With the execution of "King Phillip of the Wampanoag" (also known as Chief Metacomet or Pometacom), the bloody King Phillip's War comes to an end. The war had taken the lives of 3,000 warriors and 600 colonists (this amounted to 15 percent of the native population and 1.5 percent of the English population), and involved at least half of the 90 existing English settlements.

The war had been the result of growing tensions over land - having run out of trade goods, the Wampanoag began trading land for tools and weapons. The first casualty of the war was John Sassamon, "The Praying Indian," an early Harvard College graduate who had betrayed King Phillip's plans to carry out a massive surprise attack on several English settlements; he was found under the ice of Assawompet Pond in January 1675. His warning to Plymouth Colony, before his death, was not taken seriously, but after one of three Pokanoket tribesmen confesses on the gallows to King Phillip's involvement in Sassamon's death, the Puritans prepare for war with the Wampanoag.

The timeline of the war:

1675, June 8: Execution of the accused murderers of John Sassamon.
June 20-25: Pokanoket attack and destroy Swansea in Plymouth Colony.
June 28: Combined Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth military expedition march against the Wampanoag town at present Bristol, Rhode Island.
July 8: Wampanoag attacks at Middleborough and Dartmouth.
July 14: Wampanoag attack at Mendon.
August 2: Wampanoag attack at Brookfield.
August 9: Wampanoag attack at Lancaster.
September 9: After a week of Wampanoag attacks on Deerfield, Hadley, and Northfield, the New England Confederation declares war on the tribe. An expedition is sent to collect crops from the fields before winter.
September 18: Wampanoag ambush the Puritan expedition at the Battle of Bloody Brook, near Hadley, routing the English.
October 5, Wampanoag attack Springfield.
October 16, Wampanoag attack Hatfield.
November 2, Plymouth Colony sends militia against the Narragansett, who had sheltered many Wampanoag women and children.
December 16, the Plymouth expedition finds the Narragansett fortress at present South Kingstown, starting the Great Swamp Fight, which burns most of the tribe's winter stores.

1675/76 January: King Phillip attempts to ally with the Mohawk, but being traditional enemies with the Wampanoag, instead carry out raids on undefended isolated Wampanoag and Narragansett communities. The French in Quebec likewise refuse to side with King Phillip.
March 12, after a winter of more than 20 Wampanoag attacks, a combined Narragansett and Wampanoag assault is carried out against Plymouth Plantation. Several other settlements are attacked in a follow-up to this greatest advance by the tribes on the English.
March 29, the abandoned Rhode Island capital of Providence is burned to the ground, as is a portion of Springfield while its militia was chasing away a second war party.
April, Chief Canonchet of the Narragansett is killed in battle.
May 18, William Turner attacks the fishing camp at present Turner Falls, but is killed while withdrawing from the attack.
June 12, the Wampanoag are defeated at Hadley. Later, a large war party is routed at Marlborough.
July, massive Wampanoag desertions and surrenders occur. King Phillip flees to Assowamset Swamp below Providence. Colonists form raiding parties to hunt for him. A party of native scouts led by Captain Benjamin Church and Captain Josiah Standish find the Wampanoag chief, and tribesman John Alderman shoots him dead.
August 12, the body of King Phillips is beheaded, then drawn and quartered. The head is kept on display at Plymouth Colony for the next 20 years.

As a result of the war, many farmers in Massachusetts Bay Colony suffered economic losses, perhaps discouraging further development of remote settlements for a few years. The timing of the war may have had an effect on the timing of the Nurse family's decision to purchase their homestead in Salem Village. Edmund Andros, Governor of New York and head of the New England Confederation, concluded a peace treaty with the surviving tribes on April 12, 1678, eight months later (he would be knighted during the trip to England that followed this event).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Philip's_War