We have
no portrait or description of Metacomet, or as the English
named him, Philip. All we know about Philip was furnished
by his enemies. People such as Increase Mather, that
saintly member of the cloth, described Philip in language
needed to describe Judas Iscariot.
We do know that his domain was constantly shrinking with
the Puritans and Pilgrims ‘buying” land for
individual use excluding all others. The Native Americans
“sold” land for use by the entire people with
no specific land under the control of one individual.
Massasoit, his father, had ruled over much of Southeastern
Massachusetts and much of Central Massachusetts. Philip, by
contrast, was restricted to the Mount Hope peninsula.
The English gradually asserted control over Philip and his
people. He was summoned several times to Boston or Taunton
to answer for his alleged insubordination. The procedure
was a formality. He was judged guilty in advance. His
Father had maintained his independence, but his father had
many fewer English to contend with.
The consensus is that Philip’s hand was forced by his
young warriors. So, the War began before Philip had
completed his plans. The flight from Pocasset at the start
of the war bears this out.
Philip was not visible for much of the War. He was only
intermittedly located at a specific location. He was not
identified at any of the battles. Part of the problem was
that Native American had no reporters embedded in their war
parties. Another was that the Native Americans were
organized along local lines and usually did not go beyond
their leaders for direction.
The conflagration that followed the start of the war
demonstrates that Philip was not the Native American with a
grievance against the English.
In the end, King Philip was backed into a corner from which
he could not escape. If he remained on his early course,
the English would have continued to whittle at his land and
his independence. If he went to war, their superiority of
men and resources would crush him. The Mohawks would kill
him if he moved west. He could not move East, South or
North because the English would stop him.
If you had King Philip’s choices, what would you have
done?