It was about who had the right to judge them.

That question went to the heart of Native sovereignty.

Metacom and his community understood that accepting the English court’s authority could mean accepting a much larger principle: that colonial officials could decide what happened to Wampanoag people within Wampanoag political society.

Tension escalated.

At Swansea, Massachusetts, violence broke out in June 1675.

Native fighters attacked English settlers, and colonists responded with military force.

The conflict that followed became King Philip’s War.