Mayflower

on King Philip’s War. Daniel Gookin’s Historical Account of the Doings and Sufferings of the Christian Indians in New England in the Years 1675–1677 is unique in that it provides a sympathetic portrayal of the plight of the Praying Indians during the conflict. Neal Salisbury has edited an excellent edition of Mary Rowlandson’s account of her capture by the Indians, titled The Sovereignty and Goodness of God; Rowlandson’s book, published in 1682, became one of America’s first bestsellers and invented the genre of the Indian captivity narrative. Richard Slotkin and James Folsom’s So Dreadfull a Judgment: Puritan Responses to King Philip’s War is a useful collection of contemporary accounts from the period. Large and important collections of unpublished letters from the period are located at the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Antiquarian Society. Although authentic Native voices are tragically lacking in almost all of these sources, there is one notable exception. During the winter of 1676, two Praying Indians, Job Kattenanit and James Quanapohit, volunteered to act as spies for the English. On January 24, 1676, after his return to Boston from the western portion of the colony, where he had lived for weeks with the enemy, James was interrogated by Massachusetts officials. There are two versions of his testimony: a highly edited transcript, published by the MHS, and a much longer, unabridged version reprinted in J. H. Temple’s invaluable History of North Brookfield, pp. 112–18. James’s testimony provides information found nowhere else concerning Philip’s movements during the summer, fall, and winter of 1675–76. The testimony of another Praying Indian, George Memicho (also reprinted in Temple’s History of North Brookfield, pp. 100–101), provides additional information about Philip.
    When it comes to secondary accounts of the war, the best place to start is George Ellis and John Morris’s King Philip’s War; published in 1906, this book contains a host of fascinating photographs of war sites. Another book published that same year is George Bodge’s Soldiers in King Philip’s War; in addition to listing the names of the soldiers in each colonial company, Bodge provides an excellent narrative of the war and reprints a large number of contemporary letters. Douglas Leach’s Flintlock and Tomahawk, first published in 1958, remains an essential resource. More recently, Richard Slotkin has written insightfully about Benjamin Church’s place in American literature and culture in Regeneration through Violence, pp. 146–79, and in his introduction, “Benjamin Church: King of the Wild Frontier,” to Church’s narrative reprinted in the collection So Dreadfull a Judgment, pp. 370–91. The Red King’s Rebellion: Racial Politics in New England, 1675–1678 by Russell Bourne is an engaging narrative that integrates the findings of recent anthropological and archaeological scholarship. Michael Puglisi’s Puritans Besieged: The Legacies of King Philip’s War in the Massachusetts-Bay Colony examines how the effects of the war reached far beyond 1676. Jill Lepore’s The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity provides provocative readings of the many written texts created during and after the conflict and demonstrates how the trauma of interracial war was fundamental to forging a uniquely American identity. In addition to providing a readable and richly detailed narrative of the war, Eric Schultz and Michael Tougias’s King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict identifies countless war sites across New England. In King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, James Drake persuasively argues that the conflict was much more than a racial war. Jenny Hale Pulsipher’s analysis of Indian-English relations throughout the seventeenth century in Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England puts King Philip’s War in a complex and richly textured historical and cultural context.
    There is a wealth of books on the nature of the Indian-English warfare in colonial America. One of the best is Patrick Malone’s The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics among the New England Indians. Malone demonstrates how the English adopted Native ways of