Metacom, King Philip’s War, and the Struggle That Changed New England Forever

INTRODUCTION — THE HEAD ON THE BLOCKHOUSE

In the summer of 1676, the war that had torn through southern New England was finally reaching its brutal end.

Villages had burned.

Farms had been abandoned.

Native communities had been scattered.

English towns had been attacked and rebuilt, sometimes more than once.

Families on both sides had lost relatives, homes, food stores, fields, and any confidence that the world they knew would remain the same.

At the center of the conflict was a Wampanoag sachem named Metacom, remembered in English records as King Philip.

He was the son of Ousamequin, the Wampanoag leader often remembered as Massasoit, whose diplomacy had helped create an alliance with the English at Plymouth decades earlier.

By the time Metacom became sachem, that relationship had deteriorated almost beyond repair.

Metacom did not begin his life as the leader of a war against the English.

His family had lived through an extraordinary transformation of Wampanoag country.

European newcomers had arrived, epidemics had devastated Native communities, colonial settlements had expanded, and agreements that initially appeared to offer coexistence increasingly became arguments over land, authority, trade, religion, and the meaning of political independence.

When fighting erupted in 1675, it quickly became much larger than a dispute between one Native nation and one colony.

Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, and other Native communities became involved at different stages and for different reasons.

Some fought the English.

Some tried to remain neutral.