Note 8 — John Pory to the Earl of Southampton[1]

Englishmen tended to translate Indian customs into feudal law. Plymouth and the territory around it had been the home of a tribal group of which Squanto was the only survivor. Neighboring Indians traditionally had no rights there. The Pilgrims interpreted the claims of Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief, as feudal overlordship over southeastern Massachusetts, so the vacant parts of it which they took up logically had to be a feudal domain of some kind.