[1][2] On November 28, 1828, a contest was posted in the New York Critic by American actor Edwin Forrest offering a prize of 500 dollars for an original play which met such criteria as, “a tragedy, in five acts, of which the hero, or principal character, shall be an aboriginal of this country".

With his play, Metamora, or the Last of the Wampanoags, playwright and actor John Augustus Stone stood out among his competitors and took home the prize.

During the 19th century there were over seventy-five Indian Dramas written, and even though Metamora shared a very similar plot line as the rest of plays, it was the only one to be successful.

He started his theatrical career as an actor in his early 20s, portraying mostly comic roles, and was considered a crowd favorite in the New York Theatres.

Stone struggled with poor health issues and at the age of thirty-three committed suicide by jumping off the Spruce Street landing on June 1, 1834.

In the beginning there is actually peace, and a willingness to collaborate between the Wampanoags and the Puritans, however, as the play progresses, so does the rising conflict that leads to the full-on attack on Metamora's tribe.

Though Metamora is referred to as an Indian tragedy, its themes of love, war, dramatic deaths and suicides, and declaratory speeches make the play better described as a romantic melodrama.

We will accept the presumptive apology.” In the years following such pivotal events in history as the American Revolution and the War of 1812, a strong feeling of nationalism infiltrated early America.

The success of Metamora was due to Stone's ability to create a lead character that was a combination of the sublime, the grotesque, and the natural state in order to produce a believable and gratifying story.

Finally in 1675 when three Wampanoag's were tried and executed for the murder of another Native American, who had been acting as an informer for the settlers, Metacom led a bloody uprising.

Opening only one year before the passage of Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, Metamora’s depiction of a scorned and violent savage against English settler victims raises questions about the motives of both Forrest and Stone.

“The overemphasis of political and racial ideology as the preeminent analytical context may cloud rather than clarify the relationship between Metamora and Jacksonian Indian policy.