The death of John Sassamon is said to be one of the main causations of war, because “Indians were subjugated, their villages effectively became reservations, and all hope of bicultural existence vanished”(Kawashima). King Philip’s frustration grew because the one thing he wanted to avoid was allowing his people to become subject to English rule, which is exactly what happened. As a result of Sassamon murder, three Wampanoag Indians were executed by the Plymouth’s verdict. In turn, this caused the Indians to retaliate by commencing hostilities by raiding houses in the Swansea colony, where the Indians were shot at and one was killed by an Englishman (Ranlet 99). Ranlet asserts that this occurrence marks the direct beginning of King Philip’s …show more content…
For example, Ranlet uses the claim “Of course a wary historian…Would tend to discount his record of events”(Ranlet 85) which uses the same evidence in the actual claim to support the claim all while relating it to the thesis by showing how historians might be biased. Although the use of evidence and claims were well executed, the evidence itself was not always credible. For example, When Ranlet asserted that King Philip’s involvement of John Sassamon murder was unlikely, the only supporting evidence used was “ there is no evidence that any Wampanoags knew that Sassamon gave information to the English”, and that Philip did not retaliate when this happened earlier (Ranlet 96). This evidence was not credible because it was evasive and weakly supported. Also, Ranlet failed to clearly indicate whether King Philip wanted war or peace because in his article, he states the he wanted to remain peaceful several times being that he had no sufficient aid or support, however this is contradicted by the several instances in which King Philip appeared in the colony with an armed