Massasoit was familiar with the appearance of white men before the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In 1619, Captain Thomas Dermer, an Englishman, visited the Massachusetts coast and held an interview at Namasket with “two kings” of Pokanoket, undoubtedly Massasoit and his brother Quadequina. The English were regarded with suspicion and dislike by some of the tribes of the Wampanoag confederacy, owing to the fact that a certain unscrupulous trader[6] had kidnapped some of the natives and sold them into slavery in Spain. Had the English attempted a settlement at Plymouth when the Pokanokets were at the zenith of their power, they would, probably, have been either exterminated or driven from the country. But, in 1620, Massasoit, whose fortunes were at the ebb, stood ready to extend the right-hand of fellowship to the pale-faced strangers, in whom he perceived the possible deliverers of his nation. The treaty with the Pilgrims into which he entered at Plymouth in March, 1621, was the bold stroke of a wise statesman and an experienced politician. The article in the treaty which stipulated that the English should aid him if “any did unjustly war against him” makes his position plain. “We cannot yet conceive but that he is willing to have peace with us,” writes Winslow, alluding to this treaty. “And especially because he hath a potent adversary, the Narrowhigansets that are at war with him; against whom, he thinks, we may be some strength to him; for our pieces are terrible unto them.” Subsequent events proved that Massasoit’s policy was not at fault for, with the assistance of his white allies, he was finally enabled to throw off the galling yoke of Canonicus, and to restore the Wampanoags to their old-time position of independence and power.