For generations, the mainstream cultural narrative of Thanksgiving in America has told how a Native American named Squanto showed Pilgrims how to obtain food after they arrived on the Mayflower in Massachusetts in 1620. Having fled their native England, the new emigrants endured hardships and hardships both in their journey and in their adaptation to the new land. Those who survived early colony are said to have reunited with the natives in a feast of gratitude, establishing the age-old tradition of having a “Thanksgiving” dinner on the fourth Thursday in November.
The historical details of this somewhat mythologized story are much more complicated, as is the life of Squanto, whose real name was Tisquantum. He and his native parents would have been quite familiar with the tradition of “thanksgiving” because it was, and still is, an essential aspect of their regular spiritual practices, which predates the American holiday of Thanksgiving by several generations.
A member of the Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoags, Tisquantum was probably born around 1580. When he met the settlers of Plymouth Colony he spoke English, having lived five years in Europe, including time with a London merchant. He proved indispensable to the English settlers of Plymouth, but was ultimately reviled by some of his own for his role in brokering a treaty that undermined tribal sovereignty.
But without Tisquantum to interpret them and guide them to food sources, Plymouth Colony’s Pilgrims might never have survived.
“It’s such a fundamental story for Plimoth [historic spelling] Colony that the lack of historical reference to it is glaring,” writes Paula Peters, journalist and member of the Mashpee Wampanoag, in an essay on Tisquantum, the Wampanoags and the Pilgrims for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. His name remains ubiquitous in Thanksgiving stories, but little is known of his life, family, and tribulations before meeting the settlers of Plymouth Colony.
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Tisquantum spoke English after being kidnapped in Europe
Illustration depicting the Native American Squanto (aka Tisquantum), of the Patuxet tribe, serving as guide and interpreter for pilgrims to Plymouth Colony, circa 1621.
Kean Collection/Archival Photos/Getty Images
The Wampanoag, whose name means “People of the First Light”, and their ancestors have lived in Patuxet for at least 10,000 years. They hunted, fished, and grew corn, beans, and squash when they were first encountered by Europeans. Their non-hierarchical governance system and nature-based spirituality baffled the new settlers.
In 1619, the Wampanoag survived a devastating plague brought by European explorers called the Great Death. The disease killed about two-thirds of their 70,000 people who lived in 69 villages along what is now the southern Massachusetts coast.
The disease was so sudden and overwhelming that when the Mayflower landed, its passengers had to step over the bleached bones of plague victims, Peters writes. Some of the colonists described the Great Death as a providential divine act that paved the way for their Puritan faith to flourish.
Tisquantum escaped this blight because years earlier he had been lured, along with about two dozen other Wampanoags, on a British ship bound for a slave market in Spain, according to James Seelye Jr and Shawn Selby , historians at Kent State University and authors. of Shaping North America: From Exploration to the American Revolution. He escaped with the help of Catholic brothers and made his way to London, where he lived with John Slaney, treasurer of the Newfoundland Company, which had settled Cuper’s Cove in Newfoundland in 1610. Tisquantum probably used this connection to leave England to return home, to work on a ship for Captain John Mason, governor of the colony of Newfoundland. He then found passage on another ship which took him south, where he eventually made his way to Patuxet.
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Tisquantum was among 2 to 5.5 million enslaved Indigenous people in the Americas between 1492 and 1880, many of whom were sent to work in the Caribbean. According to Wampanoag historian Linda Jeffers Coombs, Tisquantum was one of only two members of the tribe to find his way home from the slave ship that landed in Spain.
Pilgrims Probably Didn’t Invite Natives to Their First Thanksgiving
Ousamequin, Chief of the Wampanoag, signs a peace treaty with Governor John Carver (1576 – 1621). Credit: MPI/Getty Images
Upon his return, Tisquantum was distraught to find his people decimated by the plague. When he met the tattered survivors of the Mayflower, he was an orphan himself. But he was uniquely positioned to help them survive, and eager to help them form a vital alliance with his Wampanoag leader, named Ousamequin.
Tisquantum favored the English enough to teach them how to grow corn, and where and how to fish and hunt beaver. He also gained protection from the English sometimes from his own people. The treaty he helped broker between his people and the English allowed the Wampanoag to gain a powerful ally against their enemy, the Narragansett. But it also gave the English the power to dominate the rule of law, while limiting the use and display of weapons by the Wampanoag at meetings. This treaty led to subjugation and Tisquantum died while allied with the English – possibly even poisoned by his own people in late 1622, writes historian Nathaniel Philbrick in his book Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War.
READ MORE: Why the Wampanoags signed a peace treaty with the Mayflower Pilgrims
It is likely that the Pilgrims did not actually invite the Wampanoag to the first “Thanksgiving” harvest commemorated in the now popular American holiday. In fact, the tense, multi-day party was called to ease some 90 Wampanoag warriors who had arrived in Plymouth fully armed in response to a volley of celebratory gunfire they had heard from the settlers.
Historical sources claim that once they realized the shots were not intended to be hostile, the Wampanoags killed five deer and brought them to Plymouth as their contribution to what has been described as a harvest festival, and perhaps a celebration of survival for succeeding. their second winter. “If you are going to eat, we will bring you food. It’s who we are as people,” says Anita Peters, known as Mother Bear, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. “But this party has never been repeated, and that should tell you something.”
Nakai Clearwater Northup, museum educator at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, says Thanksgiving likely combines several feasts held during the period, including the Pilgrims’ celebration of their victory in the mystical massacre of 1637, at the in which 600 Pequots lost their lives. in about an hour.
“It was the first tragic moment in our history,” Northup said. “It laid the foundation for colonialism and the first reservation was created right here in Connecticut. This laid the foundation for the rest of our native kin for generations to come.
Indigenous religions – which have long included the ubiquitous ceremonies of giving thanks for many food sources throughout the year – would be suppressed by the dominant culture of Christianity. Yet the spiritual practices of reciprocity and thanksgiving for the gifts of the land survive among the Wampanoag and many other Indigenous nations to this day.
“When I was young, our grandparents and great-grandparents taught us to believe that the purpose of life is to be in a state of thanksgiving every day,” says Mother Bear.
