 Word quickly spread among the Native American tribes of Standish's attack; many Native Americans abandoned their villages and fled the area. As noted by Philbrick: "Standish's raid had irreparably damaged the human ecology of the region .... It was some time before a new equilibrium came to the region." Edward Winslow reports in his 1624 memoirs Good News from New England that "they forsook their houses, running to and fro like men distracted, living in swamps and other desert places, and so brought manifold diseases amongst themselves, whereof very many are dead". Lacking the trade in furs provided by the local tribes, the Pilgrims lost their main source of income for paying off their debts to the Merchant Adventurers. Rather than strengthening their position, Standish's raid had disastrous consequences for the colony, as attested by William Bradford in a letter to the Merchant Adventurers: "[W] e had much damaged our trade, for there where we had [the] most skins the Indians are run away from their habitations". The only positive effect of Standish's raid seemed to be the increased power of the Massasoit-led Wampanoag tribe, the Pilgrims' closest ally in the region.
