American History Hit - King Phillip's War

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

This is one of the deadliest conflicts in North American History. But who was King Philip? What started the war? And how did it change history?Don is joined by Professor David Silverman from George Washington University to head back to the late 17th century.Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Produced by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Our boots crunch in the crusted snow as the whistling wind swirls fresh powder into ghostly spirals. This time of year, the waters are frozen over. Birds and small mammals gladly use them as shortcuts. But for us, here at Asawamset Pond, The ice is unpredictable. In some places, thick enough to support several men. In others, it cracks and pops threatening to collapse. And if it does, here at this location, at this pond, what lies beneath in the water, could shatter a tenuous peace and forever echo through the colonial history of the North American continent. Hello and welcome to American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman,

And today, we are heading back to the 1670s. Half a century after the arrival of the Mayflower and what is arguably per capita, the bloodiest war in American history, known as King Philip's War. Who was this ruler, this eponymous King Philip? And how did events at Asa Wampset Pond finally end what slim chance there might have been for a peaceful coexistence between European colonists and Native nations? To learn about this, I am speaking with Professor David Silverman of George Washington University, author of six books, the most recent of which is The Chosen and the Damned, Native Americans

and the Making of Race in the United States. Hi, David, how are you? Doing just fine. Thank you for having me. You know, I'm looking forward to this conversation. Anyone living in or spending time in New England, which I do every summer, hears about this subject from time to time, and most do not understand it. So let's start with an overview. What was King Phillips War?

King Phillips War is the great contest between native people and English colonists for control of the balance of power in southern New England in the 1670s. Right. We often style this as an Indian colonial war. The reality is a little bit more complicated than that. In fact, what you have is a coalition of tribes in resistance to the expansion of the English colonies, and the English colonies are also allied with other native tribes in this war. Yeah, spoiler alert, history is written by the victors here, and so are the titles of these things. Kings Phillips War would be a European objective on this conflict, wouldn't it? Because there's a lot more behind that name.

we don't know what the native people would have called this war. Yeah, exactly, right. To situate this again, you've already mentioned, we're talking about the whole stretch of land, gigantic territory, of course, from basically Massachusetts, what we know today is Massachusetts, down all the way to New York, right? That whole kind of what ends up being on Long Island Sound. The war is concentrated in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Right.

Back in the 1670s, that era. was divided between the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, which is now, you know, mostly the south shore of Massachusetts Bay through Cape Cod, and then Rhode Island within its present boundaries. The war also extended northward into southern Maine. Oh, wow. Okay. And like all wars, or most of them anyway, it is all about territory. This is considered to be the deadliest war in colonial American history, possibly when you think about it, all of U.S. history, if you do the math, considering the populations at the time. I mean, per capita, this was a devastating conflict, wasn't it? It is a devastating conflict. You know, whether it's the bloodiest in all

American history or even just colonial American history is hard to say. I know historians have stressed that point repeatedly. You know, the fact of the matter is we have very poor statistics on casualty rates, particularly on the native side of things. Not only in this particular, particular war, but for all colonial Indian wars. I think there are some other contenders. The Yamacy War in South Carolina in 1715, 16 might very well have been as or more bloody. We just can't say with absolute certainty. What we can say is this was a terrible war. Right. And it needs some set up. So we'll get to the action of this war in a bit. But I want to know what was going on in the Northeast by 1675. This is early days. I mean,

And we've barely got the Dutch leaving in New York. I mean, the separatists have arrived in Massachusetts 50 years before. Give me a context here of this war. Sure. Effectively, this is a war in which Native people recognize that if they don't strike the colonies hard and fast and in a united fashion, they're going to lose everything. And when I say everything, I mean not only their land, those. they were certainly on the precipice of losing their land. They were going to lose their sovereignty, which is to say their right to self-rule. They were even at risk of becoming servants and

slaves of the English. So, you know, in other words, they're going to lose their livelihoods, their self-rule, and their freedom, which is to say absolutely everything. And they had learned these lessons over the course of, of course, 1620 to about 16, 61, which was mostly a peaceful coexistence, I guess we put in there in quotation marks. By the time of this war, which again is going to happen in 1670s, Native Americans have suffered enormous population loss from decimation from diseases arriving from Europeans, what has happened all over North and South America. They've lost tribal land to colonists. They had, as a result, less area to hunt and fish, which of course, increased competition between them as well.

