Painting of Tisquantum

Tisquantum (better known as Squanto) (c. 1580s – November 1622) was one of two Native American Indians (Samoset being the other) that assisted the Pilgrims after their first winter in the New World. He was a member of the Patuxet tribe, a subtribe of the Wampanoag Confederacy. The name Tisquantum, roughly meaning "Rage of the Manitou" in the local dialect, was most likely not his given name and may have been adopted for his dealings with the Pilgrims. Squanto said in later years,

"When I first saw them [the pilgrims] I thought they were seaborn savages".

It was not unknown for early European explorers to take 'Indians' back to Europe with them. Squanto was kidnapped and taken to England by George Weymouth in 1605, according to the memoirs of Ferdinando Gorges.

According to Gorges, Squanto worked in England for nine years before returning to the New World on John Smith's 1613 voyage.

Soon after returning to his tribe in 1614, Squanto was kidnapped by another Englishman, Thomas Hunt. Hunt was one of John Smith's lieutenants. Squanto was taken as a slave to Málaga, Spain, where Hunt attempted to sell Squanto and a number of other Native Americans into slavery for £20 a piece.

Some local friars, however, discovered what Hunt was attempting and took the remaining Indians, Squanto included, in order to instruct them in the Christian faith. Eventually, Squanto escaped to London, living with a John Slany for a few years, and then went to Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland. Attempting to avoid the walk from Newfoundland to his home village, Squanto tried to take part in an expedition to that part of the North American east coast. He returned to England in 1618, however, when that plan fell through.

He returned once more to his homeland in 1619, making his way with an exploratory expedition along the New England coast. He was soon to discover that his tribe, as well as a majority of coastal New England tribes, had been decimated the year before by a plague, possibly smallpox.

Squanto finally settled with the Pilgrims and helped them recover from their first difficult winter by teaching them to increase their food production by fertilizing their crops, and by directing them to the best places to catch fish and eels.

His motives for helping them are hard to ascertain today, and may have been purely out of self-interest. By late 1621, he was using his position with the Pilgrims for his own gain, even attempting to spark a conflict between the locals and the Pilgrims for reasons that are not entirely clear.

It was on his way back from a meeting to repair the damaged relations between the natives and the Pilgrims that Squanto became sick with a fever. He died a few days later, but his legacy remained relatively untarnished as peace between the two groups lasted for another fifty years.

Source

William Bradford Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647. New York: Modern Library 1981 (1856).

Cell, G.T. "The Newfoundland Company: A Study of Subscribers to a Colonizing Venture." WMQ 22:611-25, 1965.

Deetz, J. and P.S. Deetz. The Times of Their Lives: Life, Love, and Death in Plymouth Colony. New York: Random House, 2000.

Gorges, Ferdinand. "A Briefe Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England," in Baxter 1890, I:203-40 (1622).

Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Random House, 2005. TACOS

Morton, T. New English Canaan, or New Canaan. London: Charles Green, 1637.

Nash, Struggle and Survival in Colonial America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 228-45, 1989.

Salisbury, N. "Squanto: The Last of the Patuxets," in D.G. Sweet and G.B.

Salisbury, N. Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

Winslow, E. Good Newes from New-England: or A True Relation of Things Very Remarkable at the Plantation of Plimoth in New-England. London: William Bladen and John Bellamie, 1624.