From the Pilgrims first arrival to the closing days of the French and Indian Wars, best-selling author Michael Tougias takes the audience on a historic journey as the Colonists and Native Americans fought for control of New England during the 17th and 18th centuries. Tougias covered the Pequot War, King Philip’s War, and the French and Indian Wars in a talk supported by a grant from the Duxbury Cultural Council to Alden House. Click here for a recording of the presentation.

Tougias is the co-author with Eric Schultz of the most comprehensive book about King Philip’s War, written in 1999. He begins by recounting the attack on the Pequots in 1637 in which the Narragansetts joined the English in massacring hundreds of Native men, women and children.

The story continues with the suspected poisoning of Wamsutta by the English about a year after the Massasoit Ousamequin’s death in 1661, and the trial and execution of three Native men suspected of murdering John Sassamon. King Philip’s War broke out in 1675 when Natives attacked Swansea.

Philip escaped his settlement at Mt. Hope and led attacks throughout Massachusetts as far away as Deerfield. The War turned after the English massacred the Narragansetts in the Great Swamp, and the Natives began to run out of food an ammunition. It came to a close in August 1676 with the deaths of Philip and Chief Anawan.