He had known the community before the epidemic.

Now foreigners were building houses on the land where his people had lived.

The English First Winter

The newcomers were hardly secure.

Their first winter was catastrophic.

Disease, exposure, poor nutrition, and inadequate shelter killed many colonists.

By spring, the settlement’s survival was uncertain.

From the surrounding Native perspective, the English were not automatically powerful conquerors.

They were a vulnerable group of newcomers with firearms, ships, metal goods, and connections across the Atlantic, but they were also sick, hungry, and unfamiliar with the local environment.

Ousamequin had to decide what to do with them.