the fishing fleets. After a day of conversation, he promised to return with a more fluent speaker, a Native of Patuxet (the Native name for Plymouth) who had been kidnapped to England. This was Tisquantum, Massasoit’s ace card. This contact led to a top-level con- ference between the Massasoit himself and the Plimoth governor John Carver and even- tually the signing of a formal peace treaty. Tisquantum attached himself to the En-


glish as interpreter and famously taught the settlers how to acclimatize to the new land. (Yes, they did use fish to fertilize corn.) When his ambitions as a culture broker made him


non grata to Massassoit, the Wampanoag sent another senior leader, Hobomak, to live next to the colonists as an adviser and mind- er. For the early years, at least, the Massasoit showed every sign of believing that he had the weak and struggling English colony firm- ly under control. On the other side, the Plimoth settlers


realized quickly that their survival depend- ed on their usefulness to the surrounding Wampanoag confederacy. They went to some pains to prove themselves reliable allies and learned to live with their neighbors. Their missionary efforts were mainly limited to


the fact is, they had a long way to go.X James Ring Adams is senior historian at the National Museum of the American Indian and managing editor of American Indian magazine. The Ring family were early settlers at Plimoth. This article is derived from a presentation at the Leiden Mayflower 400 conference “Four Nations Commemoration, 1620–2020, Pilgrims and the Politics of Memory,” held virtually with the support of Leiden University, The Netherlands.


setting an example of Christian living. This was a notable contrast to the more aggressive efforts of the later Puritan colony at Mas- sachusetts Bay, which differed religiously in subtle but significant ways from the Pilgrims. The Plimoth settlers deserve credit for their acceptance of Native tutelage and their abili- ty to overcome initial fear and ignorance. But


SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 29


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