War Military | War Rebellion

King Philip's War

Credit: Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images
King Philip's War cost the English colonies twice as many lives relative to the population than the American Civil War, and seven times as many as World War II.
King Philip's War, fought between English settlers and their Native American neighbors in the late 1600s, threatened the British colonies in North America.

On the eve of King Philip's War, about 80,000 colonists lived in more than 100 New England towns. Cultural differences, shifting settler alliances with various native groups, and the rapid growth of settlements made tensions rise, and tit-for-tat reprisals in June 1675 led to war between New England colonists and their Native American neighbors. During the war, more than half of all New England towns were raided and twelve were completely destroyed. Each community relied on its local militia for protection, and those areas lacking enough men or weaponry to fight had to be abandoned, albeit temporarily. In 1676 colonial forces killed Wampanoag leader "King Philip," largely ending the bloodiest phase of the war. Ongoing battles in northern New England continued until 1678, and the protracted conflict left colonists vulnerable and Wampanoag and allied groups on the verge of collapse.

Credit: Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images
The casualties of King Philip's War were high, it cost colonists twice as many lives relative to their population than the American Civil War and seven times as many as World War II, and thousands of Native Americans were killed and sold into slavery.

 

Credit: Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images
After the death of his father, Massasoit Ousa Mequin, and the killing of his brother, Wamsutta of the Pokanoket, by Puritans, Metacom became the sachem (elected chief) of the Wampanoag Confederacy in 1662.

 

Credit: Interim Archives/Archive Photos/Getty Images
Living in a war zone both Native Americans and colonists battled with homelessness and starvation as crops and entire villages were burned to the ground.

 

Credit: Library of Congress Photo Collection, 1840-2000/Ancestry.com
Governor Josiah Winslow issued a declaration of war against Native nations on September 9, 1675. Some local militias were poorly trained and didn't stand a chance against the highly effective methods of Native American warriors.