When was squanto born and died

Like many things involving the settling of the Americas and early European contact with Native Americans, the mythology of a Native guide named Squanto has been twisted and convoluted over time. Squanto and the part he played in the history of the Thanksgiving holiday is more complicated than you might imagine. Taken from his home, across the ocean, and back again, Squanto spent a portion of his life as a slave to European settlers.

Interesting facts about squanto

He lost both his freedom and his name in the process. Before his first contact with Europeans, Squanto lived a low-profile life with the tribe in which he was born, the Patuxet Tribe of the Wampanoags. The smaller tribes that made up this large grouping all spoke a version of the Algonquin language, though there were variations and idiosyncrasies specific to each tribe.

One of the first, and greatest, injustices that Squanto faced was the changing of his name. Instead, it was a shortened version of his real name, which was fierce and powerful. Its meaning is very odd when connected with the story of the helpful Native that most people are told. Tisquantum means rage , or the rage of the manitou. The word manitou means the heart of spiritual power in Algonquian, so to put it in the simplest terms, Tisquantum means wrath of god.

Before Squanto was ever a part of the first Thanksgiving , he had already had a major life-changing encounter with English explorers. In , an expedition led by none other than John Smith of Jamestown fame made landfall in Plymouth Harbor and tried to initiate trade with the Patuxet tribe. By this time, John Smith had sailed back to England, and the ship that Squanto encountered was captained by the second-in-command of the expedition, Thomas Hunt.

This expedition was only meant to harvest fish, but Hunt had other ideas. Thomas Hunt offered to trade with the Native Americans, inviting them onto his ship where he trapped them. Among the 20 Native Americans that were captured was Tisquatum, who would soon come to be known as Squanto.