Metacomet, or King Philip

Metacomet (King Philip) was the son of Massasoit, who led the Wampanoag tribe and was a key figure in the alliance of Algonquin tribes.  Massasoit presided over decades of peace between the English settlers and the indigenous tribes, but after his death in 1661 English expansion into Indian territory grew.  Metacomet vowed to halt English expansionism and humiliation; English expansion was largely based on trade of Indian land for guns, ammo, liquor and blankets, and King Philip was himself forced to sign a treaty in 1671 that surrendered those guns for which they traded their land.  In such a political environment it was increasingly difficult to keep the peace that his father Massasoit maintained, and this lead to both King Philip's War and Mary Rowlandson's narrative of her captivity.