Captain Church continued in hot pursuit of Philip. When an Indian deserter who blamed Philip for the death of a relative revealed that the sachem had returned to Montaup, Church led his men to the vicinity of the old Wampanoag village and down to the craggy shoreline below the impressive bluffs along the Sakonnet River. In the early morning hours of August 12, Church and his company found the small band of Indians sound asleep near the spot later known as King Philip’s Seat. Philip had posted no sentries around his camp. Without warning, Church and his men attacked, but Philip, aroused by the noise of battle, saw an escape route and ran quickly toward a swamp. As he ran for his life, a shot rang out, and the sachem slumped to the ground. The great King Philip–the most feared Indian in New England–was dead. The shot had been fired by John Alderman, one of Church’s trusted Indian friends. Like Crazy Horse 200 years later, King Philip was slain by a fellow Indian.

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Church inspected the body of the fallen sachem and in disgust called him a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast. The captain’s men let out a loud cheer. Then Church ordered the body to be hacked to pieces, butchered in the manner of the standard English punishment for treason. As a reward, Alderman received Philip’s head and one hand. The rest of the sachem’s body was quartered and hoisted on four trees. Later Alderman sold the severed head to the Plymouth authorities for 30 shillings, the going rate for Indian heads during the war, and it was placed on a stake in Plymouth town, where the gruesome relic remained for the next 25 years.

The death of King Philip signaled an end to the war. About 9,000 people had lost their lives in the conflict, including some 3,000 Indians. Nearly 50 English towns and countless Indian villages had been destroyed. Many Indian captives, like Philip’s wife and son, were sold into slavery. Unlike the English settlers, the Indians of southern New England never entirely recovered from the devastation of the war. Some Indian tribes, including the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts, were almost entirely annihilated.

Indian survivors of the war huddled together in remote communities where they hoped to avoid scrutiny by the whites, but in subsequent years the local authorities made sure that these remnant bands of Indians came under close supervision of the colonial–and later state–legislatures. In the spirit of King Philip, these native peoples did their best to sustain their culture, traditions and identity despite their dwindling numbers, intermarriage with African Americans and uncharitable treatment by their white lords and masters.

The Pequots and Mohegans–some of whom intermarried with the Wampanoag survivors in the centuries after King Philip’s War–may have thought they had chosen the winning side by fighting against Philip’s Indians during the war, but they ultimately suffered the same cruelties of harsh white policies and bigotry that all Indians in southern New England experienced well into the modern era. Among their greatest losses, besides the tragic loss of life that occurred on both sides during King Philip’s War, were the lands that were gobbled up by hungry whites whose appetites could not be satiated until every last morsel had been consumed.

As for King Philip and his loyal Wampanoags who chose to fight rather than submit to English demands, they paid the highest price of all. Today the memory of Philip remains strong among the Indians of New England. Standing in the long shadow of King Philip, his descendants and other New England Indians still work for justice and fair policies toward their people. Outside of New England, however, few Americans know Philip’s story or the privations experienced by the Indians of New England after his death. Under the circumstances, it is intriguing to wonder just how different American history might have been if King Philip had won his terrible war.

This article was written by Glenn W. LaFantasie and originally published in the April 2004 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

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