History
1
Fifteen years before the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod, French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed down the Atlantic coast from Canada in search of new lands and, on July 20, 1605, entered here what was then a shallow bay, which he named Port de Mallebarre, or “port of dangerous shoals.” Around the bay, the explorers found the thatched houses of the Nauset Indians, with fields beside each house planted with Indian corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. After an Indian stole one of the explorers’ copper water kettles, a sailor was killed in an ensuing skirmish. Although the French did not settle here, Champlain left the first written descriptions of the land and people and the first detailed map, and the bay he called Mallebarre has since been transformed by the tides into today’s Nauset Marsh and Harbor.
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Eastham, Massachusetts · United States
