In 1525, Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian sailing under the French flag, explored much of the coastline from Virginia through New England.  He was one of the earliest European explorers that stopped along the coastline of the Wampanoag people at Narragansett Bay, where he met the Wampanoag people. Verrazzano records that the Wampanoag came aboard the ship fearlessly, including two "kings" of forty and twenty years of age.  Verrazzano noted that the Wampanoag were "very charitable towards their neighbors".

Very few voyages were made to the region for the next three-quarters of a century, but beginning in the very early 1600s, European voyages to New England picked up greatly.  In 1605, English sea captain George Weymouth traveled along Cape Cod, where he captured five Indians to take back with him to England.  Frenchman Samuel de Champlain made a map of Plymouth Harbor in 1613 (picture at left).  The river seen at the top is Town Brooke at Plymouth, and several Indian villages and cornfields can be seen.  A group of Indians in a canoe and along the shore can also be seen.  A year later, Captain John Smith traveled into Cape Cod, and made his own map of New England.  When John Smith left, one of the sea captains remaining behind was Captain Thomas Hunt, who decided to take 24 Indians back to Spain to sell as slaves.  He lured them aboard his ship pretending to trade for beaver skins, and then captured them onboard.  They were bound and sailed to Spain, where he managed to sell a few before some local Spanish friars took custody of the remaining Indians.  One of those who was captured was Tisquantum ("Squanto"), would would be returned to New England in 1618 with another English captain, Thomas Dermer, before making acquaintance with the Pilgrims in 1620.

John Smith's map of Cape Cod, 1614

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