Squanto's Amazing Life

Almost every American child learns about the first Thanksgiving. Most have heard the name of Squanto, but in recent years, at least, fewer and fewer children are being taught how miraculous it would have seemed to the Pilgrims when, after surviving a harsh winter, they met an Indian who could speak fluent English.

Squanto was that Indian; however, in order to become the translator to the second group of British colonists in the New World, he had to go through a series of tragedies.

Although today there are disagreements about the Pilgrims (some people claiming that Thanksgiving should be a day of mourning and penance even), it is a tragedy to forget about Squanto and the difficulties that he went through to bring to us the first Thanksgiving day.

The life that Squanto (also known as Tisquantum) lived as a young child was dramatically different than the lives of Indian children living shortly before the arrival of the Pilgrims. The Indian population was growing. They farmed maize and fished. The land was densely populated. One Italian sailor, Giovanni da Verrazzano, noted that the coast was filled with the bonfires from the natives. There were probably about 1000 people in his tribe, Patuxet, and perhaps 20,000 people in the alliance of tribes that Squanto's tribe was in.

The population was growing to the point where the government had to form more organization than before. In a situation analogous to how the Wild West saw more governmental intervention over time as more people moved in, the Indians had to manage their natural resources more efficiently as their population grew.

Had the Pilgrims made their journey five years earlier than they did, they would not have been able to stay in New England. The land was crowded with people already, and the Indians were not exactly pleased with the idea of settlers coming to stay. All that changed in the span of a few short years.

Squanto wasn't born knowing English - nor did he have Ye Olde Rosetta Stone to help him learn the language. He learned the language the hard way - he was kidnapped.

It wasn't long after Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492 that European ships were a regular sight to the Native Americans. The British might have even sailed to the Newfoundland area as early as the 1480s, and the Vikings had arrived there even earlier. Most Europeans were peaceful and just wanted to fish and trade; some of the Europeans, including Verrazzano, kidnapped one or more of the Indians and took them back to Europe with them.

In 1614, Captain John Smith visited Squanto and his fellow tribe-mates. Although his visit was friendly, another ship was in his party, led by Thomas Hunt. Hunt was supposed to catch fish and then return back to England. In defiance to orders, he decided to land at Patuxet before returning home. While at Patuxet, he invited some of the natives to come on board and take a look at the ship. Several dozen people took him up on the offer. While on board, he tried forcing the natives into the hold. When they resisted, he killed several of them, although at least 19 were successfully captured, including Squanto.

Squanto was taken to the port of Málaga, in Spain. A few of the Indians were sold, but the Spanish church intervened, taking the natives away from the slave traders. They tried to convert Squanto (it is not known whether he actually converted or just pretended to). Squanto convinced them to let him try to return home, and he ended up in London, where he lived with a shipbuilder who was invested in the New World.

This may have been the second time that he was kidnapped. In 1605, George Weymouth kidnapped five Indians. According to the biography of Ferdinando Gorges, Squanto was one of the five; after staying in England for nine years the first time, he sailed back to the New World with John Smith. This would mean that he hadn't been home for very long before he was kidnapped for the second time.

When Squanto finally returned to America for good, what he saw was a completely different world. Instead of a land filled with natives like when he left, he returned to what must have seemed like a graveyard.

A few years previously, some Frenchmen wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod. The Indians captured them. One of the sailors, before he died, pronounced that God would punish them for their actions. Although the natives scoffed at the time, the Frenchman's proclamation actually came true. Unknown to either party, the French carried a disease with them. From 1616 to 1619, the virus spread like wildfire among the people in the area. About 90 percent of the population died. Nearly all of Squanto's Patuxet tribe had died, and there were only about 65 Massasoit people left.

In addition to returning to a home where nearly all of the people he knew had died, Squanto was captured once again. This time, by the Native American, Massasoit (the leader of the Massasoit tribe).

When the Pilgrims arrived, they were ill-prepared for the life that they were about to enter. They didn't have much experience in agriculture, and they didn't bring livestock with them. Although they planned on fishing, they didn't bring the proper equipment to fish in the New World. Even though half of the colony died in the first winter, it is amazing that the other half actually survived. The colonists survived by taking food left over from all the Native Americans in the area that had died.

Massasoit sent Squanto over to the Pilgrims not because he wanted to be generous and kind, but he felt that he needed an alliance with the Pilgrims. Although his tribal confederation had been reduced to a population of only a couple thousand by the disease that swept the land a couple of years earlier, the nearby Narragansett tribe had not been affected by disease. Massasoit felt that his tribe might be taken over by the Narragansett if the alliance didn't occur. This was the main reason why the Pilgrims weren't driven out of the land.

Squanto decided to live with the Pilgrim people, teaching them how to plant maize and live in the New World. Evidently, he preferred life with them to a life as a captive of Massasoit.

Squanto wasn't very happy about being captured by Massasoit. In his last days, he gathered some of the remaining Patuxet members together; he was hoping that his tribe would become the leader of the local confederation.

He tried to get the Pilgrims to fight against the Massasoit, telling them that their tribe was going to join with the Narragansett people against them. This was untrue. This got him into trouble with Massasoit, who wanted to kill Squanto. The Pilgrims refused to turn him over. This might have caused problems between the colonists and the Massasoit people, but Squanto grew ill and died shortly afterwards.

Without Squanto, and the illness that killed off thousands of natives in the years before, America as we know it could have turned out entirely differently.