Surviving Slavery: The Sale of Indigenous People in King Philip's War
When:
Wednesday, Apr 08, 2026 7:00p -
8:30p
Wednesday, Apr 08, 2026 7:00p -
8:30p
Where:
Online event
Admission:
FREE
Hosted by:
Categories:
History, Social Good
Event website:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1980245867697?aff=oddtdtcreator
Indigenous men, women and children: all could be captured and sold into slavery as a systematic part of King Philip's War, says Brown University historian Linford Fisher, author of a forthcoming book, Stealing America.
Linford Fisher's talk, online and at the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, explores this little known aspect of King Philip's War in the latter part of the 17th century: the enslavement of Indigenous people. Captured in battle or taken from their villages and homes, hundreds of men, women and children were enslaved in New England or sent overseas - some as far as the Caribbean or North Africa. Many of their descendants still live in these places today.
Colonial governments offered clemency for Natives who surrendered during the war. But instead of providing protection, the colonial authorities either shipped them out of the region as slaves or parcelled them off into English households for a set period of servitude, sometimes until the age of 25 or 30.
Some enslaved people attempted to return home, and in rare cases colonial leaders were able to facilitate the return of those who had been sold into foreign slavery. But in most cases families and communities felt the loss of these individuals for generations, even as colonial governments used their reduced numbers as an excuse to take over even more Native land.
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