The main trail winding from Kickemuit to Sowams was intersected by shorter paths leading to various sections of Pokanoket. The Metacom Avenue of today, familiarly known as the “Back Road,” is identical with the trail worn by moccasined feet in travelling to and from Mount Hope. Another trail closely following the lines of the present Kickemuit Road, School House Road, and Swansea Road, led to what is now North Swansea, and passed the “national grinding mill” of the Wampanoags,[15] a large flat rock located on the west side of the Swansea Road at a point very near the line separating Massachusetts and Rhode Island. There were other paths leading to Birch Swamp in the north-easterly part of Warren, to Poppasquash (the name then applied to the westerly part of Bristol), and to a ferry over Sowams River by means of which connection was made between Massasoit’s town and Chachacust, (a neck of land in what is now Barrington). The two last mentioned trails are identical with North and South Main Streets in Warren. From the “wading-place” a trail ran eastward a short distance and then branched off towards Touiset, Mattapoisett, and other localities. A careful study of the early records of Swansea and Warren has convinced the writer that, in laying out highways, the original settlers of the towns, in many instances, merely widened the ancient trails used by the Wampanoags for no one knows how many centuries prior to the arrival of the Mayflower in Cape Cod Bay. The Plymouth government having established a settlement at Sowams, “the garden of their patent,[16]” granted “certain worthy gentlemen” of the colony leave to purchase land in the Sowamset district. Negotiations were immediately entered into with the Wampanoag chief, which resulted in the sale of “Sowams and Parts Adjacent” by Massasoit and his oldest son Wamsutta (Mooanam or Alexander), in March, 1653. The purchasers of these “Sawomes Lands,” which included the greater part of Pokanoket were Thomas Prince, Thomas Willett, Miles Standish, Josiah Winslow, William Bradford, Thomas Clark, John Winslow, Thomas Cushman, William White,[17] John Adams and Experience Mitchell. The price paid was thirty-five pounds sterling, and the reader scarcely needs to be told that the Englishmen “got the best of the bargain.” Why Massasoit consented to “sell his birthright,” is a question more easily asked than answered; gratitude probably influenced him, in part. He never forgot that he owed his life to his English allies. Possibly, too, the wise statesman, realizing the superiority of the white man’s civilization, believed his people would be benefitted by closer relationship with them. He is said to have warned his sons that if they ever engaged in war against the English they would meet with defeat.