The Aftermath of King Philips War

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William Harper College
The Aftermath of King Philips War
Markel Stavro
History 111 W01

Professor Allare
December 7, 2014
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King Philips War broke out on June 20, 1675, alongside the southern boundaries of
the Plymouth colony, and its remarkable to note how rapidly two peoples, having lived
beside each other for over fifty years, could become so obsessed so fast and entirely with
a fierce hatred for one another. In the face of growing tension and soaring pressure with
the Colonists, many Native Indian tribes in southern and central New England begun a
despairing war of resistance. The Indian attacks against the English were based on the
colonists aggressive acquisition of lands and the introduction of livestock that
undermined the Indian fields. As Mandel sates, King Philips War erupted over
sovereignty and power, but it was also driven by deeply conflicting systems of
landholding and land use. 1After a fourteen month period of relentless warfare, King
Philips war was officially over with Metacoms death in 1676. Indian Native warriors
capitulated in ever-larger numbers, driven by the constant and merciless attacks of the
English men, their starvation and penury, and the continuous threats of Mohawks
assaults. Ultimately, though, the biggest killer of the Native Indians warriors and their
families had been disease, illness and starvation, and not the Colonial soldiers2. The
conclusion of the war left behind burned houses, murdered family members, and warriors
beheaded. However, King Philips bloody war didnt fade away just like that, instead it
had a disturbing effect on the evolution and growth of New England. Lepore states, In a
1. Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History) (Kindle Locations 862-895).
Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.
2. Lepore, Jill (2009-09-21). The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of American Identity
(Kindle Locations 4113-4214). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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sense, King Philips War never ended. In other times, in other places, its painful wounds
would be reopened, its vicious words spoken again. 3King Philips war would become
the barbaric prototype of how the American settlers would come to deal with Native
Indians the following years. King Philips War profoundly reshaped the human, societal
and political domains of New England. The clash annihilated most of the Native Indians
and left the remaining Indian people in great disarray and under the English authority.
King Philips War had devastating effects on the colonists structural infrastructure in
the regions that were hit. Many towns, villages and hamlets were especially vulnerable to
Indian raids. Indians were fighting for the sovereignty of their lands, therefore the
destruction of the colonists settlements seemed very reasonable to them. They wanted to
push the colonists back and halt their aggressive expansion, which was aimed deep into
the Indians territory. The relentless Indian raids throughout the whole New England
region had a destructive outcome on the colonies that were near the Indian tribes. A year
after the King Philips war had started, the major colonies of the New England area,
Swansea, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay were all in total chaos and debilitated by the
war. Only six buildings had remained standing in Swansea. Other smaller towns like
Mendon, Brookfield, Lancaster, Deerfield, Northfield, Wrentham, Worcester, Groton,
Rehoboth, Middleboro, Marlboro and Dartmouth had been totally destroyed and
deserted4. Of course there were other settlements that also felt the wrath of the Indian
warriors. Hatfield, Springfield, Medfield, Weymouth, Scituate, Sudbury, and Chelmsford
3
4. Schultz, Eric B.; Tougias, Michael J. (2000-12-01). King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of
America's Forgotten Conflict (Kindle Locations 239-271). Countryman Press. Kindle Edition.
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locations were greatly vandalized and saw many of their buildings destroyed5. The
Indians fury was so intense that even colonies that didnt initiate war with them had to
endure and suffer the consequences. The most notable example is the Rhode Island
region, which inflicted losses equal to its Plymouth and Massachusetts neighbors. The
Providence settlement lost over seventy buildings and was abandoned by most of its
residents6. Other towns in the Rhode Island region like Warwick, Wickford, and Pawtuxet
were razed to the ground. Large areas that once were full of life and vigor, they now
stood deserted and demolished. By the end of King Philips war, in all the territory of
Rhode Island, only the town of Portsmouth and the village of Newport didnt face the
brutality of the war. In the whole region of New England, more than half of the ninety
towns were attacked and destroyed by the Indian tribes7. The Indian aggression was so
fierce that at times there were fears from the colonists that they might have to retreat so
deep in their territory that only a few coastal colonies would still be in their possession.
When the war was officially over, Great Britain sent people to assess the damages and
they came up with these results: twelve hundred homes were burned, eight thousand
livestock were killed and huge amounts of food was stolen or destroyed8. Undoubtedly,
6.Schultz, Eric B.; Tougias, Michael J. (2000-12-01). King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of
America's Forgotten Conflict (Kindle Locations 250-291). Countryman Press. Kindle Edition
7.Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History) (Kindle Locations 2382-2483).
8.Schultz, Eric B.; Tougias, Michael J. (2000-12-01). King Philip's War: The History and Legacy of
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the colonists had been greatly traumatized by the cruelty and barbaric actions of the
Indian warriors.
About one thousand people of the colonies paid the heaviest price of the war9. The
war took their lives. This number might not seem large compared to death tolls of other
major wars this world has experienced. But if you put into prospective a population of
fifty thousand living in the colonies at that time, then all of the sudden the death rate of
King Philips war becomes twice that of the Civil War and seven times more that of the
World War II. Thousands lost family members and others were forced to live their
