Two wars, a century apart. Over the next 18 months, communities throughout Sowams Heritage Area will be commemorating the 350th anniversary of King Philip’s War and the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War with a number of local events. Two of those are coming up soon.

Just before the outbreak of King Philip’s War in 1675, a Rhode Island delegation led by Quaker Deputy Governor John Easton met with the Pokanoket Massasoit Metacomet (Philip) at Bristol Ferry. More than 50 years had passed since Metacomet’s father, the Massasoit Ousamequin, had forged a nonaggression treaty with the Separatist Pilgrims in Patuxet (Plymouth, Mass.).

At the time, each had seen their mutual survival in that watershed alliance, but as the English settlers increasingly encroached on Indigenous lands and the Tribes resisted, the alliance was fracturing.

When Easton and his emissaries tried to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the dispute, Philip bitterly complained that the English had taken advantage of the Pokanoket’s good will and allowed their livestock to trample tribal fields, spoiling their corn crops. This encounter will be explored by Quaker historian Elizabeth Cazden in her lecture on the Early Quaker History of King Philip’s War on April 23, 2025, from 6 to7:30 p.m. at the Rogers Free Library in Bristol.

One hundred years after King Philip’s War, while patrolling Narragansett Bay, a small fleet of British ships, led by Captain James Wallace, dropped anchor in Bristol Harbor. Wallace demanded the town hand over 200 sheep and 30 cattle for the British troops under siege in Boston, a rebellion that had been ignited by tea and taxes. When Bristolians refused to comply, he ordered the 20-gun frigate HMS Rose to open fire on the town. Three years later, the British tried to burn the town down.

The Bristol Historical & Preservation Society, the Battle of Rhode Island Association, and the Bristol 250 Commission will commemorate the British Bombardment of Bristol (1775) and the Burning of Bristol (1778) with a weekend of events, May 16 to 18, 2025, featuring the Tall Ship Oliver Hazard Perry, the official flagship of Rhode Island.

In the early years of the American Revolution, the colonists fought over practical necessities like food, provisions, and fair trade, but when the Declaration of Independence was written, these seemingly mundane essentials became the unalienable rights of Americans to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As we commemorate these pivotal events on our primeval landscape, let us honor those who fought and died for the freedom to have agency over their everyday lives. That struggle never ends.

Andrea Rounds
Bristol

Rounds is a member of the Sowams Heritage Area Steering Committee and Bristol250 Commission.