Luck or Miracle? Samoset and the Pilgrims, 400 years later - Foundation for Economic Education

Recommendable! What a story! So the Pilgrims met perhaps the only two English speaking indigenous people! The article also stresses that not all encounters between European settlers and indigenous people were hostile. On the contrary, some of the tribes apparently traded with the settlers, had defensive alliances and so forth.

"... Four hundred years ago—on March 16, 1621—an English-speaking Indian from the Abenaki tribe strode into the new settlement of Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. He greeted the astonished Pilgrims and requested a beverage brewed from fermented cereal grains.

“Welcome, Englishmen!” proclaimed Samoset, whose name meant “he who walks over much.” ... “Do you have beer?” ..."

Luck or Miracle? Samoset and the Pilgrims, 400 years later - Foundation for Economic Education The Plymouth colonists met what were perhaps the only two English-speaking Indians on the eastern seaboard.