Battle Analysis

Introduction

WHAT MANY consider the deadliest war in American history began in June 1675 when some Wampanoag Indians under the leader Philip, pressured by the loss of land and political autonomy, rebelled against Plymouth Colony in New England. Philip and his followers, like many Indian groups in seventeenth century New England, had submitted to a colony in an arrangement of mutual obligation. Philip's supporters believed that in exchange for their loyalty they could rely on Plymouth as a kind of protectorate. Events of the 1660s and 1670s, however, made it clear to the Wampanoags that their relationship with the colony had failed to protect them from English expansion. They had lost land while rival Christian Indians appeared to be gaining it. The Wampanoags felt they had to break off their political ties to Plymouth. They had to rebel.

First they attacked the southwestern Plymouth town of Swansea, killing a handful of colonists. At the time, no one foresaw that this relatively innocuous skirmish would initiate a chain of events leading all of southern New England into a full-scale war. The fault lines for such a conflict developed only over the next six months. Cultural differences, misunderstandings, the twists and turns of the war, and paranoia eventually lured most New England groups--Indian and English--into the contest. Although it involved both Indians and English, the opposing sides did not draw up neatly along ethnic lines. Some Indian groups even contributed more soldiers on a per capita basis than the English colonists to put down the Indian rebellion.

King Philip's War, as it came to be called, violently altered the course of New England history. For most of the fourteen-month contest, rebel forces dominated and threatened to topple the colonies and their Indian allies. The colonists' initial insistence on waging war according to English norms proved detrimental to their cause. As one colonial settlement after another felt the hit-and-run wrath of Philip's supporters, colonists began, at the urging of their Indian allies, to alter their strategy. Only after mimicking the enemy's tactics and relying more heavily on their native supporters were the colonies able to stem the tide of rebel success. Committed to total victory, the colonial forces then began in the spring of 1676 to punish ruthlessly those who refused to surrender. The English and their Indian allies managed to whittle away at the weakened rebel forces, until Philip himself succumbed to a gunshot from another Indian's musket in August 1676.

For most of New England's inhabitants, King Philip's War had devastating results. Yet the indigenous peoples suffered by far the most. Partly because Indians joined both sides, they experienced more casualties than the English; the proportion of Native Americans in the region went from one-fourth to one-tenth. The death and removal of so many Indians from the society shook to the ground the delicate political scaffolding upon which New England had been built. It forced the intervention of English royal authority to rebuild what had been painstakingly created over decades.

VICTORY AND ...