The conflict that tore through New England 350 years ago was the bloodiest per capita in colonial or US history

Massachusetts is proud of its ties to the American Revolution. From Paul Revere’s Ride to the siege of Boston, the past year-plus has been devoted to celebrating 250 years of US independence. Yet during this time, the state, and New England in general, has given far less attention to an older, more complex remembrance: The 350th anniversary of King Philip’s war.

King Philip, or Metacom, was an Indigenous leader from the Pokanoket people. Alarmed by English colonists’ infringement of Indigenous rights, from seizing land to proselytizing, Metacom led an alliance of New England tribes – including the Pokanoket, Nipmuc and Narragansett – in an existential struggle for control of the region. He gave his name to the conflict, but paid with his life – as did many others, soldiers and civilians alike. With an estimated 800 dead on the colonial side, and three to five thousand Indigenous slain, the war claimed more deaths per capita than any other in colonial American or US history.