Weetamoo will succeed her father as Sachem (Chief) of the Pocasset tribe in Massachusetts. Fourteen-year-old Weetamoo must learn the fundamental values and disciplines of a true sachem, but she must also be prepared for the inevitable threat her people will face from the encroaching Pilgrim settlers, the Coat-men.

		Neepunna Keeswosh Moon When Corn is Ripe (Late August, 1653) Mettapoiset He [Father] laid his hand gently on my shoulder and told me that if I, Weetamoo, am to become sachem of us Pocassets after him, and prove a good leader, I must learn to walk more carefully through the world. I shook my hair out of my eyes and stared up at him in surprise. I said he surely could not mean that I was poor at tracking game or at passing unseen through the woods. He knows I can follow almost any trail, and he has seen for himself how I can edge my way near enough to a doe and her pair of speckled fawns to hear their three separate breaths. Did he not teach me all of these skills himself, I spluttered, and was I not better at it than any boy or girl in our village?