King William’s War

King William’s War (the first of the French and Indian Wars) began in New England as an extension of the war between England and France, when in July 1689 the French governor of Canada incited the Indians to brutally attack Dover, N.H., then known as Cochecho. By then, according to the letters of Edmund Andros, governor of New England, Maine had already been deeply embroiled in the conflict for a year.

In June 1689, several hundred Abenaki and Pennacook Indians under the command of Kancamagus and Mesandowit raided Dover, New Hampshire, killing more than 20 and taking 29 captives, who were sold into captivity in New France. Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie de Saint-Castin, a Frenchman whose home on Penobscot Bay (near present-day Castine, Maine, named for him) had been plundered by Governor Andros in 1688, led an Abenaki war party to raid Pemaquid in August 1689.

Also in August 1689, 1,500 Iroquois attacked the French settlement at Lachine before New France had even learned of the start of the war. Frontenac later attacked the Iroquois village of Onondaga. New France and its Indian allies then attacked English frontier settlements, most notably the Schenectady Massacre of 1690.

The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 ended the war between the two colonial powers, reverting the colonial borders to the status quo ante bellum. The peace did not last long, and within five years, the colonies were embroiled in the next of the French and Indian Wars, Queen Anne’s War. After their settlement with France in 1701, the Iroquois remained neutral in the early part of the war.

1689 to 1697

• King William’s War – Indian Wars
• The Border Wars of New England Commonly Called King William’s and Queen Anne’s Wars
• Events affecting Wabanaki People, 1688-1700 (hosted at Ne-Do-Ba)
  • Oyster River Raid
  • People and Places
  • Treaty of Pemaquid
• King William’s War (hosted at New International Encyclopaedia)The War of the League of Augsburg (hosted at Mother Bedford)
• King William’s War (hosted at The Military Journal)
• Frontier and Colonial Forts of the United States
  List of colonial forts, trading posts, named camps, redoubts, reservations, general hospitals, national cemeteries, etc., established or erected in the United States from its earliest settlement to 1902.

Canada

• King William’s War and Queen Anne’s War (hosted at A Celebration of Women Writers)
• Port Royal, Nova Scotia (hosted at Wikipedia)
  • Battle of Port Royal
• King William’s War in Newfoundland, 1696-1697 (hosted at Crossroads for Cultures)
• King William’s War, The Canadian Perspective

England

• The Colonial Policy of William III in America (hosted at Dinsmore Documentation)
• Rivalry between France and England (hosted at Crossroads for Cultures)
• Map of the English Empire in the Continent of America, 1690 (hosted at Stony Brook University)

France

• Provincial America, 1690-1740 (hosted at Dinsmore Documentation)
• Jean Baudoin (hosted at Crossroads for Cultures)
• The War of the Grand Alliance, 1688-1697 (hosted at Orange Pages)

New England

• Map of New England, 1675
• Oyster River Raid
• French Capture of Schenectady (compiled by Nicholas C. J. Pappas)
• Jacob Leisler
• Schenectady Massacre (hosted at Digital History)
• Settlers Killed and Captured, Schenectady Massacre (hosted at Van Eps Family)
• Tales of Old Schenectady (hosted at VanPetten, VanPetten, VanPatter and VanPatton Ancestry)
• Candlemas Massacre

Indian Tribes

Abenaki Indian Tribe The history of the Abnaki may be said to begin with Verrazano visit in 1524. The mythical accounts of Norumbega of the early writers and navigators finally dwindled, a village of a few bark covered huts under the name Agguncia, situated near the mouth of Penobscot River, in the country of the Abnaki. in 1604 Champlain ascend the Penobscot to the vicinity of the present Bangor, and met the “lord” of Norumbega, doubtless an Abnaki chief.

• Abenaki Tribe
• Abenaki Chiefs and Leaders
• Abenaki History, The Merrimac Valley
• Oyster River Raid

Iroquois Indian Tribe (Algonkin: Irinakhoiw, ‘real adders’, with the French suffix-ois). The confederation of Iroquoian tribes known in history, among other names, by that of the Five Nations, comprising the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca. Their name for themselves as a political body was Oñgwanonsioñni’, ‘we are of the extended lodge.’

• Iroquois Indian History
• Iroquois Indian Towns and Villages

Suggested Reading

• The Fighting Governor, A Chronicle of Frontenac (hosted at Canadian Genealogy)
• Bibliography of New York Colonial History