Who was at fault in King Philip’s War?
A. I see the outbreak of violence in June 1675 as a failure of leadership on both sides. Philip and Governor Josiah Winslow had an intense personal hatred for one another, and Winslow was loath to open up the lines of communication that might have made peace possible. He had also spearheaded the aggressive series of land purchases that had done much to increase tensions amid the Indians throughout the colony. For his part, Philip had spent the better part of a decade attempting to appease his increasingly belligerent warriors with promises of a war that he had no real intention of fighting. When events took on a momentum of their own after a controversial murder trial involving several of his people, Philip admitted to some of the English with whom he had long been friendly that he had “lost control” of his warriors. Instead of leading his people into battle, Philip was forced to follow the lead of his warriors, with disastrous results. Q. You focus on the character of Benjamin Church