devastated hometowns to find refuge in unknown places. Although, the colonists
population took a heavy blow, in the years after the war, it recovered and over the next
century it increased considerably. The astonishing fact is that this growth was more due to
natural increase and less from immigration10. On the other hand the economy of the
colonies didnt develop with the same tendency.
King Philips war had such a great impact on the economy of the colonies that their
losses left them reliant on England sustenance. Even after the war had ended and the
colonists had come off victorious, many English settlements that had been abandoned
during the war were not resettled for a long stretch of time because of the continuous and
persistent fear of Indian raids. Other settlements had to become dependent on armies that
were exclusively devoted to repel the remaining Indian warriors from subsequent attacks.
9. Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History) (Kindle Locations 2336-2438).
10. Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History) (Kindle Locations 23872488). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition.
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This required approach led to greater tax burdens for these communities11. Survivors from
all over New England became so reliant on their respective states, that even led to the
churches in Great Britain to send relief ships to support the hard hitting communities12. A
particular detail nicely illustrates the significance this war had on the economy. It took
the region of New England almost a century until the income per capita reached the
levels of 1675. This finally happened with the development of the industry sector in the
early eighteen hundreds13.
In many regions of New England the threat of Indians raids continued. Going into
direct war and ultimately exterminating the neighboring Indian tribes, left the colonists
open to attacks from other Indian tribes as they were expanding even further into the
mainland. This was especially true in the northern territories where these raids
transformed into full blown wars. Some of the most notable subsequent wars against the
Indians over the course of seventeenth and eighteenth century were King Williams War
(168999), Queen Annes War (170413), Dummers War (172224), King Georges War
(174448), and the Seven Years or French and Indian War (175460). Having a hard time
once again to defend themselves from the new Indian attacks and being already in a state
of devastation from the King Philips war, the colonies were forced to turn to the mother
country for assistance. The New England colonies had won a crucial war which reassured
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their own existence and put them in total control of the New England territory. Now
though, the danger was much greater. The Royal Crown was threatening to take their
sovereignty and power from these lands. In under a decade of the King Philips war, the
King of Great Britain had designated a royal governor to administer New England14.
Many territorial changes took place after King Philips war was over. The Puritan
colonies became far more susceptible to the Great Britains ruling and were considered to
be included within the Imperial structure. For a few years, many towns in Massachusetts
were struggling for their own existence. Even though the alliance led by Massachusetts
played a significant role at the outcome of the war, that colony lost much of its
sovereignty. In 1685, Massachusetts was merged with all the northeaster colonies,
including New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York to form the coalition of Dominion of
New England15. Even Plymouth who was an independent entity with its own government,
was stripped of its distinct existence and annexed to the Bay colony. Massachusetts
would never again regain the sovereignty maintained before the King Philips war.
Although, the colonists inflicted great losses, if they are to be compared to the
consequences the Indian tribes had to undergo as the losers of the war, they do seem
negligible. Indian losses were far more devastating. Colonial forces and their Pequot and
Mohegan partners chased and killed Indians warriors and their families from
Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River Valley. Algonquians who battled the colonists
saw their communities being exterminated: thousands of them died in the battlefields and
14. Philbrick, Nathaniel (2006-05-09). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Kindle
Locations 4875-4977). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
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thousands more suffered and passed away from illnesses and hunger. The Native
population decreased by about half, from 25 percent to only 10 percent in the region of
southern New England16. In the years before King Philips war, Native Indians accounted
to roughly 30 percent of the inhabitants in the entire region of New England. By 1680,
Native Americans constituted less than 15 percent17. Schultz concluded that southern
New Englands native population may have declined from 90,000 in 1600 to 10,750 in
167518. By 1698, the Plymouth colony totaled only 4168 Indians17. About three thousands
of them died from war conflicts, disease, and starvation, in a total populace of twenty
thousand, this number is astounding. The Massachusett tribe, which resided in an area
where now current Boston is located, witnessed their warriors being shrunk from three
thousand to three hundred from the battles and conflicts of King Philips war19. By the
time the war was officially over, Mount Hope, once the most populous region of the
Native Americans, was essentially empty of residents.
A considerable percentage of the Natives that survived the war were persecuted and
sold into slavery in the Caribbean islands as part of a plan to restore the Colonial fund
reserves exhausted by the war. Enslavement actually began during the war. In the wake of
17. Philbrick, Nathaniel (2006-05-09). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War (Kindle
Locations 4865-4969). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
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the Great Swamp battle, the Colonists forced the remaining Narragansetts into servitude
and enslavement and Mandel argues that, this was a bad policy because it would keep
many Indians from surrendering and thereby extend the war20. In 1676, though, the
