#177 King Philip’s War 1: The Kindling of War

This episode looks at the background causes of the brutal war between the New English colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Connecticut and their indigenous allies against a tribal alliance including both the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts between 1675 and 1678.

King Philip’s War is the most widely used name of that bloody and arguably existential war. In surveys of American history, it is often the only event between the founding of Jamestown, Plymouth, and Massachusetts Bay and the end of the 17^th century that rates more than a sentence or two. This is for good reason, insofar as King Philip’s War changed the trajectory of New England’s history. It is thought to be the bloodiest war in American history as a proportion of the affected population. As many as 1000 colonists died, including perhaps 10 percent of the English men of military age. Three thousand Indians were killed, and as many as a thousand were sold into slavery abroad. The war altered the relationship between the European colonists and the Indians of the region to a far greater degree than the Pequot War or any of the other conflicts that had preceded it, shattered the military and cultural power of New England’s most powerful indigenous nations, and so devastated the English that by some estimates per capita wealth in the region did not return to the level of 1675 until the eve of the American Revolution a century later.  The New England frontier, for better or worse, did not advance for forty years after King Philip’s War.

Suffice it to say, we should understand the issues that broke the long peace in the summer of 1675, almost exactly 350 years ago.

Maps of New England during King Philip’s War

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Selected references for this episode (Commission earned for Amazon purchases through the episode notes on our website)

Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War

Jill LePore, The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity

Matthew J. Tuininga, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People

Pekka Hämäläinen, Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America

Philip Ranlet, “Another Look at the Causes of King Philip’s War,” The New England Quarterly, March 1988.