EMPIRE AND FRONTIER

A little-known colonial conflict.

Marquis, the author of Captain Kidd (2025), writes that in 1688, largely Protestant Britain expelled its Catholic king, James II, who fled to France; he was replaced with James’ son-in-law, the Prince of Orange, from Protestant Holland, who became William III and immediately declared war on France. Britain’s American colonies went along in what became known as King William’s War, obscure even to history buffs. Marquis emphasizes that this was a period when Indigenous tribes vastly outnumbered settlers but, enraptured by European goods, were already obsessed with trading. The French, earlier arrivals in Canada, traded with local tribes and disliked the competition. Seventeenth-century colonists would not dream of going to war without Native American allies who, eager for goods including firearms and powder, usually signed up. Some tribes allied with the French, some with the English. The war itself was small potatoes by European standards, with armies rarely numbering beyond the hundreds. Marquis writes of Peter Schuyler, (1657-1724), the Dutch American mayor of Albany, militia leader, and Indian Affairs commissioner “respected and beloved by the Five Iroquois Nations”; Mohawk war leader Lawrence [cq]; and the devious Count de Frontenac, the governor general of New France. This was the frontier, so battles were less common than raids that destroyed crops and settlements and massacred civilians. During this period, settlements and farms were largely occupied by Native Americans, so it was they who suffered most. The 1697 Treaty of Ryswick ended a war that historians consider a draw. Perhaps its most significant influence in the colonies was an agreement that the Iroquois nation would remain neutral in future wars. Exceptions occurred, but one likely consequence is that the tribe still exists.

A solid history revives a largely forgotten war.