The first permanent settlement by the English on what would become US soil was 169 years prior in 1607. So that would categorize over 40% of American history as prior to the Declaration of Independence. In this video, we’re looking at some of the lesser known wars in American history, those that occurred prior to the American Revolution. Click here for a 21-minute YouTube video posted by Bay State History on September 24, 2025.

The Pequot War was a conflict fought in early colonial America that can be viewed as a bad omen of how Native Americans would be handled by the colonists for hundreds of years of history to come.

Fearing that future conflict with the Native Americans was inevitable, Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven formed the New England Confederation, vowing to aid each other militarily if and when the next war began. And that day would arrive a generation later in 1675.

The King Philip’s War officially began on June 20th,1675 with the Pokanokets carrying out a series of raids in Swansea, Massachusetts. King Philip’s death effectively ended the war leaving no central leadership among his coalition. An extension of a conflict in Europe between England and France and their allied Native American tribes on either side, known as King Williams War, waged from 1688 to 1697 with both sides failing to capture their main targets. King George’s War was not named after King George III, who was the king during the American Revolution, but for his grandfather, King George II. This was the third of the four French and Indian Wars, a conflict started in North America in 1744 when the French attacked a British fishing port in Nova Scotia.