Finally, after a decade of exile, Squanto returned home. It was ten years after Squanto was first kidnapped, not until 1618 - that a ship was found. Slaney, sympathizing with Squanto’s desire to return home, promised to put the Indian on the first vessel bound for America. Squanto eventually made his way to England - where he either learned or improved his English - and worked in the stables of a man named John Slaney. There, Squanto was bought by a Spanish monk, who treated him well, freed him from slavery, and taught him the Christian faith. Over a decade before the Pilgrims landed, Squanto was captured from Massachusetts and taken, along with other Indians, by an English ship captain and sold into slavery in Málaga, Spain. Because Squanto could speak English well, Governor William Bradford asked him to serve as his ambassador to the Indian tribes. He was certainly there by 1621 - after the winter when the Pilgrims lost half of their population to starvation and diseases - when another Indian, Samoset, introduced Squanto to the Pilgrim settlers, and he became a member of their colony. The man Tisquantum, better known as Squanto, probably was present at the first Thanksgiving celebration held by the Pilgrims. The fact that he already knew English before the Pilgrims landed is what is remarkable. He taught them how to survive in their new wilderness home, showed them how to plant and fertilize their crops, and fish, and acted as an interpreter with the Wampanoag tribe and its chief, Massasoit (pictured above from Plymouth, MA). We’ve also heard how they met a Native American Indian of the Patuxet tribe, Squanto, who befriended them. We’ve all heard how the Pilgrims, landing in Massachusetts four hundred years ago on the Mayflower in 1620, were ill-equipped to survive the harsh winters of the New World. Massasoit, Plymouth, MA HISTORY OF THANKSGIVING: FRIENDLY INDIAN SQUANTO
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