King Philip’s War

King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict 

by Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias

At the Pilgrim’s first Thanksgiving in 1621, chief among the honored guests was Massaoit, the sachem of the Wampanoag. Fifty-five years later, colonial soldiers walked through Plymouth with their horrible spoils of war: the severed head of Massasoit’s son, King Philip, on a stake. It was the end of a bloody conflict between the Wampanoag and the English on the frontier of Plymouth colony. Eight hundred colonists were slaughtered and whole settlements reduced to ashes. The Native Americans suffered even worse, devastated by disease and famine. Thousands slain or sold into slavery, the native peoples of New England were all but destroyed. Three hundred years later, their fight for freedom is all but erased from the history books.

King Philip’s War expands our understanding of American history and provides insight into the nature of colonial and ethnic wars in general. Through careful reconstruction of events, first-person accounts, period illustrations, and maps King Philip’s War brings this harrowing yet overlooked chapter of our nation’s past into full view.