History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

36 History of Swansea
Weetamoe's position. The surprise was complete. The
Indians made no resistance, and had no time to attempt an
escape. All were captured except Weetamoe.
Over the fate of this woman there hangs a singular mystery,
which the investigations of earnest inquirers have not been
able to explain. Hubbard's account is as follows: " Intending
to make an escape from the danger, she attempted to get over
a river, or arm of the sea near by upon a raft, or some pieces
of broken wood ; but, whether tired and spent with swimming,
or starved with cold and hunger, she was found, stark naked,
in Mattapoiset, South Swansea, not far from the water side,
which made some think she was first half drowned and so
ended her wretched life."
Whether she was first "half drowned," whether she was
murdered by her people, or whether she met her death in any
other way, equally violent, cannot now be ascertained.
If the tragic story of this princess ended here, it would be
well. But the colonists found her naked body by the water's
edge. Their enemy was taken at last; yet she was dead, and
more than that, her corpse was the corpse of a woman. Surely
they would bury it, if not with magnanimity, yet with decency,
since the manly heart wars not on the dead. On the contrary,
they indulged in taunts over the body, cut off the head, and
after carrying it to Taunton, set it upon a pole. Here it was
recognized by some of the prisoners, who, assembling around
it, gave expression to their grief in cries and lamentations.
Mournful proof of the love which these poor creatures bore to
their unfortunate princess. Yet so bitter was the feeling against
the Indians, that Mather, several months after this occurrence,
denominated this act of the Indian captives "a most horrid
and diabolical lamentation."
Washington Irving thus comments on the Indian queen's
fate:
"Through treachery a number of his faithful adherents,
the subjects of Weetamoe, an Ii dian princess of Pocasset, a
near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, were betrayed into
the hands of the enemy. Weetamoe was among them at the
time, and attempted to make her escape by crossing a neighboring
river; either exhausted by swimming, or starved with
cold and hunger, she was found dead and naked near the water
side. But persecution ceased not at the grave. Even death,
the refuge of the wretched, where the wicked commonly cease
from troubling, was no protection to this outcast female, whose
great crime was affectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her
friend. Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly
vengeance; the head was severed from the body and set upon