King Philip's War
King Philip's War: An Exercise In FailureIn 1675, the Algonquian Indians rose up in fury against the Puritan Colonists, sparking a violent conflict that engulfed all of Southern New England. From this conflict ensued the most merciless and blood stricken war in American history, tearing flesh from the Puritan doctrine, revealing deep down the bright and incisive fact that anger and violence brings man to a Godless level when faced with the threat of pain and total destruction. In the summer of 1676, as the violence dispersed and a clearing between the hatred and torment was visible, thousands were dead.(Lepore xxi) Indian and English men, women, and children, along with many of the young villages of New England were no more; casualties of a conflict that was both devastating to the lives and the landscape of New England, as well as the ideologies of both the Indians and the English Puritans that inhabited this land.(Lepore 18)King Philip's war was not the basic Indian war that plagues American history. It was not the first archetypal Settler vs. Savage conflict, and nor would it be the last. King Philip's war was a terribly violent and destructive conflict, which was sparked by the desires of maintaining cultural identity
The Puritans became what they believed was an embarrassment to themselves, their homeland, and their God. The war forever changed the approach on colonization, and made an outstanding effect on the development and cultural identity on New England. Morals became somewhat lax in comparison to what was expected. (Lepore 53) The Algonquians and their allies destroyed most of the new villages in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and killed many innocent civilians within them. As the English gained power, the sachem (a king-like title among the Algonquian people) lost power, and as the Christian Church gained power, the medicine men, or powwaws, would lose their grip on the Algonquian spirituality. The Indian casualties were devastatingly large, and many Indian villages had been ravaged and burned as well. (Drake 103) The Puritans had full governmental control now, and instead of trading for what they wanted, the Puritans would just take from the Algonquians as they chose fit. This process of identity loss gained momentum very rapidly. Accounts by Mary Rowlandson and Hubbard, depict great violence to the extent of unnecessary pain and torture, in which both sides participated. Both England, and the Puritans themselves, didn't feel as if future expansion of New England colonies was necessary at such a time. (Drake 25)The Puritans began to push Christianity and English forms of government upon the natives. (Lepore 28) This angered Metacomet, sachem of the Algonquains, (also known as King Philip), to organize a party devoted to a forceful rebellion. With nothing won, and terrific loss, the early Americans, both English and Indian, were unsure of their own, as well as each other's identity. (Drake 97) They lost the trading opportunities and the allies they previously shared with the Algonquians. Despite English victory, the Puritans suffered greatly for this conflict from a political standpoint.
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