The place remained.

The people did not.

A Homeland Changed While He Was Gone

The epidemic did more than create personal grief.

It changed the political balance of southern New England.

Wampanoag communities had lost enormous numbers of people.

Neighboring Native nations had not all suffered equally.

Groups that had once balanced one another in population and power now faced a different landscape.

Ousamequin, the Pokanoket sachem known in English records by the title Massasoit, had to navigate that altered world.

He was responsible for protecting his people while evaluating threats and opportunities from neighboring nations and increasingly permanent European settlements.