The Great Swamp Fight or the Great Swamp Massacre was a crucial battle fought during King Philip's War between the colonial militia of New England and the Narragansett people in December 1675. It was fought near the villages of Kingston and West Kingston in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. The combined force of the New England militia included 150 Pequots, and they inflicted a huge number of Narragansett casualties, including many hundred women and children. The battle has been described as "one of the most brutal and lopsided military encounters in all of New England's history." Since the 1930s, Narragansett and Wampanoag people commemorate the battle annually in a ceremony initiated by Narragansett-Wampanoag scholar Princess Red Wing. Historical context The Pokanoket Indians had helped the original pilgrim settlers to survive, under the leadership of Massasoit. His sons Wamsutta and Metacom took on the English names of Alexander and Philip, respectively. Alexander became sachem of the Pokanokets on the death of his father, but he died within a year and Philip succeeded him in 1662. Philip began laying plans to attack the colonists in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, and he slowly built a confederation of neighboring Indian tribes. He also gathered muskets and gunpowder for the eventual attack, but only in small numbers in order that the colonists would not be alarmed. Several Wampanoag men attacked and killed colonists in Swansea, Massachusetts, on June 20, 1675, and that began King Philip's War. The Indians laid siege to the town, then destroyed it five days later and killed several more people. A full eclipse of the moon occurred in the New England area on June 27, 1675 (O.S.) (July 7, 1675 N.S.; See Old Style and New Style dates), and various tribes looked at it as a good omen for attacking the colonists. Officials from the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies responded quickly to the attacks on Swansea; on June 28, they sent a punitive military expedition which destroyed the Wampanoag town at Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island. The Indians waged attacks on settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but Rhode Island was spared at the beginning. In October, the Indians struck again with raids on the towns of Hatfield, Northampton, and Springfield, where almost the entire settlement was burned to the ground. As winter set in, the attacks diminished. The Narragansetts remained officially neutral in the war