King Philip's War

While “ethnic cleansing” is a new phrase, the concept is almost as old as history itself, and King Philip's War presents one of the more notorious, yet largely forgotten, examples from America's past. When Massasoit's son Metacom, chief of Wampanoag, who was called “King Philip” by the Puritan English settlers of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, led an attack at Swansea in 1675 in retribution for the killing of a Wampanoag, a vicious war was born. By the time it ended in a blood-stained Puritan victory over a year later, one-fifth of the native men were dead, many women and children were deported as slaves to Bermuda, and Metacom/King Philip was executed, his head prominently displayed in the colonies for the next twenty years. Although more than half of the ninety New England settlements had been attacked or involved in the war, today the destruction of the Wampanoag is hardly remembered (leading to one commentator's remark that “to not include it in American history is to make the native people invisible”). An excellent production, featuring historic re-enactors from Plimoth Plantation and the Mashantucket Pequot Museum, this video's only weak point is the overly emoted voice-over from the diary of an English captive. This minor annoyance aside, the tape is highly recommended for both schools and public libraries, and New England libraries should consider this a must-buy. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Reagan)