King William's War

North America at the end of the 17th century

At the start of the conflict, over 154,000 English colonists faced just 14,000 French, giving them a twelve-to-one advantage. Yet the English were split among separate Atlantic colonies that struggled to work together, and the Glorious Revolution fueled internal tensions. Poor military leadership and strained ties with their Iroquois allies further weakened them.

New France, though far smaller, was more politically cohesive and had a higher share of men with military experience. It was organized into Acadia, Canada, and Louisiana. The French wisely built strong alliances with Indigenous groups and relied on hit-and-run attacks to offset their numerical disadvantage.

Causes of the war

King James II of England, a Catholic, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution at the end of 1688, and William III and Mary II, Protestants, took the throne. William joined the League of Augsburg in its war against France, which had begun in 1688, where James had fled. Tension existed between New France and the northern English colonies; in 1686 James II had reorganized the separate administrations into the Dominion of New England. The Iroquois, who dominated the Great Lakes fur trade, had been in conflict with New France since 1680.

At New England's urging, the Iroquois interrupted trade between New France and its western tribal allies, and New France retaliated by raiding Seneca lands. New England then supported the Iroquois by raiding Lachine. On the New England–Acadia border, English settlers from Massachusetts expanded into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River. To secure its claim, New France established Catholic missions among three Indigenous villages.

In response to King Philip's War, five Indigenous tribes formed the Wabanaki Confederacy to ally with New France against English expansion.

Course of war

In April 1688, Governor Edmund Andros plundered Baron Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin's manor on Penobscot Bay, and in August the English raided Chedabouctou. In response, Saint-Castin and the Wabanaki Confederacy launched the Northeast Coast Campaign of 1688 along the New England/Acadia border, beginning August 13 at New Dartmouth. The following spring, Governor Andros learned of the Glorious Revolution and withdrew to Massachusetts, leaving the frontier unguarded.

In June 1689, several hundred Abenaki and Pennacook Indians under Kancamagus and Mesandowit raided Dover, New Hampshire, killing more than 20 and taking 29 captives sold into New France. A company of 24 men raised to pursue the natives lost a quarter of its men. In August 1689, Saint-Castin and Father Louis-Pierre Thury led an Abenaki war party that captured and destroyed the fort at Pemaquid, pushing the frontier back to Casco.

Aftermath

The Treaty of Ryswick, signed in September 1697, ended the war and reverted colonial borders to the status quo ante bellum. Peace did not last long; within five years the colonies were embroiled in Queen Anne's War. After their 1701 settlement with France, the Iroquois remained neutral in that conflict. Tensions remained high between the English and the Wabanaki Confederacy, which again fought with the French in Queen Anne's War, characterized by frequent raids including one on Groton in 1694 and the Raid on Deerfield in 1704.

By the war's end, Natives had killed more than 700 English and captured over 250 along the border of Acadia and New England. The Treaty of Ryswick was unsatisfactory to the Hudson's Bay Company, as most of its trading posts in Hudson Bay lost to the French before the war remained under French control; the company recovered them in the Treaty of Utrecht. Scholars debate whether the war contributed to the Salem witch trials. King William's War and King Philip's War displaced many refugees in Essex County, who carried fears of Indians, which some argue led to fears of witchcraft.

Cotton Mather wrote that it would lead to an age of sorrow and is considered a proponent in leading Salem into the 1692 crisis. Scholars including Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Mary Beth Norton, James Kences, and Emerson Baker have written on this theory.