Algonquian-speaking peoples like the Pokanoket, the Narragansett, and the tribes that would later be called Wampanoag (meaning “easterner”) have lived in what is now Rhode Island for at least 12,000 years. From Potumtuk or Mt. Hope, the Pokanoket Massasoits presided over a loose confederation with vast geographical reach (the term “Massasoit” is an inherited title for "great leader"). With the onset of European exploration, Verrazano described the people of the geographical location of Mt. Hope Bay, and the Pokanoket were noted in the maps of early cartographers such as William Wood and John Seller. With his nation weakened by early exposure to foreign diseases, the Massasoit Ousamequin deliberated the fate of the first English settlers who landed at Plymouth in 1620. From Sowams, in council with his sagamores, sachems, and powwas, Ousamequin decided to treaty with the English.