Weetamoo

Weetamoo – sometimes called Tatapanum – was born around 1640. Weetamoo’s father, Corbitant, was a Sachem of the Pocasset tribe in what is today North Tiverton, Rhode Island. Weetamoo was the sister-in-law to Philip for whom the King Philip War is named. During Weetamoo’s forty-one years of life, she was married many times. Her fourth marriage ended because her husband, Petononowit, sided with the English during King Phillip’s war. Her final marriage was to Peter Nunnuit and it lasted until her death. Weetamoo was probably appointed Sachem because she was accomplished in many skills normally performed by males in her tribe. She was a skilled diplomat, a talent she used with considerable success when first leading 300 of her warriors against the English, but eventually the English banded together and outnumbered the Indians. Weetamoo’s warriors were either killed or taken prisoner. While trying to escape across the Taunton River in rough currents in August 1676, she drowned. Period accounts state that her bloated body floated to the surface and was later found by English settlers in Swansea, a nearby town. Before her body was buried, she was decapitated, and her head was placed on a pike in the settlement of Taunton as a stark and visual warning to the Indians against further insurrections. Weetamoo Woods in South Tiverton honors her memory.