[7]: 27 [8][9] According to the terms of the 1697 Peace of Ryswick that ended the Nine Years' War, the boundaries and outposts of New France, New England, and New York remained substantially unchanged.

[11] However, they were divided in multiple colonies along the Atlantic coast, which were unable to cooperate efficiently, and they were engulfed in the Glorious Revolution, creating tension among the colonists.

[14] Although the French were vastly outnumbered, they were more politically unified and contained a disproportionate number of adult males with military backgrounds.

[12] Realizing their numerical inferiority, they developed good relationships with the indigenous peoples in order to multiply their forces and made effective use of hit-and-run tactics.

In North America, there was significant tension between New France and the northern English colonies, where in 1686 the Stuart monarch had reorganized their separate administrations into the Dominion of New England.

[15]: 44 There were similar tensions on the border between New England and Acadia, whose boundary New France defined as the Kennebec River in southern Maine.

[16][17] For their part, in response to King Philip's War, the five Indigenous tribes in the region of Acadia created the Wabanaki Confederacy to form a political and military alliance with New France to stop the New England expansion.

[19] In August 1689, Jean-Vincent d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin and Father Louis-Pierre Thury[1] led an Abenaki war party that captured and destroyed the fort at Pemaquid (in present-day Bristol, Maine).

During King William's War, Church led four New England raiding parties into Acadia (which included most of Maine) against the Acadians and members of the Wabanaki Confederacy.

On the first expedition into Acadia, on September 21, 1689, Church and 250 troops defended a group of English settlers trying to establish themselves at Falmouth (near present-day Portland, Maine).

The following spring over 400 French and native troops, under the leadership of Castin, destroyed Salmon Falls (present-day Berwick, Maine), then returned to Falmouth and massacred all the English settlers in the Battle of Fort Loyal.

[24]: 40  The New Englanders left again, and Villebon, the governor of Acadia, moved the capital to safer territory inland at Fort Nashwaak (present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick).

[21]: 67  A few days later, in retaliation, the members of the Wabanaki Confederacy attacked Church at Cape Elizabeth on Purpooduc Point, killing seven of his men and wounding 24 others.

During King William's War, when the town of Wells contained about 80 houses and log cabins strung along the Post Road, it was attacked on June 9, 1691, by about 200 Native Americans commanded by the sachem Moxus.

But Captain James Converse and his militia successfully defended Lieutenant Joseph Storer's garrison, which was surrounded by a gated palisade.

[19] In early 1692, an estimated 150 Abenakis commanded by officers of New France returned to York, killing about 100 of the English settlers and burning down buildings in what would become known as the Candlemas Massacre.

[24]: 43 On July 18, 1694, French soldier Claude-Sébastien de Villieu with about 250 Abenakis from Norridgewock under command of their sagamore (paramount chief) Bomazeen (or Bomoseen) raided the English settlement of Durham, New Hampshire, in the Oyster River Massacre.

In 1696, New France and the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, led by St. Castine and Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, returned and fought a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy before moving on to raid Pemaquid.

After the Siege of Pemaquid, d'Iberville led a force of 124 Canadians, Acadians, Mi'kmaq and Abenakis in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign.

[22]: 215  He led his troops personally in killing inhabitants of Chignecto, looting their household goods, burning their houses and slaughtering the livestock.

In a series of raids, beginning with the so-called Hudson Bay expedition, organized by Governor Denonville and continuing through the time of the Nine Years' War (1688–1697), most of these outposts, including Moose Factory, York Factory and Fort Albany, were taken by French raiders, primarily led by Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville.

Tensions remained high between the English and the tribes of the Wabanaki Confederacy, who again fought with the French in Queen Anne's War, with conflict characterized by frequent raids in Massachusetts, including one on Groton in 1694, in which children were kidnapped, and the Deerfield Massacre in 1704, in which more than 100 captives were taken north to Montreal for ransom or adoption by Mohawk and French.

[10] Other scholars that have written on the theory of the wars being a leading cause of the Salem Witchcraft Trials include Mary Beth Norton, James Kences, and Emerson Baker.