I mean, this is a very complicated problem, isn't it? Have these nations been meeting together in a Confederate sort of way, figuring this out on their own? Is war, of course, going to be a last resort, right? They've been having conversations for decades about the threat that English expansion posed to all of them. The first example of those conversations actually occurs in the 1640s when a Narragansett-Sacham or chief named Mayantonomo starts appealing to tribes throughout the region saying,

hey, look, you know, I know we have our differences, we have our historic differences, we have our current differences, but these English pose a real threat to our collective way of life. And unless we make common cause with one another, we don't stand a chance against them. They're going to play divide and conquer against us until we're all defeat. But the conversation at that point goes nowhere because the intertribal rivalries are too fresh and fierce, and the existential threat of English expansion is too distant for Native people to take that leap. But with every passing year, there's more and more Native people who reach that conclusion. Now, during the 1650s and the 1660s, the leader who is making that rallying cry is a Narragansett-Niantic sachem named Ninnigret.

But by the 1670s, the leader of this cause is a Wampanog named Pometacom who the English call King Philip. He is the son of none other than Massasoit, the Wampanag leader, who had greeted and welcomed the separatists or pilgrims in Plymouth and allowed their struggling colony to survive. Right, exactly. When we say a Confederacy, how many nations are we talking about? We're talking about roughly a half dozen. So the war begins with the Wampanogs. Though, let's be clear, you know, the Wampanogs themselves are divided in this war.

There are Christian Wampanogs on Cape Cod and the islands of Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket who side with the English in the war. They want nothing to do with this. But, you know, roughly half to two-thirds of the Wampanogs take up arms against the English. They're very quickly joined in the war by the nipmucks of what's now central Massachusetts. So, you know, for your listeners in the area, around modern-day Worcester Mass. Eventually, they're joined, too, by various small tribes in the Middle Connecticut River Valley in what's now Western Massachusetts. Sookies, Norotux, become tucks, who the English call the river Indians. Sometimes they also call them friend Indians, though they're not friends in this war.

They joined very quickly. And then eventually the Narragansets joined. The Narragansets and the Wampanogs had been rivals for generations. And they make common cause midway through this war. So, you know, we're really talking about half a dozen people. Yeah. This is setting the scene for what then transpires over the next two centuries, really, about how these different nations or tribes decide to ally or not ally with these white colonists in any kind of way.

All these famous stories later on, we're outwe. there are guides who lead these incursions of American cavalry and so forth. All that is being set up early in this war. That's what's so interesting and important to understand about this time, is that there's so much precedent being developed here. You mentioned Masasoit, who is the chief of that Wampanooga Confederation. The two sons will talk about a lot here are both Mediqam, who the English call King Philip, and then Massasoit's elder son, Wamsuda. Let's talk about him. He is next in line after Mesasoa, but he dies, right? He does. He dies in what the Wampanog suspect is a case of English poisoning. Oh, really? It might very well have been a burst appendix. We just don't know.

But, you know, the fact of the matter is that when he rises to become the Wampanog-Sachim in the early 1660s, no sooner has he assumed that position than the English start receiving intelligence or rumors. It's hard to know how accurate this information is, but they start receiving news from native sources that Wamsada is holding conferences with the Narragansets. And that's a really alarming proposition for the English because they know about the long-standing hostilities

between these groups. What's more, Wamsudda is constantly engaging in land transactions with the colony of Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a bit of an outlier in Puritan New England. It's a colony that's made up of religious dissidents who have been drummed out of all of the Puritan colonies. And Massachusetts would like nothing more than to annex Rhode Island and then drum those dissidents out of the area.

