King Philip's War devastates New England natives and colonists

In 1675, war broke out in New England between Native forces led by Metacom, whom the English called King Philip, and the colonies of Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Connecticut. Fighting spread from Swansea in June 1675 to attacks on towns such as Deerfield, Lancaster, and Brookfield, while colonial forces and Native allies struck back across southern New England. By August 1676, colonial troops under Captain Benjamin Church and allied Indigenous fighters had killed Metacom near Mount Hope in Rhode Island.

King Philip's War intensified a struggle over land, jurisdiction, and Native sovereignty that English expansion had sharpened for decades. The conflict drew in praying towns, the New England Confederation, and rival Native nations, showing that New England's political order rested on continuing pressure against Indigenous communities. The war also militarized colonial government, because Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth relied on emergency taxes, militia mobilization, and coordinated campaigns to survive the crisis.

King Philip's War devastated Native power in southern New England and opened wider areas of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to English settlement after 1676. The destruction also strengthened colonial habits of military coordination and helped create the political conditions that later made James II's Dominion of New England easier to justify from London.