Discovery and Settlement of the New World 27ate their local governments, pay the salaries of their officials, and in-
crease the size of the militia to fight the Indians and ward off French
intrusion. It was an arrangement by which England followed a policy
of “salutary neglect,” a policy that suited the needs of the inhabitants
and buttressed their sense of their right as Englishmen to conduct their
own affairs.
The problem of Indian resistance to the constant need of colonists
for land frequently resulted in all-out war. When the Puritans moved
into the Connecticut River valley in the 1630 s a full-scale confl ict broke
out with the Pequot in 1637 and resulted in the virtual extermination of
that tribe. This was followed by King Philip’s War in 1675. The Indian
chief of the Wampanoag tribe, Metacom, but dubbed King Philip by
the British, launched a war that centered around Plymouth. This tribe
had greeted the Pilgrims when they first arrived on Cape Cod and had
had friendly relations with the settlers. But these relations soured over
time, and the hanging of several Wampanoag, including the brother of
Metacom, touched off the war and soon involved many of the other
tribes in the surrounding area. It ended with King Philip’s death in
August 1676 , when his severed head was put on public display.
The Fr ench cons tit u ted another problem for the English
settlers. In their search for furs they had spilled down from Canada
into the western regions beyond the Appalachian Mountains and
around the Great Lakes. As directed by the French governor of Canada,
Marquis Duquesne de Menneville, they built a series of forts from
Lake Erie to the Ohio River to ensure their control.
The rivalry for empire between England and France had already
developed into a hundred years of warfare, starting in the late seven-
teenth century, in both Europe and America. It began in Europe in
1689 with the War of the League of Augsburg, called King William’s
War in America. In that war colonists under the command of Sir Wil-
liam Phips captured Port Royal, Nova Scotia, but it was recaptured by
France a year later. The War of the Spanish Succession, which started
in 1702 , was called Queen Anne’s War in the colonies. Then came the
War of the Austrian Succession, or King George’s War, in 1740. At its
conclusion France ceded Newfoundland, Arcadia, and Hudson Bay to