So Wamsudah's land dealings with Rhode Island combined with his dealings with the Narragansets, alarms the New England colonies, and eventually they force Wamsutta to come in for dressing down by English magistrates. He gets sick while he's there and dies shortly thereafter. Again, the Wampanags think that the English have poisoned him to end his intertribal organizing. I have three clarifications I want to make here. Where do these different names come from. When we're talking about Wamsada, he was also known as Alexander. We're talking about Mediom, who's also known as King Philip? Who is bestowing these names and how do we decipher here? Right. So shortly after Wamsada rises to the sachem ship following the death

of Massasoit, he and his brother, Pometacom, go to Plymouth Colony and they say, we're now in charge, we would like you to give us new names. And, you know, the English call Wompseta Alexander and they call Pometacom Philip. Why these sachems made this request is open to speculation. I suspect what they're doing is sending a warning to the English. It is not uncommon in native diplomacy to take on a new name. when one is taking on a new life course. And I think what, I think the new life course that these brothers were taking is they,

they had decided to break with their father's longstanding policy of alliance with the English. And they were going to try to organize a multi-tribal anti-colonial resistance. I think their names were a very subtle way of sending that warning to the English. but we simply can't know for sure. Psychologically, you mean that we're meeting you on your ground and watch out. We can do what you think you can do to us, but we can do better. Effectively, yeah. Interesting.

I'm curious how the English perceive this because, again, precedent here, they're coming in to acquire land. I mean, at the very basis, this is about real estate. And the European understanding is that we will own this. We will have this land and we can do what we want with it. Obviously, native tribes don't feel this way about the earth and the land. And this is probably the first time that we have that on a large scale, that conflict. Is that where this really derives from is a total change in the way that land is distributed? I think land is the primary issue, but it's hardly the only issue. It's associated with a number of other matters that feed into this war. So, you know, let's start with the land itself. when native people sell land to Europeans initially, it's with the understanding that the Europeans can build homes on that land. They can plant the land and they can graze their livestock on that land.

But native people don't assume that that use is to the exclusion of native uses of the land. In other words, native people. And how do we know this? Native people get their beliefs written into several land deeds. the documents that the English used to trace these transactions, in which native people reserve these rights explicitly. I see. I say, you know, we will continue to fish on this land. We'll continue to plant at our custom places. We have the right of travel back and forth through that. We can gather here, so on and so forth. Now, you know, eventually, the English stop honoring those

understandings once they have enough of a population to throw their weight around. But initially, that's the native expectation. There are two other primary grievances that Native people have with the English. One is, the English are not only expanding on the land, they're expanding their jurisdiction. In other words, they are increasingly claiming the right to try criminal cases between Native people that occurred in Native territory. Not just in English territory, but in native territory. That is really pushing the envelope. When native people sold land to the English, it was not with the understanding that English law, that English governance would take over. The understanding was that the old native rules of things would apply.

The English don't see things that way at all. And very often, what I'll say to people to clarify this matter is, imagine a flotilla of Wampanagh canoes crosses the Atlantic to England. And then those Wampanogs buy land in England. Has the jurisdiction of that land passed from the English to the Wampanags? You would say, no. The Wampanags are buying into England. Well, that's the assumption of Native people when the English come to native territory. And then the third factor here is the expansion of Christianity. The English have been evangelizing native people throughout the region. And roughly, half of the Wampanog tribe has taken up Christianity, especially on Cape Cod and the islands of

Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket. With the adoption of Christianity, native people stop following the rule of their sachems. And what they do is they stop paying tribute to those leaders, effectively taxes, and the English protect them from any retribution from those sachems. So there's a number of overlapping grievances which are driving this anti-colonial resistance by native people. Well, this is what I've always wondered about, where you have these English who are not naive. They understand, you know, what's going to happen as a result of changing everything in this new land. They do this consciously, right? They understand the reaction they're going to get. Or do they actually think these people are docile and simply savages waiting to be civilized?

When the colonial period begins, early English statements suggest that the English believe that native people will be so odd by the supposed superiority of English civilization and religion that they will clamor to join it. I see. Voluntarily. it takes very little time for the English to recognize that there are very few Native people who want to adopt the English way of life in total, and moreover, that there are almost no Native people who want the English to exercise jurisdiction over them. So, you know, in other words, even Native people who adopt Christianity and many aspects of the English way of life expect to maintain their own sovereignty, their own separateness from English governance.

The English don't see things that way at all. Their expectation is that by dint of their supposed civility and Christianity, they have the right to lord it over people that they consider to be barbarians or savages. Okay. It is that ugly reality. I'll be back with more American history. after this short break. Let's get back to the course of events leading to war. Pometacom, you've mentioned the English called King Philip,

now took control of this Confederacy when his brother has died of mysterious circumstances. This is all during the English continuing to violate the alliance, right? That was set up. Is that correct? Right. You know, by the time Wamsudda dies in the early 1660s, The English have actually attained a population majority in southern New England. And conscious of that fact, they start throwing their weight around. So what does that mean?

