This is MY America!

[xoxoxoBruce]

There wasn't enough land for them because the locals already had that under cultivation. But just to the South there was plenty of good land so they told Massasoit they wanted to farm that land. Massasoit said have at it, because the village that had been there had been wiped out by disease, and non of the other Indians wanted anything to do with it.

But that village was wiped out in 1617, three years before the Pilgrims arrived. As a matter of fact, it was Squanto's village and they were gone when he came back in 1619. So yes, there were fields that had been cultivated but had laid fallow for several years.