they repaired all the damage, replaced their losses, rebuilt the destroyed towns and continued on with establishing new towns within a few years.
The colonists' defense of New England brought them to the attention of the British royal government which soon tried to exploit them for its own gain—beginning with the revocation of the charter of Massachusetts Bay in 1684 (enforced 1686). At the same time, an Anglican
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
church was established in Boston in 1686, ending the Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
monopoly on religion in Massachusetts. The legend of Connecticut's Charter Oak
Charter Oak
The Charter Oak was an unusually large white oak tree growing, from around the 12th or 13th century until 1856, on what the English colonists named Wyllys Hyll, in Hartford, Connecticut, USA...
stems from the belief that a cavity within the tree was used in late 1687 as a hiding place for the colony's charter as Andros tried unsuccessfully to revoke their charter and take over their militia. In 1690, Plymouth's charter was not renewed, and its inhabitants were forced to join the Massachusetts government. The equally small colony of Rhode Island, with its largely Puritan dissident settlers, maintained its charter – mainly as a counterweight and irritant to Massachusetts. The Massachusetts General Court
Massachusetts General Court
The Massachusetts General Court is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the Colonial Era, when this body also sat in judgment of judicial appeals cases...
(the main legislative and judicial body) was brought under nominal British government control, but all members except the Royal Governor and a few of his deputies were elected from the various towns as was the practice.
Nearly all layers of government and church life (except in Rhode Island) remained Puritan, and only a few of the so-called "upper crust" joined the Anglican church. Most New Englanders lived in self-governing towns and attended the Congregational or dissident churches that they had already set up by 1690. New towns, complete with their own militias, were nearly all established by the sons and daughters of the original settlers and were in nearly all cases modeled after these original settlements. The many trials and tribulations between the British crown and British Parliament for the next 100 years made self government not only desirable but relatively easy to continue. The squabbles with the British government would eventually lead to Lexington
Lexington, Massachusetts
Lexington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 31,399 at the 2010 census. This town is famous for being the site of the first shot of the American Revolution, in the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775.- History :...
, Concord
Concord, Massachusetts
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 17,668. Although a small town, Concord is noted for its leading roles in American history and literature.-History:...
and the Battle of Bunker Hill
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, mostly on and around Breed's Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War...
by 1775, a century and four generations later. When the British were forced to evacuate Boston in 1776, only a few thousand of the over 700,000 New Englanders went with them.
King Philip's War joined the Powhatan wars of 1610–14, 1622–32
Indian massacre of 1622
The Indian Massacre of 1622 occurred in the Colony of Virginia, in what now belongs to the United States of America, on Friday, March 22, 1622...
and 1644–46 in Virginia, the Pequot War
Pequot War
The Pequot War was an armed conflict between 1634–1638 between the Pequot tribe against an alliance of the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies who were aided by their Native American allies . Hundreds were killed; hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery to the West Indies. ...
of 1637 in Connecticut, the Dutch-Indian war
Kieft's War
Kieft's War, also known as the Wappinger War, was a conflict between settlers of the nascent colony of New Netherland and the native Lenape population in what would later become the New York metropolitan area of the United States...
of 1643 along the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
and the Iroquois Beaver Wars
Beaver Wars
The Beaver Wars, also sometimes called the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, commonly refers to a series of conflicts fought in the mid-17th century in eastern North America...
of 1650 in a list of ongoing uprisings and conflicts between various Native American tribes and the French, Dutch, and English colonial settlements of Canada, New York, and New England.
In response to King Philip's War and King William's War
King William's War
The first of the French and Indian Wars, King William's War was the name used in the English colonies in America to refer to the North American theater of the Nine Years' War...
(1689–97), many colonists from northeastern Maine relocated to Massachusetts and New Hampshire to avoid Wabanaki
Wabanaki Confederacy
The Wabanaki Confederacy, as it is known in English, is a historical confederation of five North American Algonquian language speaking Indian tribes....
Indian raids.
Primary sources
- Easton, John, A Relation of the Indian War, by Mr. Easton, of Rhode Island, 1675 (See link below.)
- Eliot, JohnJohn Eliot (missionary)John Eliot was a Puritan missionary to the American Indians. His efforts earned him the designation “the Indian apostle.”-English education and Massachusetts ministry:...
, ”Indian Dialogues”: A Study in Cultural Interaction eds. James P. Rhonda and Henry W. Bowden (Greenwood Press, 1980). - Mather, IncreaseIncrease MatherIncrease Mather was a major figure in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts Bay . He was a Puritan minister who was involved with the government of the colony, the administration of Harvard College, and most notoriously, the Salem witch trials...
, A Brief History of the Warr with the Indians in New-England (Boston, 1676; London, 1676). (See link below.) - ______. Relation of the Troubles Which Have Happened in New England by Reason of the Indians There, from the Year 1614 to the Year 1675 (Kessinger Publishing, [1677] 2003).
- ______. The History of King Philip's War by the Rev. Increase Mather, D.D.; also, a history of the same war, by the Rev. Cotton Mather, D.D.; to which are added an introduction and notes, by Samuel G. Drake(Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1862).
- ______. "Diary", March, 1675–December, 1676: Together with extracts from another diary by him, 1674–1687 /With introductions and notes, by Samuel A. Green (Cambridge, MA: J. Wilson, [1675–76] 1900).
- Rowlandson, MaryMary RowlandsonMary Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held for 11 weeks before being ransomed. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and...
, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: with Related Documents (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 1997). - Rowlandson, MaryMary RowlandsonMary Rowlandson was a colonial American woman who was captured by Native Americans during King Philip's War and held for 11 weeks before being ransomed. After her release, she wrote a book about her experience, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and...
, The Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682)online edition - Belmonte, Laura. "Edward Randolph, the Causes and Results of King Philip's War (1675)"
Secondary sources
- Cave, Alfred A. The Pequot War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996).
- Cogley, Richard A. John Eliot's Mission to the Indians before King Philip's War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).
- Hall, David. Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
- Kawashima, Yasuhide. Igniting King Philip's War: The John Sassamon Murder Trial (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2001).
- Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1999).
- Mandell, Daniel R. King Philip's War: Colonial Expansion, Native Resistance, and the End of Indian Sovereignty (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2010) 176 pages
- Norton, Mary Beth. "In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692" (New York: Vintage Books, 2003)
- Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Penguin USA, 2006) ISBN 0-670-03760-5
- Schultz, Eric B. and Michael J. Touglas, King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2000.
- Slotkin, Richard and James K. Folsom. So Dreadful a Judgement: Puritan Responses to King Philip's War. (Middletown, CT: Weysleyan University Press, 1978) ISBN 0-8195-5027-2
- Webb, Stephen Saunders. 1676: The End of American Independence (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995).
External links
- Peters, Paula, "We Missed You", Cape Cod TimesCape Cod TimesThe Cape Cod Times is a broadsheet daily newspaper serving Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by the Dow Jones Local Media Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is also the sister paper of the weekly The Barnstable Patriot.-History:The paper...
, July 14, 2002 - "Edward Randolph on the Causes of the King Philip's War (1685)", rootsweb.com.
- King Phillip's War in Peirce, Ebenezer Weaver, Indian history, biography and genealogy: pertaining to the good sachem Massasoit of the Wampanoag tribe, and his descendants, Z.G. Mitchell, 1878
- Records of Lancaster, Massachusetts, p.324