The Red King's Rebellion: Racial Politics in New England, 1675-1678

For half a century, colonists in New England enjoyed an uneasy peace with the native American Indians, in what Bourne (former editor and publisher of American Heritage Books) calls a biracial society. The idyll ended in 1675 when Pokanoket Prince Philip, son of an Indian sachem who had befriended the Pilgrims, led an uprising, dubbed ``King Philip's War.'' More than half of New England's towns were attacked over two years; 9000 people died; as a result, the Puritan colonies, left battered and deep in debt, came under a tighter British rein. Bourne distances himself from revisionist historians who see the colonists as greedy land-grabbers from the outset and balances conflicting interpretations. The writing in this political history is stiltedwhat does stilted mean in this context/does that do it?gs , however, although sprinkled with dramatic glimpses of the conflict. Illustrations. (Mar.)