King Philip’s War (1675-1678) has rightly been described as a watershed moment for the Native and Puritan inhabitants of New England. The history of this forgotten conflict is most often told through Mary Rowlandson’s famous captivity narrative and the victors’ monuments scattered in towns throughout New England. However, these settler sources distort our historical memory of the complex tensions that led to war, the political and environmental factors that shaped its course, and its diverse outcomes for Native communities across the Northeast. In this talk, Kevin March re-examines King Philip’s War, offering a more nuanced picture of the conflict that reshaped New England. This 86-minute talk posted on March 12, 2026 by the Partnership of Historic Bostons moves beyond narratives of “Indian rebellion” and Puritan conquest to offer a panoramic introduction to King Philip’s War.
Kevin March (above) is a history PhD candidate (ABD) at Boston College. He is interested in empire, property, and environmental history in New England and all of early America. In June 1675, 50 years of Anglo-Indian tension erupted into conflict when the Pokanoket leader Metacom (King Philip) led a pan-Indian confederation against the settlers in New England. In the summer and fall, Metacom’s coalition of Pokanoket, Nipmuc, Pocumtuck, Podunk, and Nashaway warriors raided English villages in southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and on the shore of the Connecticut River. A parallel war also erupted later between the English settlers and Wabanaki Indians of Maine and New Hampshire.
March begins by exploring the ongoing sources of conflict between Native and English communities, including disputes over property rights and political sovereignty. He then examines the motives and decisions of Native peoples on both sides, including forgotten but crucial leaders like Weetamoo (Pocasset), Canonchet (Narragansett) Awashonks (Sakonnet), and Madockawando (Penobscot). He concludes by assessing the war’s diverse consequences for Native communities in the Northeast. Some groups suffered devastating losses, enslavement, and dispossession in the aftermath of King Philip’s War, but others retained their land rights and reasserted their political sovereignty for decades until the American Revolution.
On the 350th anniversary of King Philip’s War, its meanings and legacies are still deeply contested. This talk concludes with a brief examination of historical memories of the conflict. Puritan stalwarts like Cotton Mather labelled the war an “Indian rebellion,” but later historical reassessments have described the conflict as a “civil war,” and still others as a Native battle for survival and sovereignty. Popular narratives of this forgotten war still largely take the colonial perspective, but public history initiatives and collaborations between Native and settler scholars have begun to craft new histories of King Philip’s War. For them, King Philip’s War is more accurately seen as a war of resistance.