Metacomet, also known as “King Philip,” recruited Nipmuc peoples and other American Indians to rebel against the British colonists in 1675. The war was a response to the Massachusetts colonial government’s policy of parceling land from tribal communities to white colonists. The war was bloody and lasted three years. It was not always clear that the colonists would win this war. Metacomet was killed. His head was mounted on a pike for decades in Plymouth, MA. While New England history is taught as though Puritans were less violent colonists than the Spaniards who massacred the indigenous peoples in the south, these secret and forgotten histories of warfare show us that violence contaminates the lands we walk on freely today.
"Philip, King of Mount Hope", from the Church's The Entertaining History of King Philip's War, line engraving, colored by hand, by the American engraver and silversmith Paul Revere. 17.3 cm x 10.7 cm (6 13/16 in. x 4 3/16 in.) Mabel Brady Garvan Collection, Yale University Art Gallery. Courtesy of Yale University, New Haven. Conn.
Works Cited
Brooks, Lisa Tanya. Our beloved kin: a new history of King Philip's war. Yale University Press, 2018.
Brandt, Anthony. “Blood and Betrayal: King Philip’s War.” History Net. https://www.historynet.com/blood-and-betrayal-king-philips-war.htm
DeLucia, Christine M. Memory lands: King Philip’s War and the place of violence in the northeast. Yale University Press, 2018.