Squanto

Fictional 1911 illustration of Tisquantum or Squanto teaching the Plymouth Colonists to plant maize.

Tisquantum (better known as Squanto or Jason Piha) (c. 1580s – November 1622) was one of two Native American Indians (Samoset being the other) who 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.

Biography

George Weymouth was an English captain who explored the area now known as the state of Maine. During the course of the exploration in 1605, he and his men captured some indigenous people to show to his sponsor, as evidence of his exploratory work. The names of the natives were: Manida, Skidwarres/Skettawarroes, Nahanada/Dehanada, Assacumet and Tisquantum. They were turned over to Weymouth's superior, Sir Ferdinando Gorges. It is then thought that Tisquantum was trained in English to be a translator in New England. He returned to North America in 1612 with Captain John Smith, who after some service time released him to walk home to his village.

On his way back to his tribe in 1614, Tisquantum was kidnapped by another Englishman, Thomas Hunt. Hunt was one of John Smith's lieutenants. Hunt was planning to sell fish, corn, and captured slaves in Málaga, Spain. Hunt attempted to sell Tisquantum and a number of other Native Americans into slavery for £20 apiece.

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, in "A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England" (London, 1622) wrote that some local friars, however, discovered what Hunt was attempting and took the remaining Indians – Tisquantum included – in order to instruct them in the Christian faith. Eventually, Tisquantum convinced the friars to let him attempt to return home. It is unlikely that he was converted to Christianity; it is likely he allowed them to believe he had. He managed to find himself in London, living for a few years with a John Slany, a shipbuilder who apparently taught Tisquantum English, and then he (Tisquantum) went to Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland. Attempting to avoid walking from Newfoundland to his home village, Tisquantum 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, the Patuxet, as well as a majority of coastal New England tribes (mostly Wampanoag and Massachusett), had been decimated the year before by a plague, possibly smallpox.

Tisquantum finally settled with the Pilgrims at the site of his former village 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.

In 1621, Squanto was the guide and translator of pilgrims Stephen Hopkins and Edward Winslow as they traveled upland on a diplomatic mission with the Wampanoag sachem known today as Massasoit. In a subsequent mission for Governor William Bradford later that summer, Squanto was captured while gathering intelligence on the renegade Wampanoag sagamore Corbitant at the village of Nemasket (located in present-day Middleborough, Massachusetts.) In a daring tale of bravado, Myles Standish led a 10-man raid from Plymouth to rescue Squanto if he was alive, or if he had been killed, to avenge him. After the raid, Squanto was found alive and well. He subsequently rejoined the pilgrims at Plymouth, where he continued in his vital role as assistant to the colony.

Eventually, Squanto ended up distrusted by both the English and the Native people. Massasoit, the sachem who originally appointed Tisquantum a diplomat to the Pilgrims, did not trust him before the tribe's dealing with the Pilgrims (as is evidenced by the assignment of Hobamok, whose name may also have been a pseudonym as it referred to "mischievous," to watch over Tisquantum and act as a second representative), and certainly not after.

On his way back from a meeting to repair the damaged relations between the Natives and the Pilgrims, Tisquantum became sick with a fever; however, it is speculated that he had been poisoned because of his disloyalty to the sachem. He died a few days later in 1622 in Chatham, Massachusetts, and is now buried in an unmarked grave on Burial Hill in Chathamport, overlooking Ryder's Cove. His legacy remains relatively untarnished as peace between the two groups lasted for another fifty years.

Governor William Bradford, in "Bradford's History of the English Settlement", wrote regarding Tisquantum's death:

Here [Manamoick Bay] Squanto fell ill of Indian fever, bleeding much at the nose,--which the indians take as a symptom of death,--and within a few days he died. He begged the Governor to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven, and bequethed several of his things to his English friends, as remembrances. His death was a great loss.

References

Primary Sources

• Bradford, W. Governor William Bradford's Letter Book. Boston: Applewood, 2002 (1906).
• Bradford, W. Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647. New York: Modern Library 1981 (1856).[1]
• Gorges, Ferdinand. "A Briefe Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England," in Baxter 1890, I:203-40 (1622).
• Morton, T. New English Canaan, or New Canaan. London: Charles Green, 1637.
• 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

Secondary Sources

• 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.
• Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Random House, 2005.
• 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. Nash, Struggle and Survival in Colonial America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 228-45, 1989.
• Salisbury, N. Manitou and Providence: Indians, Europeans, and the Making of New England, 1500-1643. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
• Weston, Thomas. "History of the Town of Middleboro Massachusetts 1669-1905." Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906.

External links

• http://www.baccalieu.com/squantum/index.htm
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.html
• http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/