Nanepashemet (died 1619) was a sachem and bashabe or great leader of the Pawtucket Confederation of Abenaki peoples in present-day New England before the landing of the Pilgrims.
By 1633, only the youngest son of the three, Wenepoykin, known to the colonists as "Sagamore George," had survived a major smallpox epidemic that year that decimated the tribes.
His influence stretched north to the Pennacook tribe, which inhabited the White Mountains region of present-day New Hampshire.
[3] Nanepashemet's tribe caught fish in the rivers and sea, dug and harvested shellfish, and raised corn on the Marblehead peninsula.
Sensing danger, Nanepashemet built a log fort near the Mystic River in present-day Medford.
He directed his wife and children to move inland to reside with friendly Indian bands until the crisis passed.
She is often confused with Awashonks, who was the Squaw Sachem of the Sakonnets in Rhode Island, but the two women were contemporaries and not the same person.
Squaw Sachem of Mistick ruled the Pawtucket Confederation lands capably after Nanepashmet's death.
He inherited the lands of both his brothers from Charlestown up to Salem, and also went by the moniker George Rumney Marsh among English settlers.
[10] He was sold into slavery after participating in King Philip's War and shipped to the Caribbean island of Barbados, where he survived for eight years, then returned just before his death in 1684.