All about the ancient tribes
The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag Chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe.
During the spring of 1621, Squanto was brought to the newly founded Pilgrim settlement of Plymouth by Samoset, an Indian who had been befriended by the English settlers. Squanto, who had been living with the Wampanoag people since his return from England, soon became a member of the Plymouth Colony.
Helping Hands Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, signed a treaty with the Pilgrams in 1621, that was never broken. As a result, the two groups enjoyed a peaceful coexistence. By early 1621, the Pilgrims had built crude huts and a common house on the shores of Plymouth Bay.
With the help of an English-speaking Patuxet Indian named Tisquantum (not Squanto; he spoke English because he was kidnapped and sold in the European slave trade before making his way back to America), the Pilgrims produced a bountiful supply of food that summer.
Modern scholars have argued that indigenous communities were devastated by leptospirosis, a disease caused by Old World bacteria that had likely reached New England through the feces of rats that arrived on European ships.
The Native Americans welcomed the arriving immigrants and helped them survive. Then they celebrated together, even though the Pilgrims considered the Native Americans heathens. The Pilgrims were devout Christians who fled Europe seeking religious freedom.
All of the pilgrims came on the Mayflower Samoset (ca. 1590–1653) was the first Native American to speak with the Pilgrims in Plymouth Colony. On March 16, 1621, the people were very surprised when Samoset walked straight into Plymouth Colony where the people were living.
Samoset (also Somerset, c. 1590–1653) was an Abenaki sagamore and the first American Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony.
The impacts the War of 1812 had on tribes were simply devastating. Losing Indian lands resulted in a loss of cultural identity, as tribes relied on their homelands as the place of ancestral burial locations and sacred sites where religious ceremonies were performed.
First Thanksgiving Meal Turkey. Fruits and Vegetables. Fish and Shellfish. Potatoes. Pumpkin Pie. Who Attended the First Thanksgiving?
Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their cultures.
The Wampanoag are one of many Nations of people all over North America who were here long before any Europeans arrived, and have survived until today. Many people use the word “Indian” to describe us, but we prefer to be called Native People. Today, about 4,000-5,000 Wampanoag live in New England.
Mayflower docks at Plymouth Harbor Accused of treason, they were forced to leave the country and settle in the more tolerant Netherlands. After 12 years of struggling to adapt and make a decent living, the group sought financial backing from some London merchants to set up a colony in America.
The First Thanksgiving by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris. The Pilgrims celebrated their first successful harvest in the fall of 1621 by firing guns and cannons in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The noise alarmed ancestors of the contemporary Wampanoag Nation who went to investigate.
At first the Pilgrims were friendly with the Wampanoags, because they helped them learn the environment and how to survive on the land. As the settlers moved in, they often settled on traditional or ceremonial land of the Wampanoags, which was often hotly disputed.