My name is Tisquantum. I was born among the Patuxets, in the area now known as Massachusetts in the year 1592. Life was hard for my people. To survive, we had to know how to hunt and fish, how to plant crops and how to store provisions for the harsh winters. But I loved my family and my people.
Life took a dramatic turn for me in my thirteenth year. In 1605 an English sea captain named George Weymouth arrived at the shores near our village with his ship and crew. The English wore funny looking clothes and spoke a strange language. What impressed us most was the size of their ship. Through sign language the captain told us about the great nation on the other side of the great waters from which they had come. He wanted some of us to go with him to England to see it for ourselves. My parents were skeptical of the white men. But so great was my desire for adventure that they finally consented. I went off to a new life, along with four other boys from our tribe.
The voyage across the great waters seemed to take forever. Not being used to the rough seas, we Patuxets became seasick. But eventually we got used to the rolling, pitching seas. One of the crew members named Charles Robbins befriended me and began to teach me English. By the time we arrived in England, I could carry on polite conversation for a few minutes. Mr. Robbins invited me to stay with him and his family. In his household I worked for the next nine years, during which time I learned the ways of the English and mastered their language. On Sundays they took me to their church. Never had I heard such music—so filled was it with joy.
At the end of those nine years I became homesick. I longed to see my people again, especially my mother and father. Mr. Robbins found another English sea captain named John Smith who was heading for what they called the New World. In exchange for my services as a navigator and interpreter in the Massachusetts area, he agreed to take me home on his ship. After I fulfilled my duties to Captain Smith, he put me ashore near my tribe.
It was wonderful to see my people again. They marveled at my description of England and of the adventures I had had there. When I spoke English to them they laughed at the strange sounds coming from my mouth. Maybe the English weren’t so bad after all.
But after Captain Smith left, Captain Thomas Hunt, who had come with the expedition on a separate ship, lured me and twenty others from our tribe aboard his ship on the pretext of wanting to trade. Suddenly we were all clapped in irons. He then sailed to a port in Spain called Malaga. There we were sold as slaves. Most of my friends were shipped to North Africa. I never saw them again.
But I was fortunate. A group of friendly Catholic friars bought me and a few of the others. They treated us benevolently and introduced us to the Catholic faith, which I found very different from the Protestant Christianity I had learned in England. After we had served them for a few months they set us free. I found a ship that took me back to England, where I spent three years as a servant in the home of a kindly man named John Slanie. But I still wanted to go home. Mr. Slanie found another ship captain named Thomas Dermer, who was going to the New World.
We first landed at an area that is now called Maine. There we picked up an Algonquin Indian chief named Samoset. Though neither of us spoke the other’s language, we both knew English and thus were able to converse. We became friends. After doing the same job for Captain Dermer that I had done for Captain Smith, he put me ashore again at Plymouth to return to my people. Samoset went on with Captain Dermer.
I raced as fast as I could to my village, eagerly anticipating the joy of feeling again the arms of my mother around me. But when I arrived, I found my village deserted. I journeyed for days searching for them. Finally, I came upon a Wampanoag village. There Chief Massasoit told me that my entire tribe had been wiped out some three years before in a mysterious plague. It is not fitting for a Patuxet to cry in front of others. I went off into the woods to cry a great lament—all life drained from me. That evening I returned to the Wampanoag village. Chief Massasoit, taking pity on me, allowed me to stay. A few days later my Algonquin friend Samoset arrived. We were both surprised to see each other and began to spend time together, mostly because neither of us was among his people.
Nearly a year passed until one day in early spring Samoset informed me that he had met a group of English, including women and children, who were trying to make a home in the area that had once belonged to my people. “They are having a hard time of it,” he told me. “I met them and spent the night with them. They wouldn’t tell me much, but I saw from the grave markers that many of them had died during the long winter.”
Chief Massasoit took a party of warriors to meet them and asked me to come along as an interpreter. When we arrived, I saw that Samoset had been right. They were a beleaguered people, who obviously had suffered much through the long, terrible winter. They were amazed to meet me, an Indian who spoke flawless English.
When it was time for Chief Massasoit and the other Wampanoag’s to leave, I decided to stay. These people were unlike any English I had ever known. They too had known injustice and sorrow, having fled England because of religious persecution. Nearly half of them had died that winter, including 13 of their 18 wives, yet they maintained a spirit of gratefulness to their God.
I began to teach them how to survive in the new world, just as Charles Robbins had once taught me how to survive in England. I showed them how to build warmer homes and how to get the best yield from their corn by planting pumpkins among the stalks. I showed them the best way to catch fish and eels, how to stalk deer, and how to refine maple syrup. I showed them which herbs were good to eat and which were good for medicine. I helped them get a beaver pelt industry going. Very soon their tiny hamlet began to prosper.
In time they had an abundance. So thankful were they that they called for a special day of Thanksgiving to their God for the following fall.
* * * * *
This is William Bradford here, for only I can finish Tisquantum’s story. We called him Squanto. He became to us a special instrument sent of God for our good, beyond our expectations. Unfortunately, he became ill in the fall of 1622. When I went to see him, it was obvious that he was dying. He asked me to pray for him, that he might go to the Englishmen’s God in heaven. His final act was to bequeath to us all of his possessions as remembrances of his love.
Squanto departed this earth on November 30, 1622. He had known great sadness in his life, but in his final two years he indeed discovered that God had a purpose for him. We may not have survived without him. I look forward to seeing him again in the heaven that is not only for Englishmen, but for all who put their trust in Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world.
