King Philip's War - Definition, Cause & Significance - HISTORY - 0 views
-
King Philip’s War—also known as the First Indian War, the Great Narragansett War or Metacom’s Rebellion—took place in southern New England from 1675 to 1676. It was the Native Americans' last-ditch effort to avoid recognizing English authority and stop English settlement on their native lands. The war is named after the Wampanoag chief Metacom, later known as Philip or King Philip, who led the fourteen-month bloody rebellion.
-
Metacom was the second son of Wampanoag chief Massasoit, who had negotiated a peace treaty with the colonists at Plymouth Plantation. But the agreement wasn’t enough to stop the colonist’s encroachment on Indian lands.
- ...10 more annotations...
-
After Massasoit's death in 1661, his eldest son Wamsutta, later named Alexander, succeeded him. In 1662, the English arrested Alexander on suspicion of plotting war. During questioning, he died, and Metacom—now known as Philip, as many Wampanoags took English names—came to power.
-
A jury made up of colonists and Indians found three Wampanoag men guilty for Sassamon’s murder and hanged them on June 8, 1675. Their execution incensed Philip, whom the English had accused of plotting Sassamon’s murder, and ignited tensions between the Wampanoag and the colonists, setting the stage for war.
-
Between June 20 and June 23, 1675, the Wampanoag carried out a series of raids against the Swansea colony of Massachusetts, killing many colonists and pillaging and destroying property. English officials responded by sending their military to destroy Philip’s home village of Mount Hope, Rhode Island.
-
A week later, around 700 Nipmuc Indians ambushed a militia group escorting a wagon train of colonists. Almost all colonists and militia were killed in the fighting, known as the Battle of Bloody Brook.
-
Hoping to prevent a spring Indian onslaught, Plymouth Colony’s Governor Josiah Winslow gathered the colonial militia and attacked a massive Narragansett and Wampanoag fortification near the Great Swamp in West Kingston, Rhode Island, on December 19, 1675.
-
under the leadership of Chief Canonchet. After the Great Swamp Fight, King Philip set up camp in New York, possibly to enlist the Mohawk’s assistance. But the Mohawk attacked the Wampanoag and forced them to retreat to New England, with the Mohawk in hot pursuit.
-
In an attack known as the “Nine Men's Misery" incident, Narragansett Indians ambushed around 60 colonists and 20 Christian Wampanoag Indians. The Indians killed almost all the colonists; however, nine men were captured and gruesomely tortured to death.
-
Throughout the spring of 1676, the tide began to turn for the English. In April, Chief Canonchet was captured, handed over to the Mohegans and shot, beheaded and quartered, leaving the Narragansett without a leader. In May, the militia attacked and killed up to 200 Narragansett at the Battle of Turner Falls at Peskeompscut near the Connecticut River.
-
The English-Indian soldier John Alderman shot and killed King Philip on August 20, 1676, at Mount Hope. King Philip was hung, beheaded, drawn and quartered. His head was placed on a spike and displayed at Plymouth colony for two decades.
-
Thousands of Indians were killed, wounded or captured and sold into slavery or indentured servitude. The war decimated the Narragansett, Wampanoag and many smaller tribes and mostly ended Indian resistance in southern New England, paving the way for additional English settlements.