Without Squanto there would be no Thanksgiving
Posted: Saturday, November 12, 2005
by Paul S Umstead
Char's eBay Gift Emporium
The first Thanksgiving was a Festival held in October 1621 commemorating the first harvest by the the Pilgrims who had planted their crops on Patuxet abandoned fields. But how did this happen that the pilgrims were on Patuxet land? It's an interesting and involved story.
In 1605, Fifteen years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Captain George Weymouth led an expedition on behalf of some merchants in England looking for resources of North America, particularly the Canadian and New England areas. He sailed down the coast of Maine into Massachusetts, where he stopped.
Brought into England, Tisquantum lived with Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose Plymouth Company were looking to find financial reward in the New World. Gorges taught Squanto some English and eventually hired him to be a guide and interpreter for his sea captains who were exploring the New England coasts.
In 1614, he was brought back to America, assisting some of Gorges men in the mapping of the New England coast. John Smith, after he was done mapping the Cape Cod region, left in charge a fellow captain by the name of Thomas Hunt, to trade with the Indians. Once Smith had sailed off, however, Hunt promptly tricked twenty Nausets and seven Patuxets into coming on board his ship to trade and then kidnapped them. Tisquantum, probably on board to act as an interpreter for the trades, was one of those captured. They were bound, and sailed to Malaga, Spain, where Hunt tried to sell them for slaves at £20 apiece. Some local Friars, however, discovered what was happening and took the remaining Indians from Hunt in order to instruct them in the Christian faith, thus "disappointing this unworthy fellow of the hopes of gain he conceived to make by this new & devilish project".
Tisquantum lived with the Friars until 1618 when he boarded a ship of Bristol headed for Newfoundland. When Tisquantum arrived in Newfoundland, however, he was recognized by Captain Thomas Dermer who happened to be there, and who had worked in the past for Sir Ferdinando Gorges.
Thomas Dermer wrote a letter to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, stating he had found "his Indian" in Newfoundland and asked what he should do with him. Dermer brought Tisquantum back to Gorges. While in England, Gorges apparently boarded Tisquantum with Sir John Slainey, treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. After working out the details, Gorges organized a trip to send both Dermer and Tisquantum to explore the natural resources and to re-initiate trade with the Indians along the New England coast who had been angry with the English after Hunt had kidnapped members of their tribes. At the end of the expedition, Tisquantum would be returned to his home at Patuxet.
Dermer and Tisquantum thus became very closely associated with one another. They worked together mapping the resources of the New England coast. When they arrived at Patuxet in 1619, Dermer and Tisquantum soon found out that the entire Patuxet tribe had been wiped out in a plague in 1617. Squanto was the only Patuxet left alive, so he moved in with a neighboring tribe that lived at Pokanoket--the home of Wampanoag sachem Massasoit. Dermer continued on, and while at Cape Cod, he and his crew were attacked by Nausets, and Dermer was taken hostage. Squanto heard about the incident, and came to his friend's aid, and negotiated his safe release. Dermer would later be attacked by Indians near Martha's Vineyard, and would die of his wounds after reaching Virginia.
Just little more than a year after Tisquantum was returned to his homeland, the Pilgrims arrived--in November 1620. After the Pilgrim explorers checked out all of the surrounding regions, they finally decided to settle at Plymouth in late December. Little did they know that just a couple years ago, Plymouth had been center of the Patuxet tribe.
Two months after settling at Plymouth, an Indian visiting from Maine, by the name of Samoset, walked right into the middle of the Colony which was being built, and welcomed the Pilgrims in English. Somewhat fearful and somewhat astounded, the Pilgrims and Samoset talked all day and night. After Samoset had led several tradings with the Pilgrims, he told the Wampanoag living at Pokanoket that the Pilgrims wanted to make a peace with them. Massasoit sent Tisquantum to be interpreter, and on March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims met Squanto for the first time. That day, Squanto negotiated a peace treaty between Massasoit and the Wampanoag, and John Carver and the Pilgrims. It essentially stated that the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims would not harm each other, and they became a military alliance as well, such that if one were attacked, the other would come to the aid.
Tisquantum lived out the rest of his life in the Plymouth Colony. He befriended the Pilgrims, and taught them how to manure their corn, where to catch fish and eels, and acted as their interpreter and guide. Without Squanto's help, the Pilgrims would probably have had severe famine over the next year, and would have lived in constant fear of their Indian neighbors--Indians who were actually quite peaceful, but who had been rightfully angered by the cruel treatment they received from many English ship captains like Thomas Hunt.
In the spring of 1621, the colonists planted their first crops in Patuxet’s abandoned fields. While they had limited success with wheat and barley, their corn crop proved very successful, thanks to Squanto who taught them how to plant corn in hills, using fish as a fertilizer.
In October of 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated their first harvest with feasting and games, as was the custom in England, as well as prayer. The celebration served to boost the morale of the 50 remaining colonists and also to impress their allies. Among the Native People attending were Massasoit and 90 Wampanoag men.
The Pilgrims would not have called the event of 1621 a "Thanksgiving." The Separatist Puritans recognized three kinds of holidays as sanctioned by the Bible : the Sabbath, days of thanksgiving, and fast days. Unlike the Sabbath, days of thanksgiving and fast days were not part of the established calendar. They were proclaimed by the governor only in response to a specific situation. A religious day of fasting could be invoked by a drought or war. A religious day of thanksgiving could be called to celebrate a particularly good harvest or providential rainfall. Although the event of 1621 is known today as the "First Thanksgiving," that harvest feast had many secular elements and would not have been considered a religious day of thanksgiving by the Pilgrims.
By the way, in November 1622, while on a trading expedition to the Massachusetts Indians, Tisquantum came down with Indian fever, his nose began to bleed, and he died. Governor William Bradford, perhaps Squanto's closest friend and associate among the Pilgrims, wrote the following about his sudden death:
Thanksgiving has proved one of the most enduring and popular symbols of the Pilgrims. Millions of immigrants who arrived in America between 1880 and 1920 learned "Americanism" from the story of the Pilgrims and their celebration of Thanksgiving. Today, as we celebrate America's multicultural heritage, the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoag sharing a harvest celebration remains an inspiration to many.
Now you know the rest of the story.
Sources of this and additional information -
1. Bradford, William, and Edward Winslow. Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. London, 1622.
2. Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Written 1630-1654, first published Boston 1854.
3. Winslow, Edward. Good Newes from New England. London 1624.
4. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando. A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England. London, 1622.
5. Gorges, Sir Ferdinando. A Brief Narration of the Originall Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations Into the Parts of America. London, 1658.
6. Pory, John. A Description of Plymouth. London, 1622.
7. Pratt, Phineas. A court deposition from Plymouth Colony, 1662, republished in the Mayflower Descendant 45:113-120.
8. Rosier, James. A True Relation of the Most Prosperous Voyage Made this Present Year 1605 by Captain George Weymouth. London, 1605.
9. Smith, Captain John. A Description of New England. London, 1614.
10. Smith, Captain John. The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. London, 1624.
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