The Puritans arrived in Massachusetts in 1629 and founded Boston the following year. Unlike the profit-driven male settlers in Virginia, the Puritans migrated in family groups with a spiritual mission to build an ideal Christian commonwealth. While they differed in fundamental ways, the Puritans and Virginia colonists shared a similar pattern of interaction with Native Americans.
Demographers estimate that by 1600 as many as 120,000 Native Americans inhabited New England. In the beginning, Indians welcomed the newcomers by providing them with food and teaching them how to hunt and fish in a new environment. But as in Virginia tensions quickly developed over differing attitudes towards land.
A transformed landscape
Native Americans had no concept of private property. Tribes viewed land as a collective resource, much like air and water. In contrast, the English believed that land could be bought, sold, and transferred in a treaty.
As the New England colony grew, new settlements pushed deeper into traditional Indian lands. The appearance of fenced fields surrounding family farms provided a concrete visual expression of English attitudes towards land and farming. The transformed landscape posed a direct threat to the Indian way of life.
“Nothing will satisfy them”
The relentless growth of the New England colonies alarmed Native American tribes. Indians complained that the Puritans pushed them off their tribal lands, killed their game, and cheated them in trade. Chief Metacom (also known as King Philip), expressed his tribe’s growing frustration and anger when he bitterly complained, “They [the English] have driven us from our hunting ground…ruined our corn fields and taken our timber…Nothing will satisfy them.”
King Philip’s War
Metacom convinced a coalition of tribes that the New England colonists intended to “drive us to utter ruin.” Warfare suddenly erupted in June 1675 when Indian warriors led by Metacom launched a series of attacks at Puritan settlements across southern New England.
Known as King Philip’s War the brief but intense conflict became a bloody contest for territory, natural resources, and cultural identity. Indian attacks destroyed at least 12 English towns and damaged many others. At one point, Metacom’s warriors pushed the line of English settlements almost back to the coast. Almost 1,000 New England colonists lost their lives out of a total population of about 80,000. This represented a higher proportion of adult males lost than in the American Civil War or in World War II.
Native Americans suffered even greater losses. Merciless English attacks decimated Indian villages, burned crops, and executed prisoners. Historians estimate that 60 percent of the Indians in southern New England perished due to combat, starvation, or disease. The conflict abruptly ended with colonial forces killed Metacom in August 1676.
Short and long-term consequences
King Philip’s War caused immense economic destruction and inflicted heavy casualties on both sides. The war created food shortages, disrupted trade, and destroyed settlement that had required decades to build.
The war led to long-lasting social consequences. It decisively ended a period of peaceful coexistence between Native Americans and the Puritan settlers. Cultural and racial boundaries between the two groups hardened as the English now portrayed Native Americans as “irredeemable savages.” Compared with the French and Spanish interactions with American Indians, English interactions now promoted separation between the two groups. This established a pattern of racial division and enmity that set a precedent for future American westward expansion.
So why should you study the relations between the Puritans and Native Americans?
The topic has generated several sets of multiple-choice questions. In addition, recent APUSH exams have included Long Essay Questions asking students to evaluate how Native American societies adapted to the presence of English colonists and to evaluate the importance of causes of conflict among these two groups. The causes and consequences of King Philip’s War would provide an important source of historic evidence for LEQs on these topics.