Did you know the Pilgrims didn't call themselves Pilgrims? They referred to themselves as Saints. Really.

Ahhh. Third grade. Life was so simple then. Going to school in late autumn meant learning about the Pilgrims. Making paper plate turkeys with construction paper feathers. Mine is still on my mom's refrigerator door--47 years later. We learned all about those brave Pilgrim souls weathering the terrible storms in their intrepid ship--the Mayflower. Lost, they came upon their promised land, Massachusetts. They signed the Mayflower Compact and met Squanto. Squanto the Indian. Squanto the Indian that spoke the King's English. He taught them to plant and to fish and where to hunt. Then there was the First Thanksgiving. It's all a part of the creation myth of the United States of America.

Everything you know about the Pilgrims is wrong. Seriously. All of it. It's a great story. It's fun to tell. It's just not true.

Only one third of the people on the Mayflower were Pilgrims. They weren't even pilgrims. That's not what they called themselves. There was no storm that blew the Mayflower off course. The people on the Mayflower were supposed to go to Virginia. Think about it: Who in their right mind would sail to New England to begin a colony at the beginning of winter? Have you ever seen a New England winter? And the last thing the people we call the Pilgrims wanted to do was practice religious freedom. They wanted to practice their brand of protestant Christianity, a kind of uber Puritanism, without anyone else around to mess up their party.

Squanto.
Or "Tisquantum," which was his real name, along with another native that also spoke English, Samoset, really existed and really did help the Pilgrims survive their first years in Massachusetts. This is Squanto's story.

Google Squanto and see what you come up with. It's wild. There are some wacky people that have turned Squanto's sad tale into a really crazy story. They've taken history and distorted it to the point that it can't even be labeled historical fiction. There's nothing historical about it. Some of the home schoolers' sites are especially susceptible to this most contorted and almost comical miscarriage of history.

Squanto's relationship with white folk wasn't very pleasant. The story starts fifteen years before the Pilgrims came. The accepted story says he was captured by an English sea captain named George Weymouth. In the book, A True Relation of the Most Prosperous Voyage Made this Present Year 1605 by Captain George Weymouth, by James Rosier (London, 1605) it is stated: "we used little delay, but suddenly laid hands upon them.  And it was as much as five or six of us could do to get them . . . for they were strong and so naked as our best hold was by their long hair on their heads."  Squanto's name does not appear anywhere in Weymouth's account of this nasty little slave raid. Yet, according to most historians, that's a description of Squanto being captured! Remember our mantra, "Trust, but verify!"

Slave traders, John Smith, betrayal,
Spain, England, Pilgrims...
there's a whole lot of History here...

This story is embellished by another old account in, A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England, by Sir Ferdinando Gorges (London, 1658) states: "But falling short of his [Weymouth's] course, happened into a river on the coast of America called Pemmaquid, from whence he brought five of the Natives, three of whose names were Manida, Skettwarroes, and Tisquantum. Remember, Tisquantum is Squanto! This is the first time that Squanto is actually named in the historical accounts of the time. But check the date: 1658. That's a very long time removed from the 1605 event.

There are numerous historians that now believe Squanto wasn't captured in 1605 by Weymouth at all!

Sometime between 1612 and 1614 a trader named Captain Thomas Hunter arrived on the coast of Massachusetts. He traded with the indigenous population. We call these people Indians. Captain Hunter was a bad man. Sir Ferdinando Gorges writing in 1622 stated Tisquantum was taken by Captain Hunt. When the natives came to trade with him Hunter would whack them over the head, throw them in the hold of his ship, take them across the Atlantic Ocean, and sell them into slavery in Malaga, Spain. This is Squanto's story.

Squanto was kidnapped by Captain Thomas Hunt, an associate that Captain John Smith [Yes, THAT John Smith!] had left behind to continue trading with the Indians after their mapping expedition in 1614.  Captain Hunt betrayed John Smith, and kidnapped 27 Indians who had been lured aboard his ship to trade beaver skins (some contemporary sources say 24 were kidnapped, others say 27, but the exact number is not relevant to this discussion).  The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, by Captain John Smith (London, 1624) tells this version of the Squanto story. In the deposition of Phineas Pratt (1662) in the Records of the General Court of Massachusetts,  Captain Hunt was so totally despised by the English for this act of treachery (he jeopardized English trading relations with the Indians), that his career as a ship captain was over.

Once in Spain, Squanto was purchased by monks. Yep, men of god bought an Indian. It was probably in 1615 that Squanto went from Spain to England. This is one native American that's racking up some frequent boating miles!

Squanto ended up working for the Slaney family in London. He was with them for five years. Squanto was a stable boy. He learned English and was in England the year that Shakespeare died.

It's a bit ironic that Squanto had spent more time in England than the Pilgrims had in the decade leading up to the founding of Plymouth Colony. Remember that the Pilgrims had lived in Leyden, Holland for a about a decade before returning to England long enough to catch the Mayflower to America.

It was probably in 1620 that Squanto found a ride on a trading ship bound for America. Some versions of the Squanto story have him finding Captain Weymouth in England and the good captain arranging for Squanto's ride home. This part of the story could be pure fantasy--there's no rock solid historical proof of this. In any case, Squanto became the translator on the ship that took him home. It's quite obvious that Squanto was a pretty clever fellow. Against all odds he made his way back to his coastal village in Massachusetts. Arriving home he found the unthinkable. Every member of his village was dead.

What comes next is is a scene right out of the Twilight Zone!
It was probably Smallpox that took Squanto's peoples lives. Not a single member of Squanto's village was left alive.

In England Squanto had met Samoset of the Wabanake Tribe. He was also a victim of an English slave raid. They returned together to Patuxet, Squanto's village, in 1620. When they arrived, the village was deserted and there were skeletons everywhere. Everyone in the village had died from an illness the English slavers had left behind. Squanto and Samoset went to stay with a neighboring village of Wampanoags.

Then the Pilgrims came and set up their colony in the exact spot Squanto's people had lived. Coincidence? There's a whole other story here. But that's another story for another day... Squanto and Samoset walked out of the woods, introduced themselves in perfect King's English, and proceeded to save the Pilgrims.

This part of the story you probably know and got right. Squanto knew everything there was to know about his little corner of the world: How to plant corn. (The famous story about his planting corn with the fish as the fertilizer is undoubtedly true.) How to plant the gourds around the corn so it goes up the cornstalk. He knew how to get eels and clams out of the muddy streams. He knew where the lobsters were and where the fish were. He knew everything there was to know to survive in New England.

The Pilgrim's first year wasn't an easy one by any means. But it appears the people from England moved into the native American homes that had been left empty and lived comfortably in their Indian-style wigwams. They also managed to build one European-style building out of squared logs. This was their church.

The Pilgrims brought wheat with them to plant and grow. The problem here is that wheat won't grow very well in the harsh climate and rocky soil of New England. Good thing Squanto was there to acclimate the newbies to their new home.

Squanto took care of business and by the time fall arrived things were going much better for the Pilgrims.  The corn they planted had grown well. There was enough food to last the winter.  They were now in better health, and they knew more about surviving in this new land. The Pilgrims decided to have a thanksgiving feast to celebrate their good fortune. They had observed thanksgiving feasts in November as religious obligations in England for many years before coming to the New World.

The Thanksgiving myth is another story for another day...

But what happened to Squanto? After helping the English to adapt to the their new surroundings, feeding them, introducing them to their Native American neighbors, and guaranteeing their safety wouldn't it be great to say there was a happy ending? Sadly, it wasn't meant to be.

Squanto died a year after the Pilgrims landed. "Indian Feavor..."