The final episode of the Frontier Partisans Podcast series on King Philip’s War is up. You can listen here or on most listening platforms, including Spotify.
This episode is a wrap-up, an assessment of the impact of King Philip’s War. It was a catastrophe for Puritan New England, but it was a true apocalypse for the native peoples of southern New England. They fought hard and well — but the resistance sealed their doom.
Matthew says
Great wrap up! I guess what you can learn from the conflict is that what endures wins, but the entire thing was tragic for all involved. That seems to be true for all the conflicts between the Indians and the colonists in the history of America.
Paul McNamee says
Fine wrap up.
Stumbled on this the other day, BTW.
https://sowamsheritagearea.org/wp/
JimC says
Thanks Paul.
GAH says
Very nice wrap-up regarding your series of podcasts on King Philip’s War… The entire series was very enjoyable…
The more I read regarding almost all conflicts associated with the Native Peoples it appears their societal structure (many sachems, or many squa sachems, or many chiefs) has stood in the way of every gaining the upper-hand- maybe resistance for awhile, but then alliances fall apart…
JimC says
Thank you. Agree with your assessment, which tracks with Carlin’s “ability to take a punch” metric. These were not societies that were built to sustain long conflicts, especially attritional ones. Even sustained events like the Beaver Wars were episodic. They didn’t have the logistical capacity, the infrastructure and the hierarchical social cohesiveness needed to mount effective long-term resistance. It took generations — centuries — for that to develop in, say, Dark Ages Britain, and the native peoples in North America didn’t have anywhere near that amount of time to adapt. The pace of conquest by a tremendously demographically and technologically robust society was just too rapid.
Joe says
Great conclusion to an informative series. I hadn’t made the connection to the Salem Witch Trials before, but the idea of a prolonged economic recession in the aftermath of the war does make sense. I haven’t read much into this, but weren’t several accused witches of mixed native descent? If so, i wonder if lingering fear and/or retribution were part of the motivations in those cases.
JimC says
Tituba, the first to be accused, was apparently native, from the Caribbean. I don’t think any of the others were. But everything in the Puritan mindset was so tied up in the notion that the wilderness was the abode of the devil and that he was at work in their lives that you have to think that the war was a lingering memory of what seemed like a demonic force from that very same wilderness. That must have been a powerful “trigger,” to use today’s parlance.
Stanley says
Thank you! I recently finished the series on King Philip’s War and found it time well spent. In fact, it left me wanting more.
JimC says
Thank you Stanley.