Learn about King Philip's War: Rehoboth

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Jul 15, 2001

Angela Elwell Hunt's novel Rehoboth (Book 4 in the "Keepers of the Ring" series) describes in great detail a "forgotten" event in colonial history, known as King Philip's war. The greatest uprising of the native population against the English settlers, King Philip's war lasted over a full year (1675-1676), and took more lives, per capita, than any other war fought on American soil. A huge setback for the New England colonists, it took an even greater toll on the native Algonquin Indian tribes in the area, clearing the way for further colonial expansion.

Rehoboth, the book's title, was the name of one of the many colonial villages (in present-day Massachusetts) destroyed by the Indians during this war. Much of the novel, therefore, focuses on this unfortunate town, where Aiyana Bailie lives for a while. The story begins with the Bailies living on Martha's Vineyard among friendly, Christianized or "praying" Indians. Daniel (really Taregan) Bailie decides that his work among this group of Indians is complete, and wants to move to Roxbury to assist John Eliot (a real historical figure who lived in Roxbury with many villages of praying Indians) in his work there. Along the way the family stops in Rehoboth, to arrange for daughter Aiyana (age 17) to work as a hired servant for a family there; Daniel and his son Mojag (age 21) will travel further on, to Roxbury.

Aiyana soon finds love, as well as racial tensions and, later, danger, in Rehoboth. Her English boyfriend's father will not accept a mixed-race daughter-in-law (Aiyana and Mojag are 5/8 Indian) and tries to match his son up with a proper Puritan girl, to no avail. As the war progresses, Rehoboth is attacked a first time, leaving many dead. Later, when the colonial government deports all the praying Indians to islands off the mainland, Daniel sends for Aiyana, who soon joins him along with the other Indians on overcrowded Deer Island.

Meanwhile, Mojag hears the call to live and minister among the Wampanoag Indians, and specifically to sachem Metacomet (known by the English as King Philip) only a few months before the outbreak of war. Metacomet sees Mojag as a civilized Indian who knows nothing of how to survive in the wilderness like the "real" Indians. Anxious to win Metacomet's approval, Mojag impulsively agrees to spend a month alone in the wilderness, the test faced by all young Indian warriors as a rite of passage to manhood, and soon realizes his foolishness. An angel finally delivers him from his many problems by giving him a crash course on wilderness survival, and Mojag returns triumphantly to Metacomet after a month, ready to live among the Wampanoags.

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