Searching for the Start of Metacom’s War at Swansea’s “Nockum Hill”

About 50 years after English colonists arrived in Massachusetts Bay, tensions between Native nations and settlers reached a breaking point. Colonial expansion and politics among the tribes strained relationships despite promises of peace, and rumors and preparations for war spread on both sides.

How the war began

After colonists hanged three Wampanoag men, the English settlement of Swansea was attacked in an area some historians call "Nockum Hill." The attack turned long-simmering tensions between the Wampanoag and the colonists into full-scale war.

• It is known as Metacom's War (sometimes spelled Metacomet) or King Philip's War, after the Wampanoag's chief sachem — though it may have begun without his permission.
• It lasted from 1675 to 1676 and is considered one of the deadliest wars, per capita, in American history.
• By its end, a vast area from present-day Rhode Island to Maine lay devastated: dozens of English settlements and Native towns burned, and enormous numbers of Wampanoag and their Narragansett allies killed.

The project

The Town of Barrington received a $199,973.60 Preservation Planning Grant to run a second archeological field survey of colonial Swansea, building on data from an earlier grant-funded survey. The team will try to determine the full scale of the fighting on and around "Nockum Hill" in June 1675, focusing on the remains of the English meetinghouse and nearby buildings and their role in the confrontation, while also looking for evidence of pre-war contact between colonists and Indigenous people. The first survey turned up finds such as a one-inch iron cannon shot.

The grant program

Preservation Planning Grants from the National Park Service's American Battlefield Protection Program support preserving and interpreting sites of armed conflict on American soil. The program also offers Battlefield Land Acquisition, Battlefield Interpretation and Battlefield Restoration grants to encourage community-led stewardship at the state, tribal and local levels.

Sources

Based on "The Unexpected Start to Metacom's War: Investigating the Archeological Remains of Swansea at 'Nockum Hill'," part of the National Park Service series 2024 Preservation Planning Grants Highlights; a work of the United States government in the public domain.