Squanto

Squanto
1911 illustration of Tisquantum ("Squanto") teaching the Plymouth colonists to plant maize.
Born	1574 – 1594 ? Patuxet (now Plymouth Bay, Massachusetts)
Died	November 30, 1622 Chatham, Massachusetts Bay Colony, English America
Nationality	Patuxett
Other names	Squanto, Squantum, Tisquantum
Known for	Guidance, advice and translation services to the Mayflower settlers

Tisquantum (c. 1585 ? – November 30, 1622), variously spelled in 17th-century documents and commonly known as Squanto today, was one of the last of the Patuxet, a Native North American people living on the western coast of Cape Cod Bay, annihilated by an epidemic infection. He is known for having been an early liaison between the Native populations in Southern New England and the Mayflower settlers, who made their settlement at the site of Squanto's former people. He acted as a translator, guide and advisor to them during the 20 months he lived with them.

Seven years before the Mayflower's landing, in 1614 Squanto was abducted by an English adventurer, Thomas Hunt, who came to Patuxet as part of a commercial fishing and trading venture commanded by John Smith. After Smith left with his cargo to England, Hunt, who was to take his dried fish cargo to Spain, kidnapped 27 Natives, including Squanto and sailed to Spain to sell them into slavery. How he escaped from Spain to England is not known, but when there he lived with a merchant involved in the project to exploit and settle Newfoundland. He eventually was sent there, where he met an associate of John Smith, Thomas Dermer, who was acting for the London merchants involved in settling southern New England. In 1619 Dermer brought Squanto to his native village, which he found to be destroyed by the epidemic. After intervening in a dispute between Dermer and Cape Cod Natives, Squanto evidently went to live with the Pokanoket, some saying as a prisoner. No records exist of his activities from that time until his famous encounter with the Mayflower settlement in 1621.

Squanto's chief fame resulted from his efforts to bring about peaceable contact and alliance between the English Separatists who had come to the New World on the Mayflower and the Pokanoket. Owing to his facility with English, Squanto played a key role in the early meetings in March 1621. He soon became attached to the Separatists, whom he assisted in plantings of native vegetables, obtaining trade with local peoples (in order to reduce the settlers' debt to their merchant financiers in London) and dealings with other native tribes, in at least one case endangering his safety in the process. He accompanied the settlers on a variety of missions to surrounding Natives as a result of which the English settlers had created a peace and trade regime that ensured their security against attack and gave them the opportunity to obtain food supplement when their own supplies became insufficient, which became the case as more unprovisioned settlers were sent by their London commercial underwriters. Jealousy grew between Squanto and another Pokanoket. Just as Squanto and a group of settlers had launched their boat to trade for more corn, an alarm arose in Plymouth that the colony was under attack. Squanto was accuse of fomenting hostilities between the Pokanoket and the English, allegations that were believed by both the sachem of the Pokanoket and the governor of Plymouth. A last minute reprieve saved him from being handed over for execution. The governor had been reluctant to part with him, owing to his value to the colony. As food shortages increased, the Governor William Bradford relied on Squanto to guide them on a trading expedition around Cape Cod and through dangerous shoals that only he had experience with. During that voyage Squanto contracted what the governor called an "Indian fever." Despite their urgent need for food for the colony, Bradford stayed with Squanto for several days until he died. Bradford wrote that his death was a "great loss."