Early Warren and the start of King Philip's War

Early Warren and the start of King Philip's War. . , The town of Warren was first settled by people from the Pokanoket Tribe, later known as the Wampanoag. The Pokanoket controlled the land from Plymouth to the eastern shores of Narragansett Bay. In 1620, “Osamequin”, which translates as “Yellow Feather”, was their Massasoit or head Sachem and lived in an area known as “Sowams” or “Sowamset” where Bristol, Warren and Barrington, RI, are located today. , On March 22, 1621, Osamequin and sixty members of his tribe visited the Pilgrims in Plymouth and established a treaty that said neither would harm the other and they would protect each other from their enemies. This treaty remained in effect for forty years until Osamequin’s death in 1661. , In July of 1621, Pilgrim Governor Bradford sent colonists Edward Winslow and Stephen Hopkins, to visit Osamequin in Sowams. By 1632, the colonists had set up a trading post on the banks of the Kickemuit River. There they traded English goods for furs and other items. A settlement of about a dozen houses was begun after 1653 when land was purchased from Osamequin for 35 pounds. , In the 15 years after Osamequin’s death, his son, Metacomet, grew more distrustful of the English and eventually led an alliance of tribes into one of the deadliest wars between the native people and the English settlers. The war, known as King Philip’s War, spread well beyond the Pokanoket territory into Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine and lasted from June of 1675 to August of 1676. , The first attacks of the War took place just east of the Kickemuit River on the farm of Job Winslow. Within days, all forty or so of the colonists houses were burned. Because of his friendship with King Philip, settler Hugh Cole was warned and managed to escape to Portsmouth before the fighting began. The well that he dug next to his house can be found today along the Bike Path behind the Kickemuit Middle School on the east side of the Kickemuit River. , The War, which spread as far as Northampton, MA, took thousands of English and Native lives and forever changed the relationship between the two groups. Most of the defeated tribal people were either killed or forced to leave their homeland and find new places to live as far away as New York and Maine. Others were sent to Barbados to be sold as slaves. English settlers moved into the remaining land in the Town of Swansea, established in 1667, and their numbers continued to grow. Members of the Pokanoket Tribe have since returned to the area, and over two hundred now live near Warren.