King William's War was the North American theater of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697). It was the first of six colonial wars (see the four French and Indian Wars, Father Rale's War and Father Le Loutre's War) fought between New France and New England along with their respective Native allies before France ceded its remaining mainland territories in North America east of the Mississippi River in 1763.
It is also known as the Second Indian War, Father Baudoin's War, Castin's War, the Mournful Decade, or the First Intercolonial War (in French).
For King William's War, neither England nor France thought of weakening its position in Europe to support the war effort in North America. New France and the Wabanaki Confederacy were able to thwart New England expansion into Acadia, whose border New France defined as the Kennebec River, now in southern Maine. According to the terms of the 1697 Peace of Ryswick, which ended the Nine Years' War, the boundaries and outposts of New France, New England, and New York remained substantially unchanged.
The war was largely caused by the fact that the treaties and agreements that were reached at the end of the First Indian War (1675–1678) were not adhered to. In addition, the English were alarmed that the Indians were receiving French or maybe Dutch aid. The Indians preyed on the English and their fears by making it look as though they were with the French. The French were fooled as well, as they thought the Indians were working with the English. Those occurrences, in addition to the fact that the English considered the Indians as their subjects, despite the Indians' unwillingness to submit, eventually led to two conflicts, one of which was King William's War. 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. 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
thumb|upright=1.5|Map of the campaigns during the war
New England, Acadia, and Newfoundland Theatre
The New England, Acadia, and Newfoundland Theatre of the war is also known as Castin's War
left|thumb|Major [[Richard Waldron 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, 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.