Sowams Heritage Area Project Coordinator David Weed presented the history of Sowams to members of the Rehoboth Antiquarian Society on May 1, 2024 at Goff Memorial Hall in the Blanding Free Public Library. Click here for a 30-minute video of his talk.

(Above) Library Director Whitney Pape introduced Weed who then introduced the audience to Sowams, the ancestral homeland of the Massasoit Ousamequin who welcomed the Pilgrims in 1621. The area now consists of portions of Providence and all of East Providence, Barrington, Warren, and Bristol, Rhode Island, and Seekonk, Rehoboth, Swansea and Somerset, Massachusetts.

Weed went on to tell how Edward Winslow first visited Ousamequin in July of 1621 in what is today Warren, RI, and presented him with a copper chain necklace. Roger Williams was nursed back to health by the Pokanoket Tribe at Margaret’s Cave in 1636 before he went on to found Providence. In 1643, Rev. Thomas Newman led his congregation to today’s East Providence where they established the Newman Congregational Church and the “Ring of the Green.”

King Philip’s War of 1675-76 ended with the capture of Chief Anawan in Rehoboth at Anawan Rock. Today over 300 members of the Pokanoket Tribe live in the region and recently held a powwow on Redway Plain in Rehoboth. Weed concluded his presentation by talking about the current effort to have Sowams designated as a National Heritage Area so a full and accurate story of the Pokanokets and the English can be told.