1676

In 1676, a bloody war between Indians and white settlers raged in New England. And to the south, in Virginia, colonial farmers rebelled against the British government.

The leader of the warring Indians in New England was chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet, whom the colonists called Philip. Angry over the settlers’ treatment of the Indians and their encroachment on Indian land, Metacomet and his allies began a series of fierce attacks on frontier settlements in 1675. Metacomet was a son of Massasoit, the Indian chief who lived in peace with the Pilgrims when they arrived in the New World.

Many settlements were completely destroyed, and hundreds of colonists were killed. But in 1676, the settlers counterattacked, and the Indians were defeated. Some 600 colonists and 3,000 Indians were killed during King Philip’s War, the bloodiest of the seventeenth-century wars between American colonists and Indians.

Meanwhile in Virginia, a planter named Nathaniel Bacon led an uprising of farmers against the British governor. The farmers were angry because of high taxes and because the government was not protecting them from Indian attacks. Bacon’s men captured Jamestown, and the governor fled. But when Bacon suddenly fell ill and died, the leaderless revolt collapsed. It would be 100 years before American colonists again defied Britain.