Osamekins Chefe Satchim. Ousamequin, Massasoit. Their Mark.
Pokanoket. His home at Sowams, on present-day Wampanoag homelands and in the southeastern parts of so-called “Rhode Island and Massachusetts.” As Great Sachem or Massasoit of the Wampanoag, Ousamequin led the people of the first light through the time of the great plague (1616-1619) and signed a treaty with European settler-colonizers in 1621, just after those settlers first arrived to the shores of Wampanoag territory. Ousamequiin continued to navigate a tenuous relationship with colonizers until his death in 1661. In this deed, signed in 1651, Ousamequin and other “nabor satchims” acknowledge the sovereignty and leadership power of their “beloved cosin” Nummampaum (Weetamoo) in her own territory at Pocasset.
Ousamequin’s kin: sons: Wamsutta, Pometacom and Sonkanuhoo. Daughters: Amie and another whose name I am so far uncertain of.
Deed signed July 26, 1651. Seen at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
Ousamequin means yellow feather in the Wampanoag dialect of the Algonquian language.