Happy Thanksgiving! Squanto: A Life of Revealed Miracles

Happy Thanksgiving Friends!




Squanto was a Patuxet Indian. The Patuxet Indian tribe was very different from other nearby tribes. Whereas the other tribes lived in general peace and friendship, the Patuxets waged war, raided with regularity and were, thus, hated and feared by all surrounding tribes. The Patuxets were especially dangerous to any European sailors –killing any white man on sight. This policy may have been rooted in the fact that not all sailors came to trade goods. Some came to kidnap people for the slave trade. It is here that Squanto’s story really begins.

In 1605, a Captain Weymouth landed in Patuxet territory, stole onto land and kidnapped five Patuxets from the shore. Weymouth returned to England where he presented these “eccentric souvenirs” as a gift to the financier of the trip, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Sir Gorges, opposed to slavery, was furious and ordered the Indian men returned to their homeland. Records show that four Patuxets were in fact returned the next voyage, but Squanto’s whereabouts from 1605-1614 are unknown. It was in March of 1614 that Squanto returned briefly to his Patuxet land.

In 1614, Captain Thomas Hunt was given the duty to return Squanto to the Patuxet tribe; after using his interpreting services to negotiate a trade. Squanto arranged the trade and, accompanied by 20 Patuxets, returned to the ship to complete the trade. Cpt. Can’t-Be-Trusted ambushed the men and threw them into the hold setting sail for the slave markets of Malaga, Spain.

It was there, in Malaga, that a group of abolitionist monks came and forcibly rescued Squanto and an unknown number of yet unsold Patuxets. For the next two years, Squanto lived and studied at the monastery. After this time, a passage on an English ship was able to be arranged for him and here Squanto was taken back to England by Sir John Stanley. Eventually, Squanto came to be Stanley’s business interpreter for Stanley’s outpost in Newfoundland.

In 1617, while in New Foundland, Squanto was recognized by a captain employed by none other than Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The captain of Sir Gorges explained to Squanto that when Sir Gorges discovered that Squanto had not been returned to his homeland in 1605, Sir Gorges started to search for Squanto. 12 years later, Sir Gorges’ captain miraculously found Squanto, who was no longer a boy, in Newfoundland. With this captain, Squanto returned to Sir Gorges. In turn, Sir Gorges organized an expedition to bring Squanto home. 15 years after being taken, Squanto finally returned home!

When Squanto returned to his village, he found all of his people were gone. He traveled about 50 miles to the nearby peaceable and friendly Pocasset tribe. Here, he learned that every single Patuxet had recently died from a mysterious sickness and that all people feared to go near. In an act of supreme mercy and forgivness, Squanto was accepted into the Pocasset tribe and lived there for about six months before the Pilgrims settled Plimoth colony – at the exact site of the former Patuxet settlement.

How did the Pilgrims come to settle exactly there?

On November 10, 1620, the Pilgrims dropped anchor off the coast of the New World.  Due to the severe weather throughout their voyage, they were about 60 miles farther north than they had planned.  Should they stay here or should they travel down to the mouth of the Hudson River, which they had received a charter to settle?  They believed that God's providence had brought them to where they were and set out to find a settlement site in the vicinity.

They spent a full month living on board while the men took their shallop far and wide seeking a settlement site. They prayed each day and did not feel called to any area. Then, on December 11, they came to the former Patuxet territory and here they knew they were to settle. (Which, we know in hindsight, was the only territory along the coast not claimed by any Indian tribe -- meaning the only area the Pilgrims could have settled without creating a conflict with any area tribe.)

It was a visit from the Wampanoag Indians that ultimately brought Squanto into the Pilgrim settlement.  Through his subsequent interpretor services, Squanto and the Pilgrim governor, William Bradford, became very close friends; to the extent that Squanto came to live at Plimoth. Here he taught the Pilgrims how to navigate the new environment and was integral to negotiating treaties between the Pilgrims and the tribes (a peace that lasted for over 50 years, long past the deaths of the original signers). Likewise, the Pilgrims were loyal friends to Squanto – saving his life on at least two occasions. (Once in what was assuredly the first All American Posse –staging a full frontal attack to break Squanto out of another tribe’s bondage. But, those are other stories, and I’m on a paper budget here.)

Squanto was originally kidnapped in 1605 and spent 15 years all around the globe until he was finally returned to his land. Very little of this time was spent in bondage -- because of the moral heart of Sir Gorges who opposed slavery when it was all the rage; a group of  abolitionist monks in Malaga, Spain; a good hearted Englishman with a business in Newfoundland; an observant captain in Sir Gorges' employ who remembered the face of a 12 year old Indian boy and saw it in a 20 year old man. When Squanto returned home, he was accepted by the Pocasset tribe who was willing to forgive a Patuxet – their generational and always enemies. Squanto’s kidnapping saved him from a plague, gave him the ability to help the Pilgrims and, in turn, the Pilgrims saved him twice from death. Squanto died of old age, living in Plimoth Colony and being cared for by his Pilgrim friends.