King Philip’s war anniversary draws attention to New England’s Indigenous losses

The 350th anniversary of King Philip’s war has received comparatively little attention in New England as Massachusetts celebrates its connections to the American Revolution. With November bringing National Native American History Month and Thanksgiving, historians and Indigenous communities are reflecting on a conflict that killed thousands and transformed the region’s balance of power.

Metacom, the Pokanoket leader known to English colonists as King Philip, led an alliance that included the Pokanoket, Nipmuc and Narragansett against colonial encroachment on Indigenous land and rights. An estimated 800 people died on the colonial side, alongside between 3,000 and 5,000 Indigenous people. Relative to population, the death toll exceeded that of any other war in colonial American or US history. Victorious colonists enslaved many Indigenous survivors and executed others on Boston Common.

The conflict followed decades of deteriorating relations. Metacom’s father, Ousamequin, also known as Massasoit, helped the Pilgrims survive their first winter at Plymouth in 1620 and 1621 and participated in the first Thanksgiving gathering. European diseases subsequently devastated Indigenous communities, while continued English settlement increased pressure on their lands. Metacom became sachem after his older brother, Wamsutta, died in unexplained circumstances following a meeting with colonists. The English then forced Metacom into an agreement that angered the Pokanoket.

Fighting began with an Indigenous attack on Swansea in June 1675. Metacom’s forces initially gained ground through ambushes and hit-and-run attacks, but Indigenous communities were divided. The Mohegan and Pequot fought with the colonists. Metacom’s attempt to secure Mohawk support in New York failed when the Mohawk, who preferred their fur-trading relationship with the English, attacked his men. The Narragansett joined his side but suffered severe losses in what colonists called the Great Swamp Fight and Indigenous people remember as the Great Swamp Massacre.

Indigenous Christians who supported the English also faced persecution. Colonial authorities questioned their loyalty and moved them to Deer Island in Boston Harbor, where hundreds died amid winter shortages. Sustained warfare undermined Indigenous communities’ ability to feed themselves. Donald “Strong Turtle” Brown Jr, the Pokanoket’s official historian and a descendant of Metacom, said hunger and exposure eventually forced people to surrender.

On 12 August 1676, John Alderman, an Indigenous man, led an expedition to Metacom at Mount Hope in present-day Rhode Island and killed him. Metacom’s head was subsequently exhibited outside Plymouth, and his wife and son were sold into slavery. Fighting continued elsewhere: the Wabanaki in Maine resisted until 1678 and retained their land.

Christine De Lucia, a Williams College historian, says the overlapping anniversaries offer an opportunity to examine why some events receive greater public attention. She argues that land theft and efforts to weaken Native sovereignty persisted into the Revolutionary era. Brown University scholar and Narragansett member Mack Scott III says accounts portraying American expansion as inevitable obscure the violence Indigenous communities experienced.

Local, regional and inter-tribal commemorations have taken place, but larger events have been harder to identify. The governors’ offices in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island did not respond to the Guardian’s inquiries about commemorative plans. Meanwhile, the Pokanoket, who lack federal recognition, continue to pursue recognition of their history and land ties. Brown University returned 255 acres at Mount Hope to the tribe in 2024, and a Rhode Island Senate resolution acknowledged their continuing stewardship in 2025. As Brown put it: “The past does not erase us. Our story continues.”