Mashpee Wampanoag and the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah observe Metacoment Day every August 12th

As an official holiday, tribal operations will be closed to observe the historic day.

Metacomet, also known as King Philip, was the son of the Great Sachem Muhsasôyut 8sâmeeqan who welcomed English in 1620. Philip, or Metacom, became the last chief of the Wampanoags in 1662 and Grand Sachem of the Pokonokets.

King Philip’s War, sometimes called the “First Indian War, Metacom’s War or Metacom’s Rebellion,” was an armed conflict in 1675-1678 between the indigenous inhabitants of New England and the colonists. The war was the greatest calamity in seventeenth-century New England and is considered by many to be the deadliest war in Colonial American History.

2021 marks the 345th anniversary of King Philip’s death on August 12, 1676, in Bristol, Rhode Island, at Mount Hope.

While the country celebrates 400 years since the arrival of the English, King Philip’s war might have ended; however, the fight continues with the loss of our lands, culture, and sovereignty. Metacomet’s legacy will live on forever through the future generations of the Wampanoag “People of The First Light” and memorialized on August 12th each calendar year and proclaimed as Metacomet Day.