America's Most Devastating Conflict King Philip's War (1675-76) is an event that has been largely ignored by the American public and popular historians. However, the nearly two-year conflict between settlers and Native Americans in New England represents perhaps the most devastating war in this country's history. One in ten soldiers on both sides was wounded or killed. At its height, hostilities threatened to push recently arrived English settlers back to the coast. And it took years for cities and urban centers to recover from the carnage and property damage. The war is named after King Philip, son of Massasoit and leader of the Wampanoag nation. In his language, his name was Metacom, Metacomet or Pometacom. In 1662, the Plymouth Colony court arrogantly summoned the Wampanoag leader Wamsutta to Plymouth. Major Josiah Winslow (later Colonel) and a small force took Wamsutta, Philip's brother, at gunpoint. Soon after the interrogation, Wamsutta fell ill and died, and his death enraged the Wampanoag nation. Upon the death of his brother, who the Indians suspected of killing the English, Philip became sachem and maintained a shaky peace with the colonists for several years. The friendship continued to erode due to the continued succession of land sales forced on the Indians by their growing dependence on English goods, and by Plymouth's continued inflexible policy toward Native leaders, the Connecticut Society of Colonial Wars reports (www. colonialwarsct.org) and other sources. Suspicions about the Indians remained, and in 1671 the colonists questioned Philip, fined him, and demanded that the Wampanoags surrender their weapons, which they did. The Flames of War Are Ignited In January 1675, Indian John Sassamon died on Assawampsett Pond, about 15 miles north of present-day New Bedford. Sassamon was literate and a Christian convert. He may have acted as an informer for the English and was assassinated, probably at Philip's instigation. Increase Mather, writing after the war, suggested that he was killed "out of hatred of himself and his religion, for he had been Christianized, and baptized, and was a preacher among the Indians...and used to keep those Indians who did not know God because of their profligate eyes” (1)Events moved quickly, and on June 8 Sassamon's alleged murderers were tried and executed in Plymouth Three days later,... middle of paper.. . in the Cumberland Massacre. His career was in corporate communications before returning to creative writing. He is currently working on an anthology of short stories that are stylistically reminiscent of O. Henry and a novel set in Taiwan during the Vietnam War in Connecticut and can be reached at [email protected]. Increase Mather, A Brief History, 49-50, b. 1639-d. 1723, Mather was pastor of the North Church in Boston and father of Cotton Mather.2. Benjamin Thompson, The New England Crisis, p. 2203. Jill Lepore, The Name of War, p. 85, First Vintage Books, 1999.4 George Ingersoll to Leif Augur, 10 September 1675.5 Narratives of the Indian Wars 1675-1699, edited by Charles H. Lincoln, Ph.D: a worldwide website containing information on biology and history, and Geology of New England's Largest River (http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/), University of Massachusetts, Amherst.6 The battle in which Captain Michael Pierce lost his life is described in detail in Drakes Indian Chronicles (pp. 220-222) (http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/massacre.html)7 http://www.pilgrimhall.org/philipwar.htm, Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, MA.