Squanto and the Pilgrims
Between 1492 to 1880, some two to five million native Americans found themselves enslaved by European traders, including Tisquantum or Squanto, as he became known by early English settlers at Plymouth Colony. A member of the Patuxet Tribe of the Wampanoag People, Squanto escaped his enslavement in Spain with the help of a Catholic priest, making his way to London, where he learned the ways and language of the English under the employment of John Slaney, treasurer of the Newfoundland Company responsible for colonizing Cuper’s Cove in 1610.
Finds Passage Home
Finding passage home aboard two separate ships, Squanto returned to Patuxet—one of two native Americans ever to do so—discovering the bleached bones of nearly 2/3rds of his people, who had perished during the Great Dying, as the Wampanoags called it, caused by an outbreak of foreign diseases borne by European Explorers. He also found a ragged group of English settlers aboard the Mayflower, who had lost nearly half their original number due to disease and hypothermia, after living aboard their crowded vessel during the winter of 1620 and 1621.
The Pilgrim’s Savior
Uniquely poised to help the Puritans survive their harsh New England environment, Squanto helped the Pilgrims form an alliance with Wampanoag leader Ousamequin, birthing an agreement that helped the Wampanoag gain a powerful ally against their sworn enemy, the Narragansett. He also taught the Pilgrims how to hunt and fish for local indigenous food sources, while teaching them to grow corn and other sustainable crops in New England’s fertile soils.
No Invite to First Thanksgiving
Memorialized if not mythologized in the now-popular American holiday of Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims most likely failed to invite the Wampanoag to their first harvest celebration, but rather attracted a tense gathering of some 90 Wampanoag warriors who had responded to a volley of celebratory gunfire unleashed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Once the warriors determined that the gunfire lacked any hostile intent, they contributed five deer to the feast, before helping the Pilgrims celebrate their survival in November of 1621.
Murdered by his Own
Relations between native Americans and European settlers soon deteriorated, however, after subsequent treaties led to the subjugation of native Americans and the usurpation of native American lands, leading some historians to speculate that Squanto may have been poisoned to death by his own people late in 1622, making the unique skills and diplomacies of Squanto, an important lifeboat, of sorts, for early English settlers in the New World.