Samoset was the first Indian to make contact with the Pilgrims. He was a member of an Algonquin tribe that resided at the time in southeast Maine. He was a sagamore of his tribe, and was visiting chief Massasoit. He spoke in broken English that he had learned from the English fishermen that came to fish off Monhegan Island, from off the coast of southeast Maine. Samoset was described by the Pilgrinms in this way: "He was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carriage ... He was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all."