She lived near the southern edge of the Plymouth Colony on Patuxet homelands, not far from Narragansett Bay,[1] near what is currently known by settlers as Little Compton, Rhode Island.
[2] Awashonks is known for her special talent for negotiation and diplomacy, which helped include the Sakonnets among Native communities who received amnesty from colonists.
[2] The agreement was also signed by Totatomet and Somagaonet, witnessed by Tattacommett, (a Sakonnet subsachem who later removed to his land in the Elizabeth Islands) Samponcut and Tamoueesam (alias, Jeffrey), on July 24, 1671.
[5] Not long after, in August, Awashonks' men signed a paper approving what she had done in accordance with the agreement; only three names are known: Totatomet, Tunuokum, Sausaman.
Peter Awashanks did not ascend to the sachemdon in part because after King Philip's War he was prohibited from returning to Little Compton and was prevented from crossing the Sippican Line in Rochester along with other younger Sakonnet men.
He was eventually given land at Manomet Ponds and the family continued for at least several generations, the name being shortened to Washanks and later simply Shanks.
Two great grandsons named Peter and Abel Washonks were Revolutionary War soldiers in Massachusetts and Connecticut respectively.
[2] Metacomet (Sachem of the Wampanoag tribe, also known as King Philip) was trying to build a military coalition to go to war against the Plymouth settlers.
[6] A boulder was erected in Wilbur Wood, Little Compton, Rhode Island in the late nineteenth century, during a period of romantic settler interest in Awashonks' story stemming from their preoccupation with the myth of the "Vanishing Indian.