King Philip's War

The most interesting topic of the week for me was King Philip's War. I had never heard of this conflict before this class and its ap retty big deal as the bloodiest conflict in American History. I was surprised to read and hear about the violent reactions of the Wampanoags, rather than defending the area they were living in it seems they moved to where the Europeans were already settled and attacked them there. It seems that it would have been a better idea to use force against the people who were coming into their territory rather than burning towns and homes. Of course they did attack militia first and probably were left with no choice since the settlements continued to pop up on the land that used to be their homes.
Another thing I was surprised by was the brutality of the Europeans. Imprisoning and killing people for "trespassing" is extreme. Not to mention turning against the Christian Indians in the praying towns (who ended up being attacked by both warring parties). In the book where it describes the end of the war it talks about how Captain Turner attacked an encampment where native families were gathered and killed hundreds of people. Then Captain Church took Metacomet's family captive and sold them as slaves. Attacking women and children is never justified to me and I'm sure "King Philip's" 9 year old son didn't pose a large threat to the European military at this time. Then they caught up with Metacomet, as he was running away he was shot, decapitated, then his corpse was quartered. This death is extremely brutal and it didn't even end the fighting. It seems odd that the Europeans labeled the Natives as savage when the brutality seemed to be two-sided.