It means that whereas before they honored in the breach those native expectations about mutual land use, now they're increasingly denying native people access to that territory. They're allowing their herds of cattle and sheep and pigs to wander beyond the boundaries that they've purchased and trespass on native territory. Then they prosecute native people for injuring the animals when they've trespassed in native territory. Increasingly, they're attempting to punish murders between native people in native territory, which for most native people, is just a step too far. They will not tolerate it. The English are encouraging Christian Indians not to pay tribute and not to defer politically to their regional leaders. All of these tensions are mounting. And it is across the board, I mean, and regionally all around, right? Everywhere

this is happening, these Native nations are talking to each other and understanding that each other is having this kind of abuse done to them. Indeed, there are conversations that are stretching all the way from Massachusetts Bay in the north, southward to New York Harbor to the Hudson River. Native people are matching notes, and they're trying to determine whether it is viable for them to rise up together and whether they trust one another enough to do so. Right. Have they had that conversation before,

has there been a temptation to have this kind of confederated reaction? Indeed, there has been. And, you know, in the Hudson River Valley, the lower Hudson River Valley, in the 1640s, there was a multi-tribal uprising that nearly drove the Dutch into the sea in the 1640s. And so, you know, again, these conversations have been stretching over the course of decades. But it's asking a lot of native people to create a coalition on that scale, given. that their rivalries, you know, between their polities, predate the arrival of the English, and hostilities between those groups continue all the way into the 1670s. So, you know, many of them, all of them, are out for themselves. They want their groups to be safe and secure and profitable. They really don't care about the fate of other tribal groups.

Right. And so much of this will be a divide and conquer mentality. for hundreds of years. You know, let's make alliances with these guys, so they'll work against those guys. It's a lot of chess playing going on. Which brings us to 16, 74, and 5. I mean, this is really when this war begins. And we do call it King Phillips War. Is he the one that really triggers this thing? Well, he launches the first attacks. I would contend that the English have really pushed him into it. And he's quite explicit about that point. So, you know, there have been rumors. of Pometacom trying to rally the tribes of the region against the English for years, for many years. Indeed, in 1671, that crisis built to a point that, you know, the English forcibly called him in to meet with authorities from Plymouth and Massachusetts, confiscated all of his people's guns and levied a massive fine on him that he could only pay.

with the session of yet more land. So, you know, the crisis had been brewing for quite some time. When it finally breaks, you know, what happens is a Christian Indian, and let's be clear, Pometacom reviles Christian Indians. You know, he says there are no good double crossers, you know, they're English lackeys, you know, they're an enemy within. A Harvard-educated Christian Indian named John Sassaman goes to meet with the governor of Plymouth in December of 1674. And he says to him, you know, Philip Pometacom is plotting again.

When spring comes around and there's camouflage for native warriors, they're going to strike. And then, you know, the governor of Plymouth, Josiah Winslow brushes off Sassiman and says, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard all this before, and, you know, you can't believe native sources and this, this too, shall pass. As he's walking out the door, Sassiman says, I doubt you're ever going to see me again. And sure enough, he disappears. Wow. The English conduct an investigation, and eventually two native people, including a Christian, come forward. One of them says, I witnessed several of Pometicom's men murder John Sassaman and bury him under the ice of frozen Asso-Wompset Pond.

Another native source comes forward and gives hearsay evidence to the same effect. And lo and behold, you know, they find Sassiman's body. They conduct an autopsy on it. And what the autopsy suggests is that he was dead before he entered the water. How do they know that? There's no water in his lungs. Okay. And there's bruises all around his neck, which suggests that he had been strangled before he entered the ice. So what the English do is they arrest, try, and execute three of Pometacom's men for this murder. That's it. Whatever forbearance Pometacom had shown up to this point, he can no longer show it.

If the English can go and arrest, try, and murder his own people for an affair between Native people on Native territory, his sovereignty means nothing. Amazing. It's like an episode of law and order here. Sometime later, David, Medicom's warriors kill English cattle in Swansea. All of these things are stepping us towards open conflict, aren't we? Oh, no question about it. And they start burning outbuildings in Swansea and Rahobith. they start showing up on the edge of English towns armed and painted for war.

