Origins.

Also called King Philip's War (1675-1676), Metacom's War was a bitter and bloody conflict named for Metacom (or Metacomet), a chieftain of the Wampanoags. It arose out of cultural conflict and population pressure, as English settlers slowly surrounded the ancestral lands of the Wampanoags on Narragansett Bay. Concerned about encroachments and the divisions in native culture caused by missionaries, the Indians attacked nearby settlements. Metacom led a campaign that completely destroyed twelve of the ninety Puritan towns and attacked forty more.

Significance.

In the spring of 1676 Wampanoag forces evacuated to New York, but the Mohawks refused to help them, and the colonists gained the upper hand. Metacom was captured and killed, and his head was severed and kept on public display for twenty years. Many of the Wampanoags, including Metacom's wife and son, were sold into slavery in the Caribbean. The war not...