Wampanoag Sachem

Interlopers.

Metacom (or Metacomet), whom white colonists knew as King Philip, was a war leader of the Wampanoags, an Algonquian-speaking people who lived in present-day Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Metacom was a member of the third generation of Native Americans since the arrival of English colonists. By the time he reached his teen years relations with the settlers had become dictated by land seizures, mistreatment, and the pressures of missionaries to subvert native customs and religion.

Tribal Leader.

Metacom was one of five children of Massasoit, a Wampanoag chieftain who had cooperated with Pilgrim colonists in Plymouth. Massasoit died in 1661 and was succeeded by Metacom's older brother Wamsutta, who died a year later. Metacom assumed leadership in his mid twenties and for the next decade kept the English on edge. In 1671 Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth forced him to sign a treaty that bound him...