After landing in what is now known as Plymouth, some of the first Indians that the Pilgrims encountered were the Wampanoag's. Though it only lasted a little over a year, it was an exceptionally brutal war that took a huge toll life wise and had a lasting impact on both the English and the Indians for many years to come. The result of this was a short fought war known as King Philip's War. The Indians were quickly losing land and their way of life as well to these new settlers and some of them believed the only way to stop this was to go on the offensive and push back them back. The settler's insatiable hunger for land and their increasing mistreatment of the Indians began to break down an already somewhat fragile alliance between the two. As more and more settlers began arriving over the years, tension between the two began to steadily rise. Canonchet himself would be captured and killed by the Mohegans not long after the battle.War between the Indians and the Colonists was unavoidable from the very moment the Pilgrims first set foot on what was to eventually become Massachusetts in 1620. Though the surviving Narragansetts raided English settlements in response to their defeat, Canonchet’s people were so gravely weakened that they could provide only limited support to Metacomet. Hundreds of people died as the New Englanders and Mohegans stormed the town, many others perished as Canonchet led the survivors through the frozen marshlands which surrounded their home.
The New England forces were well armed and determined to root their enemy out, launching a bloody assault which overwhelmed the Narragansett defences. The community had only partially completed a wooden palisade to defend their community when the attack came and many of the 1000 people inside the walls were women, children and elderly. Though the Narragansetts led by Chief Canonchet had remained neutral, New England’s paranoia fears that they would join Metacomet, compelled Winslow to launch a pre-emptive strike. In the winter of 1675, New England Governor Josiah Winslow and Mohegan Chief Uncas led 1150 militia and warriors to attack the main Narragansett community in present day South Kingstown, Rhode Island. By 1676, the English were able to convince the Mohegan nation to join their side, as well as forging an alliance with the Mohawks. Rangers launched amphibious raids into the Wabanaki nations’ territories and devastated Metacomet’s followers. These new type of soldiers, called Rangers, would rely on guerrilla tactics instead of massed volleys of gunfire. Church also enlisted the help of Pequot warriors to train his men to fight as the First Nations did. With no regular troops to guard against attack, English American settlers like Benjamin Church took up arms to defend themselves. Supported by French colonial officials and Acadian settlers, Wabanaki warriors raided English communities along the frontier. By strengthening older economic, military and kinship ties between them, the nations created the Wabanaki Confederacy. Though the Narragansetts, led by Canonchet, tried to stay neutral in the growing conflict, the New Englanders were convinced they would join with the Chief they called King Philip and attacked them.Īs chaos unfolded to their south, the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Abenaki, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy saw an opportunity to stop the creeping English expansion into present day Maine. These deaths provoked a war with a coalition of nations, led by the Wampanoag chief Metacomet. The tensions between the settlers and the Wampanoag exploded into war in 1675, when the English arrested and hung three Wampanoag men over the alleged murder of an Indigenous Christian convert.
To their north, the Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Maliseet aligned themselves with the Acadians French settlers in Atlantic Canada. To their east and south, the Wampanoag, Nipmuc and Narragansett struggled to keep the peace with the foreign settlers, while still preventing the wholesale annexation their homelands.
In the 1670s, the growing population, size and power of the English colonies in present day New York and New England posed a growing threat to the First Nations who lived around them.
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