They don't strike the first blow. They wait for, it's actually an English boy, to shoot one of their warriors dead. And one source suggests that one of their shaman or powwows, as they were called, had a premonition that for the natives to win this war, the English had to shed first blood. But the natives are doing everything they can to provoke that outcome to be sure. sure. Yeah. This will all take about three years, 1675 to 78. And at first, it goes very well for this Confederacy, doesn't it? The natives are very successful in pushing back colonists from the frontier. For the first six months or so, the natives are getting the best of it. Yeah, the main reason

they're getting the best of it is twofold. One is the English keep violating the neutral rights of native people and pushing them into war on the side of Pomettacom and against the English. So, you know, initially, Pometicom has very few communities that rally to his cause. But eventually, the English force, the Nipmucks, the so-called river Indians in the Middle Connecticut River Valley, and eventually the Narragansets into this war. Whether those groups would have entered it on their own accord, we simply cannot say. The other factor that's leading to early native victories is that they're experts in forest warfare, and the English are utterly incompetent at it. So what they do is they ambush English troops on the march and then plunder their arms and ammunition.

They strike outlying English towns throughout Plymouth and Massachusetts. You know, eventually by the time we get to early 1676, there's a real possibility, it looks like, that the natives in resistance can push English settlement back to Boston and its inner ring of towns. Yeah. Tell me about the ambush that happens at Bloody Brook in South Deerfield. This is a terrible bloodshed, isn't it? It is. No question about it. You know, the English, when they're on the march, have a tendency to let down their guard.

And that is certainly the case in this attack. The men of the English force actually put down their guns and start picking grapes, you know, which is something you should not do when you're in enemy territory. You know, what's more, they march bunched up together. And whenever native people are with them, they say, you know, don't do this. You're like one big red bullseye standing here in the woods. You know, space yourselves out, remain alert, use scouts and flankers. And, you know, be prepared for enemy fire at any point. Yeah.

The English don't take this advice. You know, meanwhile, you have nipmucks and river Indians who are lying in camouflage all along this trail. And when the, you know, when the English reached this bend in, in the trail where their forces are, are separated from one another, the natives attack. They unleash a volley of gunfire. And when the English are paralyzed, both by the gunfire and the sound of it, the natives rush in with knives and tomahawks and put them to the knife. Yeah, 76 colonists in this particular ambush are killed, the English do drive them off, and they end up sending 100 native women and children into enslavement. There are all kinds of terrible things that happen as a result of all these

actions. It also results in hostages being taken and ransoms. It's really, really ugly what goes on here. And this is just part of it. And when we mentioned at the beginning, the bloodiest war supposedly, remember, this is in the context of not large population. So 76 is a huge number per capita speaking. The English gamble. during this and they attack the Narragansets in Rhode Island, who are neutral up to this point, right? They dragged these guys in it. I guess they'd been part of this Confederacy, but they weren't actively fighting. Is that right? Yes and no. So the Narragansansansansans haven't taken military action against the English as yet. However, a large body of Narragansets painted for war and armed do march to the edge of the English town of Warwick, which is

clearly meant as a threat. What's more, the Narragansansans have been taking in Wampanag women and children and offering them protection while Wampanag men are outwaring against the English. And the English demand the Narragansansans to turn over these Wampanag non-combatants. Narragansansansansans won't do it. What's more, a high-ranking Narragansett woman has married a high-ranking a high-ranking Wampanag war captain, suggesting that the diplomacy between these groups is getting quite close, indeed. And rumors spread by the Mohican sachem, Uncas, who hates the Narragansets and is in alliance with the English, says that the Narragansets are just waiting for the spring of 1676 to roll around, and then they're going to join the Wampanags in arms. So, you know, the English are certain,

you know, whether their certainty is well-placed or not is up for debate. But the English, in their own minds, are certain that the Narragansets are going to join this war against them. And so they launch a preemptive attack that makes the casualties at Bloody Brook look minor in comparison. Yeah, 300 to 600 killed. These are large numbers, really, a thousand militia from Massachusetts Bay colony, Plymouth, Rhode Island, altogether, Connecticut, even. This colonist's army is being organized over a lot of. large amount of territory, which brings to mind what their, what is their eventual strategy? What are they acting on? A war of attrition kind of thing? Or just beating them up so badly that they

won't be able to negotiate well? The colonial strategy is really haphazard until the spring of 1676. The problem that the colonists are having is that their usual strategy against native people is to attack them before their harvest. So attack them in the summer. Because very rarely will native warriors meet English soldiers in an open field battle. They want to launch guerrilla strikes against them. So the way that the English, not only in New England, but throughout the English colonies, wage war against native people is through a war of attrition. You burn down their food supplies and their houses season after season after season until they capitulate, you know, because they're starving and desperate. The English also have a strategy of targeting Native people in their winter quarters because that's just about the only time of year when the Native people are all clustered together.

