Algonquian-speaking peoples like the Pokanoket have lived in these lands for at least 12,000 years. From Sowams, the Pokanoket Tribe has presided over a loose confederation with vast geographical reach.

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With the onset of European exploration, Verrazano described the people of the geographical location of Mt. Hope Bay, and the Pokanoket were noted in the maps of early cartographers such as William Wood and John Seller.

 

With his nation weakened by early exposure to foreign diseases, the Massasoit Ousamequin deliberated the fate of the first English settlers who landed at Plymouth in 1620.