Captain
George Weymouth captured Tisquantum and took him to England in 1605
where he learned to speak English. Tisquantum spend nine years in
England before he could return home to his family of Patuxets Indians
on Cape Cod. In 1614, he traveled home on Captain John Smith's
vessel.
Captain Thomas Hunt, a member of Smith's expedition, deceptively lured
Tisquantum and twenty-six other Indians on to his ship.
Hunt chained them in irons after luring the Indians on to his ship by
pretending to want to trade with them. Tisquantum and the other
Indians were taken to Spain and sold into slavery. Tisquantum was
delivered into the company of two friars who introduced the Christian
faith to him. Eventually, he made his way to England and boarded
Captain Dermer's ship bound for America in 1619. Many of the other
Indians which had been enslaved never returned to America. When he
arrived in Cape Cod, he learned that every member of his tribe had
died due to an epidemic of small pox in 1617.
The
Pilgrims reached the shore of Cape Cod in November of 1620. The
Pilgrims were members of the Separatist congregation of Scrooby,
England. The had fled to Holland to avoid conforming to the demands
of the Anglican church in England. While in Holland, they feared
their children would lose their English identity so the Pilgrims
chose to sail for America to begin a new life. After twelve years in
Holland, they set sail for the New World and arrived in a place they
would call Plymouth named after the village in England from where
they began their voyage.
Upon
arriving in Cape Cod, they discovered that the land had been cleared
but had not been farmed for several seasons. They experienced a
devastating winter season through which several of their members
encountered hardship and sickness. On a March day, an English
speaking Indian named Samoset entered the Pilgrim village of
Plymouth. Samoset had learned to Speak English from fishermen whom he
had met along the coast of Maine. The Pilgrims learned from Samoset
that they had settled on the homeland of the Patuxet Indians who died
four years earlier. They learned that the Patuxet Indians were a
large hostile tribe of Indians which viciously murdered white men who
encroached upon their lands. The other Indians of the area chose not
to settle on the Patuxet lands for fear that a death curse may be
upon anyone who might settle on those lands.
Consequently,
the Pilgrims landed on the American continent at a place of
uninhabited land on the East coast of the continent. Furthermore, the
was the same land on which Tisquantum had lived with his family and
tribe.
The
Pilgrims became acquainted with Tisquantum on March 22, 1621 when he
arrived in Plymouth. He brought news that the great chief Massasoit
of the Wampanoag and leader of several tribes in the surrounding area
would arrive to visit the English settlers on that day. Tisquantum
helped the Pilgrims arrange a peace treaty with Massasoit which would
last for decades. Nearly half of the Pilgrims died during the
devastating winter. Those who survived, lacked the necessary skills
to settle the land and endure the hardships which one could
experience in the new land. Tisquantum taught the settlers how to
fertilize their fields and protect their corn. Tisquantum would teach
them how to harvest the food of nature. They learned how to catch
fish from the streams that were nearby.
Today
we remember Tisquantum by the name Squanto which he received.
On
March of 1621, Governor Bradford recorded in his work Of Plymouth
Plantation:
“About the 16th of March [1621], a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English...Hie name was Samoset. He told them also of another Indian whose name was Squanto, a native of this place, who had been in England and could speak better English than himself...
[A]bout four or five days after, came...the aforesaid Squanto...[He] continued with them and was their interpreter and was a special instrument sent of God for the good beyond their expectation. He showed them how to plant corn, where to take fish and other commodities, and guided them to unknown places, and never left them till he died.
He was a native of these parts, and had been one of the few survivors of the plague hereabouts. He was carried away with others by one Hunt, a captain of a ship, who intended to sell them for slaves in Spain; but he got away for England, and was received by a merchant in Londdon, and employed in Newfoundland and other parts, and lastly brought into these parts by a Captain Dermer.”
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