King Philmas War Analysis

In the article, Philip Ranlet analyzes the possible causes that led to King Philip’s War to deconstruct the misleading interpretations often made by historians about the crucial event. Ranlet’s “Another Look at the Causes of King Philip’s War” contributes to the New Left historiographical discussion because the historians demand the inclusion of those features of our history that explains how we came to be a violent, racist, repressive society. The interpretation of some historians are often influenced by the time period the event is being analyzed. For example, nineteenteenth century historian, John Gorham Palfrey, referred to King Philip as “ ‘an unreasoning and cruel barbarian’ who had no cause to war against the Puritan settlers.”(Ranlet
The death of John Sassamon is said to be one of the main causations of war, because “Indians were subjugated, their villages effectively became reservations, and all hope of bicultural existence vanished”(Kawashima). King Philip’s frustration grew because the one thing he wanted to avoid was allowing his people to become subject to English rule, which is exactly what happened. As a result of Sassamon murder, three Wampanoag Indians were executed by the Plymouth’s verdict. In turn, this caused the Indians to retaliate by commencing hostilities by raiding houses in the Swansea colony, where the Indians were shot at and one was killed by an Englishman (Ranlet 99). Ranlet asserts that this occurrence marks the direct beginning of King Philip’s
For example, Ranlet uses the claim “Of course a wary historian…Would tend to discount his record of events”(Ranlet 85) which uses the same evidence in the actual claim to support the claim all while relating it to the thesis by showing how historians might be biased. Although the use of evidence and claims were well executed, the evidence itself was not always credible. For example, When Ranlet asserted that King Philip’s involvement of John Sassamon murder was unlikely, the only supporting evidence used was “ there is no evidence that any Wampanoags knew that Sassamon gave information to the English”, and that Philip did not retaliate when this happened earlier (Ranlet 96). This evidence was not credible because it was evasive and weakly supported. Also, Ranlet failed to clearly indicate whether King Philip wanted war or peace because in his article, he states the he wanted to remain peaceful several times being that he had no sufficient aid or support, however this is contradicted by the several instances in which King Philip appeared in the colony with an armed