In the book King Philip’s War by Daniel R. Mandell, Mandell argues that King Philip’s War is the fundamental turning point in the relations between the Indians and Anglo Americans and the Sovereignty of the Indians. This ultimately led to the war known as King Philip’s War. King Philip’s War talks about the encounters between the Indians, and Europeans from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It goes into detail about how the relations with the Europeans and Indians went from neutral or allies to enemies.
The book talks about how the Europeans took advantage of the Indians and forced hatred upon themselves by betraying the Indians. The main Indian in this book is Metacom and he tries to lead the Indians in war against the Europeans until he is unable to gain allies and is completely destroyed by the Europeans and other Indian tribes. Mandell talks about the Europeans and the Indians and how they are dealing with each other throughout this conflict. He goes into detail about some of the actions performed by the Indians in response to the new settlements and villages in Indian territory.
Many of these topics introduced by Mandell deal with the Europeans and Indians before, during, and after King Philip’s War. Mandell talks about the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s two biggest fears England and the Indians. They fear the Indians for apparent reasons which are discussed throughout the book. The Bay Colony fears England because they are an uncharted colony that didn’t land in the established colonies in Virginia. This is very important as the Bat Colony is unable to ask for help from the motherland and is forced to figure out a solution and deal with it on their own.
I believe that Mandell has some good information in this book that shows how and why the relations with the Indians and Europeans deteriorated. For example, in the beginning of the book it talks about how Wampanoag sachem Massasoit was drinking before negotiating. He was clearly unaware what the beverage would do to him and allowed William Bradford to take advantage of him. The Europeans would also let their domesticated animals run wild through Indian land trampling the Native’s crops and fields, but the Natives couldn’t do anything about it because it would interfere with the treaty signed by the Indians and the Europeans.
Many of the Europeans also pushed onto to Wampanoag land without permission which forced the Indians to either comply or go against the European authority. Mandell also elaborates about how the different Indian tribes didn’t always see eye to eye and would work against one another with the Europeans out of fear and for their own unexplainable reasons. This helped the Europeans divide the land up and conquer it from the Indians easier than if the tribes would of all banded together against the Europeans. The Europeans forced Indians to react when the moved and kept expanding onto Indian territory.
For example, the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlement kept moving onto Wampanoag territory and Metacom, the sachem of the tribe, reacted by turning against the Europeans and declaring war. I think Mandell did a great job of showing and telling the European side of the war and using great detail about all the small skirmishes that happened throughout the conflict. I felt that talking about all these little battles and fights really helped show the buildup of tension between the Wampanoag’s and the Europeans.
One thing that I think is a negative about these types of books is that most of the time it is written by Europeans, so there is bound to be some biased opinions and exaggerated information. I would like to read a book that is from the Indian or Native point of view. This book was very difficult for me to read right away, but I felt as the book went on the information was easier to understand. I liked how there were subheadings within the chapters to help the reader understand where the author was going with the information.
While reading this book, I have found some very interesting information about Indians and Europeans. Mandell does a great job of introducing the main Indian tribes and European settlements. I already knew some of the European settlements from previous History classes. Some of the information I found interesting were the tribes. I enjoyed reading and learning about the Wampanoag tribe. I know that we also learned the most about this tribe, but I was definitely on Metacom’s side while reading this book because of his persistence and dedication to defending his people and land.
I also thought the Mohawk tribe was interesting. I thought the fact that the Mohawk Indians would join the Europeans and help defeat Metacom and the Wampanoag’s’ was just outrageous. The fact that they could not put aside their differences to combat the real enemy of this war just shocked me. When we discussed this information in class and talked about how the other Indian tribes did not realize that the fate of their own tribes would all be the same as the Wampanoag’s.
Overall I thought that Mandell provided numerous examples throughout the book that explain the tide shifts between the Indians and the Europeans. Mandell’s continuous shift between the Indians and Europeans helps the reader understand both sides of the conflict, although it might not be completely accurate since the book was written in the perspective of Europeans and had little Indian perspective. I felt that this book was very effective in explaining the change in relations between Indians and Europeans.