English towns, however, remained vulnerable to surprise attacks, and one settlement after another was abandoned in the wake of devastating Indian assaults that took place from the summer to the late autumn of 1675. Taken off guard by the Indian uprising, and poorly prepared to fight a major war of any kind, the New England colonists seemed unable to win any decisive victory against their Indian enemies.

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That situation changed in December when a combined English force invaded the territory of the Narragansetts in southern Rhode Island in hopes of capturing Philip at an Indian fortress in the Great Swamp. On December 19, the soldiers assaulted the palisaded fort at a weak, unfinished corner, but Indian resistance was strong and effective. Impetuously, the English troops decided to fire the fort; in doing so, they burned the Indians’ supply of food, which the soldiers themselves needed for their return march out of the swamp.

The Narragansetts fled the fort, leaving behind about 100 dead and 50 wounded warriors, and perhaps as many as 1,000 casualties among their women and children. The English lost 70 dead and about 150 wounded, many of whom later died in the winter cold from their wounds. The whites had at last won a victory, but at a very high cost. More important, the English troops had failed to capture King Philip. Earlier intelligence reports had proven false; he was not in the fort at the time of the attack.

While the Narragansetts took flight from the Great Swamp, Philip and his Wampanoags were traveling west on a long journey through the winter snows. Philip’s hope was to stay the winter with the Mohawk Indians of New York and convince them to join the war against the English. In January 1676, he encamped on the east side of the Hudson River, about 20 miles north of Albany, where he negotiated with the Mohawks and successfully avoided the English patrols that searched in vain for him throughout the New England countryside. But Philip’s plan for Indian assistance backfired when Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of New York, persuaded the Mohawks not only to remain loyal to the English but also to attack the Wampanoags in their winter camp.

So the war went on, and the casualties mounted with every engagement. Fleeing from the overpowering might of the Mohawks, King Philip took his followers to the upper Connecticut River valley. In March their attacks on white settlements grew even more merciless. On a single day, March 26, 1676, the Indians surprised several English towns and troops in separate assaults–at Longmeadow, Marlborough and at the Blackstone River, north of Pawtucket Falls. A few days later, the Indians attacked Rehoboth in Massachusetts and Providence in Rhode Island.

Even so, the tide of war was beginning to turn. Because the Indians had not planned on war, their stores of food and other supplies were being rapidly depleted. As spring approached, the tribes could not return to their seasonal camps to plant crops or to hunt the scarce game in the New England woods. Indians began starving to death. Others became convinced they could not totally defeat the English, who greatly outnumbered them and whose supplies of food and ammunition seemed unlimited. During the spring, many Indians decided to abandon the war and surrender to the English forces.

King Philip, however, refused to surrender. In July 1676, he and his Wampanoags returned to the Pocasset country, back to the lands where the war had begun the year before. All around southern New England, small expeditions of white soldiers were rounding up Indians and selling them off into slavery for profit. For almost a month, Philip and his people avoided capture by hiding in the woods and swamps. But he could not remain hidden forever. On July 20, Benjamin Church led a small expedition of English and Indian allies and attacked Philip’s camp near Bridgewater. More than 170 Wampanoags were captured or killed in the battle, but King Philip escaped into the forest. Among the prisoners, however, were his wife, Wootonekanuske, and their 9-year-old son. After much debate, the colonists decided to spare their lives by selling them into slavery in the West Indies for a pound apiece. When Philip heard of their fate, he is reported to have said: My heart breaks. Now I am ready to die.

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