A large subset of Native Americans with similar languages, the Algonquians —who extend from the Eastern Seaboard west to the Great Lakes—populate much of New England, where they exist in an uneasy peace with English settlers of the 1600s. During King Philip’s War, some groups—Pequots and Mohegans, among others—side with the colonists, while others—including Wampanoags, Nipmucks, and Narragansetts—fight against the settlers. 

Passed in 1641, this Massachusetts law legalizes slavery within the colony, stipulating that slaves must be spoils of war, voluntary indentures, purchased from elsewhere, or sentenced to servitude. Colonists use this law as an argument for enslaving rebellious Indians. 

The first New England colonists are Puritan pilgrims from England who, beginning in 1620, emigrate to America to escape religious persecution. They establish farms in Indian regions of the Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Plymouth colonies. Their attitude toward the Algonquian Native Americans is of veiled contempt mixed with the desire to convert them to English religion and culture. This exacerbates tensions between the two groups. The colonists manage to overcome an Indian rebellion, King Philip’s War, which helps to crystalize their view of themselves, not merely as English subjects, but also as tough-minded Americans.