In recognition of the 350th anniversary of King Philip’s War (2025-2026), the Old Colony History Museum (OCHM) continued the story of the complicated conflict from the perspective of the local native peoples. King Philip’s loyal ally, Weetamoo, was one of the “best-documented female leaders of the colonial period.” Click here for a 54-minute video of her presentation posted on November 22, 2025 by the Old Colony History Museum.

Dr. Gina M. Martino, Associate Professor of History at the University of Akron, has traced and contextualized the political and military career of the Pocasset’s female sachem. She begins by describing Pocahontas and the place of Indigenous women leaders in colonial society.

Before the outbreak of King Philip’s War, Rhode Island Lt. Governor John Easton offered to act as an intermediary and reported to Plymouth Governor Josiah Winslow that Weetamoo had come to him saying that they had great fear of oppression from the English.

In her published narrative, captured colonial minister’s wife, Mary Rowlandson describes Weetamoo as a “severe and proud dame”. Weetamoo later drowned in the Taunton River escaping capture, and her body was found upon the shore where her head was cut off and displayed on a pike as a warning to her remaining warriors.