King Philip‘s War (sometimes called the First Indian War or Metacom’s War) was an armed conflict in 1675 – 1678 between a group of indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands against the English New England Colonies and their indigenous allies. The war is named for Metacom, the Pokanoket chief who adopted the English name Philip because of the friendly relations between his father Massasoit and the Mayflower Colony. The war continued in the most northern reaches of New England until the signing of the Treaty of Casco Bay on 12 April1678.

     The war was the greatest calamity in seventeenth-century New England and is considered by many to be the deadliest war in Colonial American history. In the space of little more than a year, 12 of the region’s towns were destroyed and many more were damaged, the economy of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies was ruined and their population was decimated, losing one-tenth of all men available for military service. More than half of New England’s towns were involved in the conflict.

     King Philip’s War was the Native last-ditch effort to eliminate British colonization. Instead, it turned out to be the beginning of the development of an independent American identity. The New England colonists faced their enemies without support from any European government or military, and this began to give them a group identity separate and distinct from Britain.

Source: Wikipedia (18 Aug 2025)