South Kingstown Washington Rhode Island United States
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The next expansion of the war comes from the colonists.
Plymouth Colony governor Josiah Winslow had led a combined force of colonial militia against the Narragansett tribe on November 2.
The Narragansetts have not yet been directly involved in the war, but they have sheltered many of the Wampanoag's women and children and several of their men had reportedly been seen in several native raiding parties.
The tribe is not trusted by the colonists.
As the colonial force assembles and marches around Rhode Island, they find and burn several native towns that had been abandoned by the Narragansett, who have retreated to a massive fort in a swamp.
The colonial force, led by a native guide, finds the main Narragansett fort near modern South Kingstown, Rhode Island on December 16, 1675, a bitterly cold storm-filled day.
Crossing the frozen swamp, a combined force of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut militia numbering about a thousand men, including about one hundred and fifty Pequots and Mohicans, attacks the fort.
The bitter and hard-fought battle that follows is known as the Great Swamp Fight, in which it is believed that about three hundred natives were killed (exact figures are unavailable).
The massive fort (occupying over five acres (twenty thousand square meters) of land) is burned and most of the tribe's winter stores are destroyed.
Many of the warriors and their families escape into the frozen swamp.
Metacomet, facing a winter with little food and shelter, is forced out of quasi-neutrality and joins the fight.
The colonists lose many of their officers in this assault: about seventy of their men have been killed and nearly one hundred and fifty more have been wounded.