The Death of Weetamoo

The beheading of Pocasset tribe’s female leader Weetamoo on August 6, 1676 is one of

the most shocking scenes in my historical novel Conflicting Roots (2025, Maine

Authors Publishing). In this post by KPW350, the mutilation and subsequent display of

her head on a pole in Taunton expose the reality of brutality during King Philip’s War.

You can read more posts like this on the KPW350 Substack HERE

The Events of August 6

Multiple events occurred on August 6, 1676.

In modern Norton, MA, an encounter occurred at Lockety Neck, located between the Rumford and Coweset (or Wading) Rivers. Reportedly using information given by an Indigenous man seeking leniency, Englishmen converged on the site and defeated a group of Indigenous people, taking an unspecified number captive. (1)

On this same day, a number of Englishmen from Taunton encountered a number of Indigenous people in Swansea and took more than two dozen captive.

Also on August 6, Weetamoo, the Pocasset sachem, attempted to elude capture and tried to cross the Taunton River, drowning in the process. (2) After recovering her from the river, the English desecrated her body, beheaded her corpse and displayed her head on a pole in Taunton, as was a wartime tradition of both the English and Indigenous, which that had been done several times throughout King Philip’s War. (3)

1. Cassandra Hradil and Maggie King, “Lockety Fight: Unraveling Centuries of Silence.” Our Beloved Kin: Remapping a New History of King Philip’s War. June 3, 2019. According to Cassandra Hradil and Maggie King of the Our Beloved Kin digital accompaniment, the Lockety Neck Fight is seldom discussed in the contemporary and secondary materials published on King Philip’s War. The recountings of the events here have largely been recorded by local historians throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, such as Samuel Hopkins Emery’s 1893 History of Taunton, which describes the event as having also taken place on or around August 6.

   
   

2. There has been some disagreement over when Weetamoo died but the date most often given is August 6, 1676; some scholars have interpreted the 6th as the date her body was recovered by the English from the shores of the Taunton River. For several somewhat recent accounts of the death of Weetamoo see Marc Munroe Dion, “’Queen’ Weetamoe came to a tragic end.” Herald News, February 26, 2003. Scanned and shared by the Keeley Library, https://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/queenweetamoe.pdf; “Life Story: Weetamoo (ca. 1635-40 - 1676).” Women & The American Story; Kevin P. O’Connor, “Fall River Wonders: Who was Weetamoo and why is her name everywhere?” The Herald News, May 24, 2019.

   
   

3. For a new take on King Philip’s War in which the narrative is told focusing on the intersecting stories of Weetamoo, Mary Rowlandson, and James Printer, see Lisa Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War. (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2018)