So that's precisely what the English Jew against the Narragansansets. They strike the Narragansets great swamp for it in the dead of winter. winter, when men, women, and children are all gathered together and all their food supplies are stored up. The problem is in this war that the natives in arms aren't living in sedentary villages anymore. They're scattered and they're on the move. The English have a very hard time locating them. But this is a problem for native people. They can't continue this kind of campaign indefinitely, these are a horticultural people. They get most of their calories from corn, beans, and squash. Well, they're not growing corn, beans, and squash during this war. If you're a wampanog or an

arrogance, the other major portion of your sustenance comes from fishing, fishing and clamming. Well, they don't, they're not in their fishing and clamming grounds anymore. So, you know, they're living on the hunt. They're living based on what they can plund, from English villages, and they're living based on whatever they can trade or receive as gifts from other native people. But it is very clear that by the winter of 1675-76, and especially the spring, the early spring of 1676, Native people are suffering starvation and disease, and their numbers are wilting by living on the run. Yeah. And they realize they're outgunned.

And so much of this is about the land that they are protecting, but they have lots of land elsewhere, I guess, and they can move around. And so it's not the ideal thing for them, but some of them can't escape from this. And that's what the English want, basically, sort of tip the table in their favor. Pometacom returns to his home grounds, which is Mount Hope, right? Is that Mountup, right? Yes. And Wampinaw gets Montup. Montup, sorry. He is eventually tracked down by a guy named Benjamin Church using native guides and a man. who betrays Pomettom, same old story many times. Church surrounds this camp. Pometicom realizes he was discovered. And tell me about this event. It's quite dramatic. Sure. There's a long setup to this, which I think will be adventurous to your listeners. Yeah. The story of Pometacom and his men going back to Mount Hope or Montau effectively begins in February of 1676 when their camp near the Hudson River. The reason their camp there is that they are purchasing guns from Dutch gun runners in Albany,

which is part of the English colony of New York, but is overwhelmingly a Dutch town. The English governor of New York catches wind of this enemy camp, and he sends word to the Mohawks of the Iroquois League or the Haudenishonies, who live just to the west of Albany. And he says, look, if you drive these Indians who are warring against the New England colonists from their winter camp, I will make it worth your while with a very generous present of guns powder and shot. And the Mohawks have longstanding hostilities with some of these people. They hardly need the push, but they take the invitation and drive these Wampanogs, Nargansets, and Nipmucks from their gun depot in effect. back east into the teeth of the English, and the colonists, native allies, the Mohegans,

the Pequots, and Christian Wampanox. What's more, in the spring of 1676, Plymouth militia captain, Benjamin Church, prevails on English authorities to extend an offer of quarter or mercy to any native people who switch sides in the war. and who will agree to fight under his command. So now all of a sudden, Church has, under his command, Native people who know how to fight in forest warfare. And so it is at this moment that Pometacom and his dwindling number of warriors go back to

their home territory and effectively the gig is up. They're being pursued from the west by the Mohawks. They're being pursued from every other direction by the English and their growing number of native allies. And eventually, church and his forces catch up with Pometocom. And in a scenario that Pometacom would have absolutely dreaded, he's shot down by a Christian Indian, a Christian Wampanog who the English called Alderman. Wow. And, you know, after his death, church orders Pometacom. decapitated and then Plymouth Colony mounts his head outside of the walls of Plymouth Fort to rot for

the next 20 years. This is the very site where Pomettacom's father had conducted his peace treaty with the English of Plymouth Colony and where, you know, the so-called first Thanksgiving took place. Oh my goodness. Well, ironic, isn't it? I'll be back with more American history after this short break. I have a quote here to read about this death, about Mediacom's death. They let him come fair within shot and the Englishman's gun missing fire. He bid the Indian to fire away, as you say. And he did so to purpose, sent one musket bullet through his heart and another knot above two inches from it. He fell upon his face in the mud and water with his gun under him.

