Samoset

Samoset was the first Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims.  He was an Abnaki, an Algonquin-speaking people that resided in south-east Maine.  He was a sagamore of his tribe, and was visiting Massasoit, leader of the Wampanoag--having been there for about eight months.  He had learned some broken English from the English fisherman that came to fish off the coast of southeast Maine.  The Pilgrims described Samoset:  "He was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carriage . . . He was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all."  Samoset returned shortly thereafter to his homeland in Maine.