A confederation of [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Algonquian]] tribes living in what is now southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Prior to contact with Europeans, the Wampanoag numbered about 40,000 people living in nearly seventy communities. From 1615 to 1619 (just before the arrival of the [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Pilgrim|Pilgrims]]), a [leptospirosis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptospirosis) pandemic (from germs carried by rodents on European ships that occasionally visited) killed the majority of the people, leaving social chaos in its wake. Up to 90% of the Massachusett tribe were killed, and nearly 100% of the Patuxet, in one of whose villages the Pilgrims settled. [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Massasoit]], the sachem of the confederation, lived farther away, in what is now Narragansett Bay. He made peace with [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/William Bradford]] and the Pilgrims and sent [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Squanto]] to live among them. the Wampanoag then had four decades of peace with the English, until the sachem's death in 1661. His heir [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Wamsutta]] died within a year and younger son [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Metacomet|Metacom]] became chief. the new leader also tried to keep the peace, but in the 1670s the [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/Plymouth]] colony leaders became more aggressive and Metacom launched [[Dan's History Web/US 1/Topic Index/King Philip’s War]] in 1675. Although Indian raids throughout New England alarmed the English, the war was disastrous for the Wampanoag, reducing their population by half, to only about 5,000 survivors.