While the Pilgrims moved into the abandoned village of Patuxet and planted their fields, the Great Sachem Massasoit called together a council to hammer out policy toward the wayward colonists. Hammered by plague and pestilence, his Wampanoag Confederacy was vulnerable. Inland, the Narragansett remained untouched by the epidemic, with their jealous eyes on the lucrative European trade along the coast.

Massasoit considered the Pilgrims the solution to his problem. Reversing decades of policy, he opted this time to let them stay. Half-starved and malnourished, the dirty men from the sea posed no threat. Fifty-two Pilgrims of one hundred and two died during the winter. They tried to bury them secretly but the Wampanoag were watching. The real danger was the Narragansett. To counter them, Massasoit wanted the military support of the Pilgrims’ guns.

For the negotiations he needed a translator, but Massasoit did not trust Tisquantum (Squanto); he lived in London too long and his loyalty was suspect. There was one other, the Abenaki man from the north, Samoset. He knew a little English from the fisherman off Monhegan, enough to monitor Squanto during negotiations.

Massasoit plan was to convey power and show a façade of his beleaguered forces. On the first day, he sent Samoset alone and unarmed to greet the Pilgrims in English, “Welcome Englishmen!” He dropped the names of all the English fishermen he knew and mentioned, in passing, the military strength of the Wampanoag.

A few days later, Samoset returned with five men for a full reconnaissance.

Finally, several days after that, Samoset came again with Tisquantum, fluent in English, to engage them in conversation. An hour later, Massasoit and an escort of sixty men (nearly all he had) appeared on a nearby hilltop, faces painted for war. The Pilgrims would have wondered how many more would appear the next time.

The plan worked and Massasoit got what he came for. Edward Winslow, dressed in a full suit of armor, came forward, asked for peace, and kissed Massasoit’s hand. Today our halls are not adorned with a painting of this.

The critical terms were recorded in the treaty under Article Four: “If any did unjustly war against him, we would aid him; if any did war against us, he should aid us.”

The initial months were tense. The first Thanksgiving meal, later that fall, occurred in this context. In the coming years, Massasoit manipulated the colony into various skirmishes to address threats to the Wampanoag from other tribes. The pact held for five decades.