MARCH 22, 1621

WAMPANOAG SACHEM MASSASOIT FORMS ALLIANCE WITH PILGRIMS

Four months after the Mayflower arrived in America, English settlers were still living either in temporary dwellings on shore or aboard the Mayflower. After a brutal winter, disease and exposure killed nearly half of the 102 people who arrived. Meanwhile, a 4-year plague (1615-19) had devastated Wampanoag society possibly taking 90% of their population. To prevent the rival Narragansett from taking advantage of the Wampanoag’s weakened state, their leader, Massasoit, and his men approached the English on March 22, 1621, and made their hopes of a peace accord known. With the help of one of Massasoit’s men, Squanto, a Patuxet man who had been taken as a slave by an Englishman and had lived briefly in England, they were able to come to terms and agreed to make common defense with them against other indigenous people, especially the Narraganset. Massasoit kept this treaty for the rest of his life.

Source: Nathan Dorn, “The Treaty That Saved Plymouth Colony,” In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress, U.S. Library of Congress, 3/22/2017.  Retrieved 11/19/2022, The Treaty That Saved Plymouth Colony | In Custodia Legis: Law Librarians of Congress (loc.gov)

Sketch: Artist, H.I Stevens, engraver, Augustus Robin, between 1870 and 1900. Meeting of Governor Carver and Massasoit.  Public Domain.  Source: U.S. Library of Congress, Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-96230, LC-USZ62-95587; Call Number: BIOG FILE - Carver, John, 1576(?)-1621, Meeting of Governor Carver and Massasoit (loc.gov)