today we're looking at king phillips war
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questions down in the description in 1662 metacom or as he was called by the english king philip
became the chief of the wampanoag tribe in massachusetts medicon was the second son of chief
massasoit who was the leader of the wampanoag that negotiated peace with the pilgrims and
participated in the first thanksgiving at plymouth since massasoit negotiated that peace agreement
back in 1620 there had been peace between english settlers and native americans in massachusetts
however as more and more puritans arrived and more englishmen were wanting land the relationship
between the two had gotten worse and worse in 1671 colonists met with metacom and demanded that he
sign another peace agreement not only that but that the wampanoag also lay down their arms or
give over their guns to the english surprisingly medicom agreed to this in 1675 john sasseman a
native american who had converted to christianity and had been passing information to the english
colonists was murdered and three wampanoag warriors were put on trial by the english
and then put to death for the murder in plymouth medicom could not tolerate any more of the english
colonist actions and so on june 24th 1675 metacom ordered an attack on the english settlement of
swansea in southern massachusetts native american warriors attacked and burned the town of swansea
and retaliation the colonists attacked and destroyed the wampanoag village at mount
hope in present-day rhode island unlike previous disagreements or fights between the new england
colonists and the native americans this conflict turned into a full-scale war the new england
confederation which included the massachusetts bay colony plymouth colony new haven colony and
connecticut colony declared war on the native americans on september 9th in 1675. other native
american tribes in the area joined and fought alongside the wampanoag throughout the summer
of 1675 the war went back and forth as native americans attacked massachusetts towns such as
mendon brookfield and lancaster and then colonists in turn would attack native american villages
the war itself was extremely violent and actually the bloodiest war in american history in terms of
the percentage of the population that was killed in the war the population of the new england
colonies in 1675 was around 80 000 including native americans in the region in the war
over 9 000 were killed which was over 10 percent of the total population each town had a militia in
which all men were expected to serve unless they were too young too old or a pastor the native
americans suffered the majority of the deaths during the war many of them dying from starvation
native americans attacked 52 towns during the war pillaging or stealing as much as they could from
25 of the towns and burning 17 towns to the ground in turn the new england colonists sold thousands
of captured native americans into slavery in the caribbean the primary goal of the native americans
was to stop or limit the spread of english colonists for the english colonists at first it
was about protecting their land but soon it turned into a war to eliminate native americans and open
the way for colonists to get more land the war lasted from 1675 to 1676 and eventually came to
an end when the colonists i guess greater access to resources and the fact that the colonists
outnumber the native americans allowed them to take control of the war chief metacom was hunted
down in a swamp in rhode island and was shot and killed by a native american ally of the english
colonist he was killed and then i apologize for being morbid here but he was beheaded
and the colonists displayed his head at plymouth colony for the next 25 years as a warning
to native americans although it took years for the new england colonies to recover from the war
and there will be other major ramifications from the war that i'll cover in other bell ringers the
war basically opened the way for english colonists to expand west with little to no opposition from
native americans so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you