The Wampanoag Tribe

One of the main players in the Pilgrims' story was the Wampanoag tribe. The Wampanoag tribe at one time had about 12,000 members, but disease claimed so many of them that by the time they encountered the Pilgrims there were fewer than 2,000 of them on the mainland of southeastern Massachusetts. The Wampanoag were farmers and hunters and were able to teach many Pilgrims how to survive in the New World. To do this, though, they had to cross the language barrier. This was famously done by the chief, Massassoit, and later a man named Squanto--both Wampanoag men who had had enough contact with the foreigners that they learned English.

The fate of the Wampanoag was not cheery, despite Massassoit's peace treaties with the Pilgrims in the 1620's. After Massassoit passed away in 1660, the treaty was ignored by the British. The British accused Massassoit's son Wamsutta of cheating the colonists out of land that had been sold to them. This tension grew after Wamsutta's death of illness, but Wamsutta's brother Metacom managed to forge another temporary peace with the English.

Eventually Metacom united different Native American groups in a war against the English colonists, intending to force them out of what was previously Wampanoag land, but this failed drastically. Native American chiefs (including Metacom) were killed, and the remaining Wampanoag had to flee to surrounding islands to escape the English. Their bloodline intermixed with others', and some of their descendants still live on the islands--Martha's Vineyard in particular. Those on islands like Nantucket sadly were wiped out around 1963 due to an epidemic.

Sources: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/northamerica/wampanoagculture.html
http://www.tolatsga.org/wampa.html