King Philip’s War

King Philip’s War

In 1675, the Algonquian Indians rose up in fury against the Puritan Colonists, sparking a violent conflict that engulfed all of Southern New England. From this conflict ensued the most merciless and blood stricken war in American history, tearing flesh from the Puritan doctrine, revealing deep down the bright and incisive fact that anger and violence brings man to a Godless level when faced with the threat of pain and total destruction. In the summer of 1676, as the violence dispersed and a clearing between the hatred and torment was visible, thousands were dead.(Lepore xxi) Indian and English men, women, and children, along with many of the young villages of New England were no more; casualties of a conflict that was both devastating to the lives and the landscape of New England, as well as the ideologies of both the Indians and the English Puritans that inhabited this land.(Lepore 18)

King Philip’s war was not the basic Indian war that plagues American history. It was not the first archetypal Settler vs. Savage conflict, and nor would it be the last. King Philip’s war was a terribly violent and destructive conflict, which was sparked by the desires of maintaining cultural identity and preserving power and authority, both in societal and religious capacities upon what one believed to be his land. (Leach 21) Saying that this conflict left all of 17th century New England in a state of confusion is far more than an understatement. With nothing won, and terrific loss, the early Americans, both English and Indian, were unsure of their own, as well as each other’s identity. This crisis, whether they are aware of it or not, has impacted Americans and their ideologies of themselves for hundreds of years. (Lepore 18)

The Puritans came to this New World roughly forty to fifty years before this conflict began, but the guarantee of this conflict arrived in the same boats as they did. Something often misunderstood is that the Puritans themselves were not separatists, in fact they left England with the firm desire of staying English, maintaining their cultural identity, and remaining faithful and true to the majesty of the homeland. They had left England with the desire of religious freedom, and with hope of having somewhere to practice freely and safely within the boundaries of English oriented society, but free of the sinful and heretical p...

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...n, and made an outstanding effect on the development and cultural identity on New England. It altered the mind set of an expanding and driven people, and established a strong enough foundation for an ethnic debate that has been a constant throughout most of American history. These social, political, and cultural effects are what make this war such an event worth noting. As was stated before, this was neither the first, nor was it the last of the Indian wars in developing America, but it is the only one to expel such consequences and to so greatly effect the landscape that is American history.

Works Cited

Andrews, Charles M. The Colonial Period of American History Volume II: The Settlements. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936.

Drake, James D. King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.

Leach, Douglas Edward. Arms for Empire: A Military Hitory of the British Colonies in North America. New York: Macmillan Company, 1973.

Lepore, Jill. The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins or American Identity. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Mather, Increase. The Day of Trouble Is Near. Cambridge Mass, 1674, 21-23.