Stephen Rowland: Reason to believe Pilgrims were thankful for Squanto

Thanksgiving was established as an official holiday in 1863, but most people know its origin goes all the way back to the Pilgrims and Native Americans having a three day feast together in 1621. A few folks might remember the horrid conditions those Pilgrims encountered a year earlier upon arrival — not enough food, an oncoming severe winter, sicknesses. Fully 50% of them died that first winter. I’ll bet fewer still remember how thankful they were for a Native American named Tisquantum.

It was Governor Bradford who nicknamed him Squanto. It was March 22 of 1621 when Squanto walked out of the woods to greet the Pilgrims in perfect English with additional braves and the head of the Wampanoag confederation following him. Exactly how does a Native American greet these Europeans in perfect English? 

A few years earlier Squanto and 23 other Native Americans were fooled into thinking that Captain Thomas Hunt wanted to trade for beaver pelts aboard his ship. Once aboard they were suddenly taken captive and made prisoners down below the deck. Captain Hunt, who has been described as “worthless” and a “scoundrel” by his contemporaries, sailed to Malaga, Spain to sell his 24 Nauset and Patuxet Native Americans as slaves. A few were sold, but then some local Catholic friars noticed what was going on and came to the rescue of the rest, including Squanto. They cared for them and taught them some basic Christian principles.

Somehow Squanto made his way to England and went to work for a man named John Slaney. He learned English very well while there but became homesick for his Patuxet village in America. Eventually he earned enough money to board a ship for Newfoundland, and then another ship commandeered by Captain Thomas Demer sailing back by Squanto’s native territory in 1619.

As soon as Squanto stepped off that ship, he was literally stepping on human bones all over his native Patuxet village. A couple years earlier, some English fisherman traded with these Native Americans and unwittingly passed on the “white man’s disease” to them, either tuberculosis or smallpox. It wiped out the whole village. All of Squanto’s relatives and friends were dead with just a few who survived going to live with neighboring tribes.

Squanto had every reason to hate white men. He had been captured and made a prisoner; transported a world away to learn a foreign language and be a slave. Finally making his way back home, he finds the “white man’s disease” had killed everyone he knew and loved. 

So the really odd thing about Squanto when he walked out of those woods to welcome the Pilgrims is not that he spoke perfect English — it’s that he had any motivation whatsoever to help these white folks. Help them he certainly did; he served as a guide showing them the best areas to hunt in. He taught them how to fertilize corn with the remnants of fish they had caught. He taught them the “three sisters” method of planting corn, squash and bean seeds all together. The corn stalk would grow up, the beans would climb the stalk while the squash spread out below: efficient and productive. He served as an interpreter and peacemaker with the surrounding tribes and obtained a peace treaty that lasted for 50 years. When a little white boy got lost in the woods, it was Squanto who searched and found him. Governor Bradford described Squanto as “a special instrument sent of God.”

Why did Squanto want to help them despite being mistreated by white men? Perhaps it was some of those ideas the Catholic friars had taught. Maybe something about forgiveness or loving your enemies. Perhaps something about being a peacemaker. Maybe it was something in the “Lord’s Prayer” about “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” What we do know is that right before Squanto died from an illness, he asked Governor Bradford to pray for him that he might go to the Englishman’s God in heaven. He bequeathed all his possessions to his Pilgrim friends.

Sometimes it seems the only thing we hear about concerning our nation’s founding is how the Europeans “stole the Indian’s land and exterminated them,” so we should all hang our heads in shame and never celebrate Thanksgiving again. That’s a severe mischaracterization of what happened. Squanto engineered a 50 year peace treaty — it was later that bad characters on both sides inflamed passions that culminated in wars and further atrocities.

One thing of which I am certain — those Pilgrims were very thankful for Squanto.