On 20 April 1700 the governor of New England and New York, the Earl of Bellomont, informed the English Board of Trade that, 'if... there should be a generall defection of the Indians, the English in a moneth's time would be forced on all the Continent of America to take refuge in their Towns, where I am most certain they could not subsist two moneths, for the Indians would not leave 'em any sort of cattle or corne.' While this warning was based on concurrent apprehensions of a Houdenasaunee-Wabanaki alliance -- a fears union that would never in fact occur -- it was a striking estimation of the dangers posed to the English imperial presence by aboriginal coercive power. For Bellomont, the simple result would be that the native forces 'would in a short time drive us quite out of this Continent.' Some thirteen years later, the intendant of New France, Michel Bégon, echoed Bellomont by expressing his own fears of Wabanaki military force. Bégon envisaged circumstances in which the Wabanaki might be persuaded by the British 'piller et détruire les habitations de la costé du sud du fleuve de St. Laurent et même de tout le canada.' This, he continued, 'leur soit facile, ces sauvages connoissant parfaitement toutes les habitations de la nouvelle France.'

Like chapter 5, this essay is a product of my collaboration with Emerson W. Baker. Unlike the earlier piece, however, this one was written some time after the publication of the Phips biography. Taking its inspiration partly from the chapter on Phips's frontier activities vis-a-vis the Wabanaki, the essay reflected the belief -- common to Baker and myself -- that the significance of colonization in New England during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries had been exaggerated by historians who concentrated their efforts narrowly on the more heavily settled enclaves. Aboriginal control of most territory outside the colonial pales conditions both military and diplomatic exchanges, with the Wabanki providing an especially clear example. The essay was originally presented as a paper at the seventh Annual Conference of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, held at the University of Glasgow in July 2001, with a valuable commentary by Huw V. Bowen. It was published in the William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 61 (2004), 77-106, and subsequently received the 2004 Harry-man Dorsey Award of the Society for Colonial Wars in the District of Columbia.