King Philip's War (1675–1676): Metacom's War in New England

King Philip’s War (1675–1676) was a war between the English colonies of New England and a coalition of Native nations led by Metacom, the Wampanoag sachem known to the English as King Philip. In just over a year, fighting destroyed or damaged dozens of colonial towns and devastated the Native peoples of the region. Measured against the size of the population, it is often described as the deadliest war in American history.

Background: half a century of pressure

When the Pilgrims founded Plymouth Colony in 1620, the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit allied with them, partly for protection against rival nations. Over the following decades English settlement spread rapidly, especially after the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Colonists acquired Native land through purchases, debts, court rulings and pressure, and their livestock trampled Native fields.

Colonial authorities increasingly claimed the right to judge Native people under English law. Missionaries such as John Eliot gathered converts into “praying towns”. The Pequot War of 1636–1638 had shown how far the colonies were willing to go against Native resistance.

Metacom became sachem in 1662 after his brother Wamsutta (Alexander) died shortly after being questioned by Plymouth officials. In 1671 Plymouth forced Metacom to surrender many of his people’s guns and to accept a humiliating agreement acknowledging the colony’s authority.

The spark: the death of John Sassamon

John Sassamon was a Christian Native man, educated at Harvard, who had worked as an interpreter for Metacom. In early 1675 he warned Plymouth that Metacom was preparing for war. Shortly afterwards his body was found under the ice of Assawompset Pond.

Plymouth arrested three Wampanoag men, including one of Metacom’s counsellors, and tried them before a jury that included several Native men. They were convicted on disputed evidence and hanged in June 1675. Within days Wampanoag warriors began raiding the town of Swansea, and on 24 June colonists there were killed. The war had begun.

Course of the war

Summer and autumn 1675

The colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut, joined in the United Colonies of New England, sent troops to Mount Hope, Metacom’s home on Narragansett Bay. Metacom slipped away, and the war spread as the Nipmuc of central Massachusetts and peoples of the Connecticut River valley joined the fighting.

Native forces attacked Brookfield, Deerfield, Northfield and Springfield. On 18 September 1675 at Bloody Brook, near Deerfield, an ambush killed Captain Thomas Lathrop and around sixty of his men. Colonial soldiers, unfamiliar with forest warfare, struggled to find their enemies.

The Great Swamp Fight

The Narragansett, the most powerful nation in the region, had tried to stay neutral. Fearing they would join Metacom, the United Colonies sent an army of about 1,000 men under Plymouth’s governor, Josiah Winslow. On 19 December 1675 it attacked a large fortified Narragansett village in the Great Swamp, in present-day South Kingstown, Rhode Island.

The colonists burned the fort with many people inside. Estimates of Narragansett dead range from about 300 to 600 or more, many of them women, children and elderly people. About seventy colonists were killed and some 150 wounded. The attack drove the Narragansett fully into the war.

Winter and spring 1676

The Native coalition’s raids reached their height in early 1676. On 10 February warriors attacked Lancaster, Massachusetts, and captured Mary Rowlandson, whose later account of her eleven weeks in captivity became one of the first American best-sellers. Medfield, Marlborough, Warwick and Providence were attacked or burned, and towns within twenty miles of Boston were struck.

Fear of all Native people grew. In the winter of 1675–1676 Massachusetts confined hundreds of Christian Natives from the praying towns on Deer Island in Boston Harbor, where many died of cold, hunger and disease.

Turning of the tide

By spring 1676 the Native coalition was short of food and ammunition. Mohawk warriors, encouraged by New York’s governor, attacked Metacom’s camp near the Hudson River in the winter, cutting him off from supplies. The Narragansett leader Canonchet was captured and executed in April 1676.

On 19 May 1676 colonial troops under Captain William Turner attacked a fishing camp at Peskeompskut on the Connecticut River, now Turners Falls, killing a large number of people, many of them non-combatants. Mohegan and Pequot allies played an important part in colonial victories. The Mohegan sachem Uncas, a long-time ally of Connecticut, sent warriors to fight beside colonial troops, and from the spring of 1676 Massachusetts began recruiting Christian Natives held on Deer Island as scouts and soldiers. Captain Benjamin Church, who recruited Native fighters, adopted their methods of moving and fighting in small groups.

Death of Metacom

Metacom returned to Mount Hope in the summer. His wife and son were captured on 1 August 1676. On 12 August Church’s company surrounded him in a swamp near Mount Hope, and he was shot by John Alderman, a Native man fighting with the English. Metacom’s body was quartered and his head was displayed on a pole in Plymouth for about two decades. Fighting in southern New England soon ended, but war in Maine continued until the Treaty of Casco in 1678.

By the numbers

Consequences

The war shattered the Native nations of southern New England. Survivors were sold into slavery in the Caribbean and elsewhere, forced into indentured servitude, confined to supervised communities, or fled to join the Abenaki, Mahican and other nations to the north and west. Metacom’s young son is believed to have been sold into slavery overseas. Even the Christian Native communities that had largely stayed loyal suffered: in Massachusetts the number of praying towns fell from fourteen before the war to four afterwards.

For the colonists, the war was a costly victory. Rebuilding towns took years, debts were enormous, and the frontier receded for a generation. The colonies fought without help from England, and the crisis encouraged the Crown to take a closer interest in New England, contributing to the later revocation of the Massachusetts charter.

Legacy

Colonial writers such as Increase Mather and William Hubbard presented the war as a divine trial, and captivity narratives like Rowlandson’s shaped how settlers saw Native people for generations. In the 19th century Metacom was reimagined on the stage as a tragic patriot. Modern historians, including Native scholars, emphasise the war as a struggle over land, sovereignty and kinship networks, and the survival of Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc and other communities to the present day.

Timeline

• 1662: Metacom becomes sachem of the Wampanoag.
• 1675, January: John Sassamon is found dead.
• 1675, June: Three Wampanoag men are hanged at Plymouth; war begins at Swansea.
• 1675, 18 September: Ambush at Bloody Brook.
• 1675, 19 December: The Great Swamp Fight.
• 1676, 10 February: Attack on Lancaster; Mary Rowlandson is captured.
• 1676, April: Canonchet is captured and executed.
• 1676, 19 May: Attack at Peskeompskut (Turners Falls).
• 1676, 12 August: Metacom is killed near Mount Hope.
• 1678: Treaty of Casco ends fighting in Maine.

Why it matters

King Philip’s War decided the balance of power in New England. It ended Native military resistance in the region, opened their lands to English settlement and left deep scars on both communities. It also coincided with Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia, as conflicts over land and Native relations shook England’s American colonies in the same years.