Describe examples of both cooperation and violent conflict between English colonists and Native nations, including the Powhatan Wars and King Philip's War.
The relationship between English colonists and nearby Native nations changed a great deal over time, and an honest history holds both cooperation and conflict together rather than picking just one. You have already seen real cooperation: the Powhatan helping early Jamestown survive, and the Wampanoag helping the Pilgrims at Plymouth. But as colonies grew, English settlements expanded onto more and more Native land, competition over resources increased, and agreements were broken on both sides, and peaceful relationships gave way to violence in a series of wars. In Virginia, a series of conflicts known as the Powhatan Wars, fought between 1610 and 1646, ended with the Powhatan Confederacy's power broken and much of its land lost. In Connecticut, the Pequot War of 1636-1638 ended with the near destruction of the Pequot nation.
The most devastating conflict came in New England in 1675-1676: Metacom, the Wampanoag leader whom the English called "King Philip," and the son of Massasoit, the very leader who had helped the Pilgrims fifty-five years earlier, led a coalition of Native nations against the expanding New England colonies after decades of land loss and broken agreements. The resulting war, known as King Philip's War, was one of the deadliest conflicts per capita in American history; it ended with Metacom's death and a crushing defeat for the Native coalition, permanently breaking Native political power across most of New England.
Mastery looks like: They can name one cooperative and one violent example of colonist-Native relations and explain that growing land pressure, not a fixed hatred, drove the shift toward war.
Common stumbles: Thinking relations were always peaceful or always violent instead of changing over time; not connecting Metacom to Massasoit from week 10.