His name was "Samoset", the one who spoke English.  Massasiot ,(b.1580 -d.1661),a famous Indian chief and warrior,was born in the district afterward know as Massachusetts and was head chief to the Wampanoags whose lands extended from Cape Cod to Narragansett Bay.

 

Shortly before the landing of the Pilgrim fathers at Plymouth, the tribe has been reduced by an epidemic to three hundred fighting men . Massasoits messenger "Samoset" had gained knowledge of English from the northern fishermen appeared at Plymouth in March in 1621, and was shortly followed by the chief himself who concluded a treaty with the Plymouth authorities offensive and defensive in character ,which was kept by the contracting parties for over fifty years.

 

     Massachusetts North American Indians ,a branch of the extinct Natick Nation who were members of the Algonquin family and inhabited Eastern Massachusetts occupying when the English arrived at the present site of Boston and vicinity prior to the coming of the whites. Their strength was estimated at almost 3000 warriors, but as a result of War with the Tarratines, their implacable enemy and the pestilence of 1677, in which they suffered more than any other tribe .          

The  English colonists found the reducedg to a mere hand full in 1631, they numbered only about five hundred and a few years later ceased to have a tribal existence Natick, Nonantum, and Ponkapog, but their language survives in the bible of John Eliot "the Apostle of the Indians"

 

     Goverment policy in 1887 instituted the General Allotment Act, which  inaugurated the present policy of making the indian an individual land holder with citizen rights and duties, also, throwing open the reservations to white settlement.    The whole governmental effort is now being directed toward the speedy and final absorption of the indian into the American body of politics. Under the prevailing allotment agreements, each indian man, woman and child is made the individual owner of eighty acres of agricultural or one hundred sixty acres of grazing land, inalienable and free of taxes for a term of twenty five years, with restricted citizenship privileges and a per-capita share in all tribal funds.