From Paul Revere’s Ride to the siege of Boston, the past year-plus has been devoted to celebrating 250 years of US independence.
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year → devote → independence
Yet during this time, the state, and New England in general, has given far less attention to an older, more complex remembrance: The 350th anniversary of King Philip’s war.
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state → give → war
Alarmed by English colonists’ infringement of Indigenous rights, from seizing land to proselytizing, Metacom led an alliance of New England tribes – including the Pokanoket, Nipmuc and Narragansett – in an existential struggle for control of the region.
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Metacom → alarm → region
He gave his name to the conflict, but paid with his life – as did many others, soldiers and civilians alike.
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others → give → life
With an estimated 800 dead on the colonial side, and three to five thousand Indigenous slain, the war claimed more deaths per capita than any other in colonial American or US history.
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war → slay → history
The victorious English sold many into slavery, and executed others on Boston Common.
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English → sell → Common
The war marked a turning point in relations between the ascending colonial presence and an increasingly diminished Indigenous population, whose ancestors had met for a peaceful Thanksgiving celebration just a half-century before.
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ancestors → mark → celebration
Today, the conflict continues to reverberate.
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conflict → continue → ?
With November marking both National Native American History Month and the Thanksgiving holiday, and 2026 marking 250 years of American independence, historians are reflecting on the impact of King Philip’s war, 350 years later – a somber moment amid the Revolutionary hoopla.
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historians → mark → hoopla
“Recognizing the two anniversaries occur at the same time offers a moment to reflect why some things get much more attention than others,” says Christine De Lucia, an assistant professor of history at Williams College in western Massachusetts and the author of the 2018 book Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast.
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Lucia → recognize → Northeast
Mack Scott III, an assistant professor of critical Native American and Indigenous studies at Brown University, and a member of the Narragansett tribe, says, “The way we remember it, when we do talk about it, is through ideas that become part of the lore of a nation, that we don’t even associate with the war but are definitely internalized as a community, as a people, as a nation: ‘This is the process by which the land becomes the US, and the process has some sort of benevolence.’
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process → say → benevolence
“A lot of people believed that,” Scott says, “[for them] it was an almost undeniable natural process, almost inevitable, it was going to happen in this way.
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it → believe → way
They don’t remember how violent the war was for New England.
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war → remember → England
That was the thinking about those processes – it was a promised land.
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it → promise → processes
When you frame it almost in those senses – it was almost inexorable, undeniable, natural, divine, supposed to happen – the removal of Indigenous people, the death of Indigenous people becomes almost preordained, natural, something you expect to see.
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you → frame → people
Metacom’s father, Massasoit or Ousamequin, held a powerful position as the leader, or sachem, of the Pokanoket.
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father → hold → Pokanoket
(The tribe has been connected to the Wampanoag people, although there is some dispute over this.)
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tribe → connect → this
It was Ousamequin who helped the starving Pilgrims survive their first winter at Plymouth in 1620-21, and it was Ousamequin who joined in on that first Thanksgiving meal of coexistence.
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who → help → coexistence
Yet the ensuing decades had altered the landscape.
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decades → ensue → landscape
Pathogens brought by English and earlier European explorers had decimated the Indigenous population.
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Pathogens → bring → population
A continual influx of English colonists tipped the population balance in favor of the newcomers, who increasingly encroached on Native land.
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who → tip → land
“It was like a pot that had been boiling for a long, long time,” says Brad Lopes, the education and public programs manager for the Aquinnah Cultural Center, and a member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
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Lopes → boil → Vineyard
“Our ancestors faced almost an existential crisis …
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ancestors → face → crisis
The world they knew, that our ancestors knew, would never really be around any more.”
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ancestors → know → that
Metacom’s older brother, Wamsutta, had been raised to succeed their father as sachem.
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brother → raise → sachem
Instead, shortly after assuming the role, Wamsutta mysteriously died after meeting with the colonists, with the less experienced Metacom becoming the new sachem.
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Metacom → assume → colonists
The colonists soon compelled Metacom to accept a humiliating agreement that incensed the Pokanoket.
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that → compel → Pokanoket
Eric Schultz, co-author of the 2017 book King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict, says that Metacom faced a “very complex moment”, one that “his father and brother never faced before”,
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father → forget → that
In June 1675, war erupted with an Indigenous attack on Swansea, in what is today south-eastern Massachusetts.
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what → erupt → Swansea
Metacom’s forces were “very successful at the outset”, says bestselling author Michael Tougias, who co-wrote King Philip’s War with Schultz.
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who → say → Schultz
“They quickly adapted hit-and-run tactics into ambushes.
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They → adapt → ambushes
The English were reeling.
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English → reel → ?
I often thought, had all the tribes in New England united, they would have pushed the English back into a ring around Boston.”
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they → think → Boston
However, he adds, “because so many natives did not join, ending up with the English or wavering on the side, it eventually tips the balance.”
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it → add → balance
When Metacom led a force into the colony of New York to seek an alliance with the powerful Mohawk tribe, it backfired: the Mohawk preferred fur trading with English colonists, and attacked Metacom’s men.
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Mohawk → lead → men
Another powerful tribe, the Narragansett of Rhode Island, did join the conflict on Metacom’s side, but they lost heavily in an engagement remembered by the colonists as the Great Swamp Fight, and by Indigenous as the Great Swamp Massacre.
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they → join → Massacre
Several tribes – the Mohegan and the Pequot – fought alongside colonists.
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tribes → fight → colonists
Other Indigenous people, who had converted to Christianity and were called “Praying Indians”, sided with the colonists but their loyalty was doubted.
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loyalty → convert → colonists
Colonial authorities relocated them to Deer Island in Boston Harbor; there, running low on supplies in the winter, hundreds died.
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hundreds → relocate → winter
Although Indigenous forces committed their share of depredations, they were unprepared for the scale of colonial vengeance, in engagements such as the Great Swamp Fight and the Turners Falls Massacre, or for the determination of the English to press the war at all seasons.
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they → commit → seasons
…and 22 more, not listed.
The Aporia
