My historian friend Sandra Wagner-Wright @SandraWWright blogged re Thanksgiving. She mentioned how Squanto–a Massachusetts folk hero one step behind George and Abe–eased the Pilgrims’ starvation. However he did more than teach the uses of rotten fish. I’m from Boston and I fear many remarkable details of Squanto’s life have been glossed over including a putative relationship with Pocahontas.
Contrary to legend Tisquantum was not Squanto’s birth name. When he met the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony he wanted to make a strong impression and he shouted “Hello I’m the wrath of God!” His native name proved hard for the colonists to pronounce. The native word for rage was tisquantum so that is what they called him. Squanto when pressed for time.
Factoid: Very recent research at the Smithsonian has established that Squanto’s given name was Fred which led to ongoing research as to why the Pilgrims could not pronounce it.
Squanto had been around the block. He was captured along with four Penobscots in 1605 along the Maine coast by Captain George Weymouth exploring for Sir Ferdinando Gorges owner of the Plymouth Company. In Merrie England Sir Gorges taught his servant civilized manners—“You tug your own forelock!”—before training him as guide and interpreter.
Follow-on factoid: As for the four abducted Penobscots municipal records suggest one become a fry cook in London’s east end and eventually opened a pub in Whitehall Street while another emigrated to Scotland. Little is known of the other two.
Squanto still known as Fred returned to New England in 1614 with an expedition led by Captain John Smith. He barely stepped off the boat before being shanghaied—”Wow that mead is taking no prisoners”—with 26 other Nausets and Patuxets by Captain Thomas Hunt who peddled them in Spain for 20 pounds apiece. A ten-man squad of Spanish friars rescued him. After living with them at Malaga for four years he returned to London where he worked for shipbuilder John Slaney treasurer of the Newfoundland Company.
Curious trivium: The friars dared not offend Spanish royalty some of whom were named Federico so they changed Fred’s name to Juan which is amazingly close to the appellation the Pilgrims would later give him.
That Squanto knew Pocahontas is dead cert. The question is how well. His friend John Smith had been saved years earlier in Jamestown by Pocahontas from the wrath of her father Powhatan —one wonders what the captain did—and John perhaps introduced the two in 1616 at a Slaney ship christening in London where Pocahontas had traveled with her husband of two years John Rolfe a Virginia planter. Rumors about Smith and Pocahontas have been discredited.
Unverified factoid: Pocahontas attended a masque ball at Whitehall Palace with her husband that John Slaney also attended with the future Squanto in tow and the two danced but failed to recognize each other because they were masked.
Like Squanto who was five years her senior though junior in social status Pocahontas was feted by London society as a “civilized savage.” Shipping records for that year show Rolfe often absent lining up tobacco buyers. When Rolfe’s away. . . As further evidence the next year Pocahontas died from fever which five years later would also claim Squanto. Poisoning was suspected in both cases. Coincidence? You decide.
Provisional follow-on: Squanto refused to wear long pants until he was 26 and only relented so he could attend the dance at Whitehall and even then he wore his breechclout under his knickers.
In 1618 Fred sailed as interpreter for Sir Ferd’s men who discovered Newfoundland—the reason they call it that—where he could see Mount Monadnock from a hill. But Gorges’ agent Thomas Derner recaptured and bundled him back to London establishing the first known proof that the currency trader’s dictum “Close is close enough” is not.
Trivium: Long before Tisquantum became Squanto he owned a one-eyed dog named Squinto who was barred from the wigwam due to flatulence from eating rotten fish.
While signing Fred’s death warrant Gorges realized his servant’s first name was an anagram of his own sobriquet Ferd whereupon he released him. In 1619 fourteen years after his initial abduction the weary traveler returned to New England with John Smith only to find his tribe the Patuxet wiped out by a plague.
Factoid: Asked by a reporter if he was fearful of contracting smallpox Squanto grinned and replied “What me worry?” predating Alfred E. Neuman by 346 years.
In 1621 Abenaki chief Samoset introduced Squanto to the starving colonists who had disembarked from the Mayflower a year earlier. After they recovered from his initial greeting Fred now called Squanto taught them to grow maize nourished by rotten fish and dead animals. He supervised each aspect. He is even reported to have dug up the long-dead Squinto as a lesson in finding fertilizer.
Trivium: Squanto resembled the actor Daniel Day-Lewis.
Squanto performed other good works. A boy got lost in the woods and Squanto found him. The Wampanoag chief Massasoit was antsy as colonists were cockroaching his corn so Squanto led a standup comedy duo named Hopkins and Winslow on a placatory mission.
Factoid: Squanto loved corn dogs made with fish-fertilized maize. Sadly they failed to love him back. He is said to have once emptied Plymouth Tavern in two minutes flat.
Squanto’s pay was stingy so he moonlighted. On a black-bag job for Governor William “Wild Bill” Bradford he was caught by the Wampanoag laying purple-beaded wampum on a renegade chief named Corbitant. Myles Standish led a ten-man squad of Pilgrims to the rescue.
Trivium: Nancy Reagan and Admiral Richard Byrd descended from Pocahontas. Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon did not.
In 1622 trekking back from refereeing covetous colonists and apprehensive natives Squanto fell ill. Scholars believe he was poisoned on order of Massasoit after Squanto accused the chief of conspiring with the Narragansett to attack Plymouth. Unrest would have boosted Squanto into the bird seat as go-between and first known embodiment of the admonition “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.”
Factoid: Squanto once returned an invitation from Massasoit.
A few days hence Squanto crossed the rainbow bridge to rejoin Squinto and possibly Pocahontas. Whatever else he may have been Squanto was the real deal. The peace he negotiated between disparate cultures would last another half century.
My archaeological techno-thriller Cro-Magnon by Robert Stimson www.amazon.com/dp/B0048ELM2Y incarnates the clash between two cultures. My action-adventure Scattershot will vivify a lethal clash of codes within a culture. Cro-Magnon is Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child meet Jean Auel. Scattershot is a box of Maui fun. I personally am not interesting.
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Bob Stimson
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