Is there an official ending to this war, David, a moment of surrender and negotiating a treaty and so forth? There is not. Mop-up operations in southern New England continue throughout the summer and the fall of 1676. And what the English are doing is they're trying to kill every native warrior they can get their hands on. But then they're seizing the women and the children and they're selling them into slavery, sometimes into slavery in the English colonies of New England. But as often as not, in places. very far field, including the sugar colonies of the Caribbean and other colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. In Maine, the war is going to last into 1678. The English have provoked the Abnachis there, and the Abnachis get the best of it. They almost empty all of Southern Maine of what few English people had lived there. Additionally, and this is an interesting way to think about the question of when the war ends. Native survivors of this war, many of them, flee to the Jesuit, the Catholic Jesuit missions of the St. Lawrence River Valley in the colony of New France.

And from those bases, they and then their children are going to continue to strike English settlements in Maine, New Hampshire, and Western Massachusetts, well into the 18th century. And I think for them, those strikes are more than just them serving as proxies for the French. Those strikes are effectively a continuation of King Phillips war. Interesting. Wow. I'm always here with the grim numbers. Five thousand native peoples died, approximate, of course. Another thousand are enslaved. More than half of the English settlements attacked were attacked during the war. And as you say, many of those shifting alliances happen as a result of this just by movements of people. Your book, which I want to

plug, is the chosen and the damned Native Americans and the making of race in the United States, which is such an interesting title. Where does that come from in the context of this conversation, the idea of race coming out of this? Sure. The native people are thinking of themselves as a race actually before the English are? The English still call themselves collectively Christians in the 1670s, even though native people, and for that matter, African-American slaves are increasingly becoming Christians too and troubling the English understanding of that term. But the native people are calling themselves Indians. They've adopted this term from the English and are using it to refer to their collective interest in the collective threat and the collective threat that they

face from colonialism. So I would argue that this war is a racial watershed, particularly in Native people, thinking of themselves as a single particular group of people. However, it is a step in colonists moving towards the adoption of the term white as a collective identity. By the time we get to around 1700, the colonists of New England are using that term. And it's a term that first emerges in the context of the massive enslavement of Africans and indigenous people in Barbados. It's later adopted by Virginia and South Carolina, and it works its way into the New England colonies. By the early 18th century, colonists who are English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch, French, Swedish, from a dozen different backgrounds, they have different religious denominations, and even languages,

are thinking of themselves collectively as white people defined against both Indians, and enslaved Africans. Fascinating. It takes me back to a conversation we have with Sarah Lewis about her book about the origins of the white race in the white people's minds, how Caucasia was, the Caucasian term was adopted to find a homeland of whiteness. All this idea of race and whiteness is an artificiality that comes out of these sudden conflicts that are happening as a result. Really, what happens in North America, isn't it? Without question. You know, race is an invention by human beings. for human purposes.

And, you know, in the case of the invention of the category white in colonial America, it is a oppositional identity defined not just in the context of plantation slavery, not just relative to black people. It is an identity that colonists define relative to native people. Colonists originally think of themselves as Christians, and they contend that native people can and should become civilized Christians. By the wars like King Phillips War convince them that native people can't change. Right. That they cannot become civilized Christians, that they're indelible savages.

And so the idea of assimilation, this sort of grand notion that they're going to just want to come over to our side because they just don't know better. and we give them a better way of life is not going to happen. And that will set the table for so much that happens in colonialized America, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, other than in the romantic imagination of missionaries and a small segment of elite, the overwhelming majority of the now self-identifying population contends that they are chosen by God to expand at the expense of the damned. the savages of America. Yes, in so many ways we now live still with the legacy of King Phillips War.

Thank you so much, David. It was great to talk to you about this. Professor David Silverman is a professor of history at George Washington University, a leading scholar on Native American life in colonial New England, author of a number of titles, one of which is recently released,

The Chosen and the Damned, Native Americans, and the Making of Race in America, as well as five others. I recommend you. Look this man up. Thank you so much. It was an honor to talk to you, David. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit.

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