The problem was made worse by population changes.

Epidemic disease had already killed large numbers of Native people in New England.

Entire communities were weakened.

Survivors inherited a political landscape in which colonial populations were growing while Native populations had been drastically reduced.

This imbalance changed the meaning of every negotiation.

A powerful sachem negotiating with a small English settlement in one decade might be negotiating with an expanding colonial society a generation later.

That difference mattered enormously.