leaders of Massachusetts and Plymouth defended enslavement and the sailing of at least
200 men, women and children to West Indies by indicating King Philips betrayal of his
agreements with the colonists21. Over one thousand Native Indians were sold into slavery
in the West Indies as a result of King Philips war, with the majority of them coming from
the Plymouth settlement. Exchanging Indians was very profitable. Within three months
after the war, the Massachusetts Bay colony collected 400 pounds for 188 prisoners it
sold22. The diaspora of Indians from New England that started during the war, kept going
even in its aftermath. Them who escaped prosecution migrated north to Canada and west
to New York, merging with neighboring tribes and creating new communities. Many
fugitives from King Philips war joined Abenaki tribes in Maine, New Hampshire and
Vermont23. In the eighteenth century, historical narratives described Indians gradually
disappearing as European colonists were taking their lands at will.
23. Calloway, Colin G. (2000-07-06). After King Philips War (Reencounters with
Colonialism: New Perspectives on the Americas) (Kindle Locations 207-240). University
Press of New England. Kindle Edition.
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Indian Americans who didnt vanish from sight encountered racism and prejudice
and experienced a marginal legal status. After King Philips war, Algonquians who stayed
in southern New England discovered a very unfamiliar world to live in. A lot of them
adapted to this new environment as servants and slaves. Some of them were constantly
hiding. Yet, aside from Cape Cod and the islands, a handful of them lived away from the
Colonists supervision. Calloway claims, The period after the King Philips war
constituted a dark time for Indian people in New England24. They were restricted in very
small reservations, vulnerable to growing state regulations, and witnessed their lands
taken away. Indians were pushed to relinquish their tribal heritage and accept the colonial
way of life and culture. In such situations, generations of Native people realized that
survival in New England frequently demanded that they didnt draw awareness to
themselves as Native Americans. They toiled as servants in white families and at times
they were even forced into involuntary labor for not paying their debts25. Similar to the
white colonists, over the next centuries, many Indian Americans had to alter their ways of
living and working in regions of New England that were transforming into industrial and
urban societies. Many Natives strengthened their bonds to the Colonial economy and
culture by choosing professions like whalers and servants, whereas others agreed to fight
for the English against the Northern Indian tribes in Maine, north of New England. In
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Massachusetts, Native Americans achieved to maintain a good part of their traditions and
heritage by depending on clan boundaries as the central frame of communal
organization26. Arranged into churches, in many occasions, directed by native priests, and
into towns led by their native chiefs (sachems), many Indians in Massachusetts adapted to
a way of life similar to the Colonists. In other areas like Marthas Vineyard and Mashpee,
compact groups of brave Native Indians managed to preserve the Wampanoag culture
against immense pressure from English people even though their leader King Philip had
died during the war. Native Indians who were allowed to remain, in spite of having
assisted the Colonists war against the enemy Indians, on many occasions saw their lands
seized and their property rights and individual freedom taken away. Christianity turned
into an even more important facet on Native American life, and over the years the church
transformed into their spiritual and communal center27. But the beginning of pursuing
spiritual freedom was not easy at all. The Christian Natives who fought for the Colonists
in the King Philips war tried to found praying towns, though, this was highly opposed
by anxious English people, fearing that Christianity would deteriorate.
The effects of King Philips War on the New England colonies were immense. The
political and societal consequences on the people in the early-American colonies were so
significant and produced such frightened memories that persisted and annoyed the
colonists for the next 150 years. In Plymouth, the government officials would display
26. Lepore, Jill (2009-09-21). The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of
American Identity (Kindle Locations 4306-4410). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Kindle Edition.
27. Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History) (Kindle
Locations 2374-2479). Johns Hopkins University Press. Kindle Edition
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King Philips skull in public for the next decades after his passing. A hundred years later,
the generation of people during the Revolutionary war, were still closely accustomed with
King Philip and stories of Indian cruelty and barbarity. Possibly, the most notable
outcome of the King Philips conflict was the end of Indian sovereignty in the New
England region. However, Mandel argues that the colonists also lost some of their own
sovereignty and calling King Philips War and its aftermath The end of American
Independence in regard to the Great Britain intervention in New England after the war
and the colonies significantly losing their autonomy. In the end, King Philips war will
always be remembered as one of the most fatal and merciless war in all of the American
history.
Bibliography
Mandell, Daniel R. (2010-08-19). King Philip's War (Witness to History). Johns Hopkins
University Press. Kindle Edition.
Lepore, Jill (2009-09-21). The Name of War: King Philip's War and the Origins of
American Identity. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Calloway, Colin G. (2000-07-06). After King Philips War (Reencounters with
Colonialism: New Perspectives on the Americas. University Press of New England.
Kindle Edition.
Schultz, Eric B.; Tougias, Michael J. (2000-12-01). King Philip's War: The History and
Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict. Countryman Press. Kindle Edition.
Philbrick, Nathaniel (2006-05-09). Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and
War. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.
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William Harper College

The Aftermath of King Philips War

History 111 W01

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