King William's War

The English settlers were more than 154,000 at the beginning of the war and outnumbered the French 12 to 1. However, they were divided in multiple colonies along the Atlantic coast, which were unable to cooperate efficiently, and were engulfed in the Glorious Revolution, which created tension among the colonists. In addition, the English lacked military leadership and had a difficult relationship with their native Iroquois allies. New France was divided into three entities: Acadia on the Atlantic coast; Canada, along the Saint Lawrence River and up to the Great Lakes; and Louisiana, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, along the Mississippi River. The French population amounted to 14,000 in 1689. Although the French were vastly outnumbered, they were more politically unified and contained a disproportionate number of adult males with military backgrounds. Realizing their numerical inferiority, they developed good relationships with the indigenous peoples to multiply their forces and made effective use of hit-and-run tactics. ==Causes of the war==

King James II of England, a Catholic, was deposed at the end of 1688 in the Glorious Revolution during which William III and Mary II, who were Protestants, took the throne. William joined the League of Augsburg in its war against France, which had begun in 1688, where James had fled. There was significant tension between New France and the northern English colonies in North America, where in 1686, James II had reorganized the separate administrations of the colonies into the Dominion of New England. New England and the Iroquois at times fought New France and their Wabanaki allies. The Iroquois dominated the economically-important Great Lakes fur trade at the time and had been in conflict with New France since 1680. At the urging of New England, the Iroquois interrupted the trade between New France and their western tribal allies through military means. In retaliation, New France raided the lands belonging to the Seneca of western New York. In turn, New England supported the Iroquois in their conflict against New France by raiding the township of Lachine. For their part, in response to King Philip's War, the five Indigenous tribes in the region of Acadia created the Wabanaki Confederacy to form a political and military alliance with New France to stop the English from further expansion. ==Course of war==

New England, Acadia, and Newfoundland Theatre The New England, Acadia, and Newfoundland Theatre of the war is also known as Castin's War shortly before his death during the Abenaki raid on Dover In August 1689, Saint-Castin and Father Louis-Pierre Thury New England retaliated for those raids by sending Major Benjamin Church to raid Acadia. During King William's War, Church led four New England raiding parties into Acadia, which included most of Maine, against the Acadians and members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. On the first expedition into Acadia, on September 21, 1689, Church and 250 troops defended a group of English settlers trying to establish themselves at Falmouth (near present-day Portland, Maine). The tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy killed 21 of his men, but Church's defense was successful, and the Natives retreated. Church then returned to Boston, leaving the small group of English settlers unprotected. The following spring, over 400 French and native troops, under the leadership of Castin, destroyed Salmon Falls (now Berwick, Maine), returned to Falmouth, and massacred all of the English settlers in the Battle of Fort Loyal. When Church returned to the village later that summer, he buried the dead. The fall of Fort Loyal (Casco) led to the near-depopulation of Maine. Native forces then attacked New Hampshire frontier without reprisal. Phips arrived with 736 New England men in seven English ships. The governor, Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Menneval, fought for two days and then capitulated. The garrison was imprisoned in the church, and Menneval was confined to his house. The New Englanders leveled what was begun of the new fort. The residents of Port Royal were imprisoned in the church and administered an oath of allegiance to the King. As the Natives withdrew, they went to York off Cape Neddick, boarded a vessel, and killed most of the crew. They also burned a hamlet. In 1693 and 1696, the French and their Indian allies ravaged Iroquois towns and destroyed crops while New York colonists remained passive. After England and France made peace in 1697, the Iroquois, now abandoned by the English colonists, remained at war with New France until 1701, when a peace was agreed at Montreal between New France and a large number of Iroquois and other tribes. Hudson Bay Theatre '' after the Battle of Hudson's Bay. Although victorious in battle, Pélican sustained damage and subsequently sank. The war also served as a backdrop for an ongoing economic war between French and English interests in Arctic North America. The Hudson's Bay Company had established trading outposts on James Bay and the southern reaches of Hudson Bay by the early 1680s. In a series of raids, beginning with the Hudson Bay expedition, organized by Denonville and continuing until the Nine Years' War, most of those outposts, including Moose Factory, York Factory, and Fort Albany, were taken by French raiders, primarily led by d'Iberville. However, the French forces were small, and their hold on the captured posts quite weak—York Factory was recaptured by the English in 1695. In 1697, in the Battle of Hudson's Bay, one of the war's major naval battles, d'Iberville, with a single ship, defeated three English ships and went on to again capture York Factory. ==Aftermath==

The Treaty of Ryswick, signed in September 1697 ended the war between the two colonial powers and reverted 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 phase of the colonial wars, Queen Anne's War. After their settlement with France in 1701, the Iroquois remained neutral in that conflict and never took part in active hostilities against either side. Tensions remained high between the English and the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, which again fought with the French in Queen Anne's War, and conflict was characterized by frequent raids in Massachusetts, including one on Groton in 1694, in which children were kidnapped, and the Raid on Deerfield in 1704, in which more than 100 captives were taken north to Montreal for ransom or adoption by the Mohawks and the French. By the end of the war, the Natives had succeeded in killing more than 700 English and capturing over 250 along the border of Acadia and New England. The Treaty of Ryswick was unsatisfactory to representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company. Since most of its trading posts in Hudson Bay had been lost to the French before the war began, the rule of status quo ante bellum meant that they remained under French control. The company recovered its territories at the negotiating table when the Treaty of Utrecht ended Queen Anne's War. Scholars debate whether the war was a contributing factor to the Salem witch trials. King William's War and King Philip's War (1675–78) led to the displacement of many refugees in Essex County. The refugees carried with them fears of the Indians, which is debated to have led to fears of witchcraft, especially since the devil was arguably closely associated with Indians and magic. Of course, Cotton Mather also wrote that it would lead to an age of sorrow and was arguably a proponent in leading Salem into the witchcraft crisis of 1692. Scholars debate that theory, and one scholar, Jenny Hale Pulsipher, maintains that King William's War was more of a cause. Other scholars that have written on the theory of the wars being a leading cause of the Salem Witchcraft Trials include Mary Beth Norton, James Kences, and Emerson Baker. ==See also==