Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator Dr. David Weed gave a presentation on “Pokanokets & Pilgrims: Compromise & Conflict in the 17th Century” to an audience of forty people at the George Hail Library in Warren, RI on February 21, 2020. Click here for a 101-minute video of his talk.
Dr. Weed contrasted the two cultures who were vastly different from one another but who managed to maintain peaceful and mutually supportive relationships for over half a century following the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.
Following the death of the Massasoit Ousamequin in 1661, relationships between the two groups deteriorated. Finally, in the spring of 1675, the English tried three Pokanoket men suspected of murdering Praying Indian John Sassamon, violating the terms of the 1621 treaty and leading to the outbreak of the King Philip War in what is now Warren.
