by Garrett McGrath
Squanto had been born into the Patuxet tribe, and he grew up in a village right where the Pilgrim village would one day be built! He was an adventurous boy, filled with bravery. As he got older, he got more and more adventurous.
In 1605, when Squanto was about fifteen years old, a boat landed on the shore. The captain of the boat was George Weymouth. Weymouth walked onto the shore with a captain's swagger. Squanto walked up to Weymouth curiously.
"Greetings, white men!" Squanto boomed in his Patuxet language.
"Hello, Indians!" Weymouth said in English. George Weymouth was a brawny man, with a beard as brown as a bear. His armor gleamed in the sun like a fire in the twilight.
Weymouth and his men were the first white men the Patuxets had ever seen. Squanto was amazed at all the new things Weymouth had. He had a stick that spit fire, and wore strange rags all over his body. He had weird hair growing off his chin, too.
The other Patuxets were astounded as well. Two Patuxet men smeared in bear grease paddled up to Weymouth's ship. They wanted to trade for some of Weymouth's things. When they were near enough, men from the ship suddenly grabbed the Natives by the hair and hauled them up into the ship, for Weymouth wanted to bring some Indians back to England.
"Ah ha! Gotcha!" Weymouth cheered. "Do any of you other Indians want to come back to England with me?"
Three other Patuxets volunteered, including Squanto.
On the ship, the crisp, salty smell of the sea filled Squanto's nostrils. He roamed about freely on the creaking boards of the boat. The bear grease on Squanto's body sparkled in the sun.
"Indian!" Weymouth said to Squanto. "You will like it in England!"
In England, Squanto was amazed by all the new things he saw. He saw strangely shaped buildings that looked like huge square wigwams. And everyone wore odd leather things on their feet.
He lived in England for years, with a rich old man named Sir Fernando Gorges, who owned all of Maine all the way up to Augusta! But finally, Squanto got homesick. He missed the cool breeze of the woods on his body, for now he wore the white man's clothes. And he especially missed his friends and relatives.
"Sir Fernando," Squanto said in English. (He had learned English from the years he spent in England) "I am homesick." So Sir Fernando brought Squanto to the Queen of England. She wore lots of sparkling jewelry, and the most elegant blue gown. Squanto knew she was royalty, so he bowed.
"What is your name, Indian?" the Queen asked.
"Squanto," he replied. "And I wish to go back to my homeland."
"Weeelllll " the Queen drew out the word. "I do have a ship going back to your homeland. It is going to meet John Smith, the famous explorer. You may sail back on that ship at dawn."
"Thank you!" Squanto whispered. "Thank you!"
A few hours later, Squanto sauntered up the ramp to the ship. It was dawn and the sun was just thinking about coming up. He finished the walk up the ramp and they set sail.
"Native man," the captain said several weeks later. "We are almost there."
"Good," Squanto sighed.
A few days later, they arrived back in the New World. It was 1614. He met John Smith and and worked with him, helping make maps of the coast of New England. (In case you don't know it, Captain John Smith was the man who was saved by Pocohontas, and he is also the one who named Cape Elizabeth!) Later, though, John Smith had to go back to Jamestown, in Virginia. He left Squanto with a different Englishman named Thomas Hunt. As soon as Smith was gone, Thomas Hunt strode up to Squanto and boomed in a loud voice:
"Indian, I should sell you as a slave!"
Squanto shot his hand close to Hunt's face and tweaked his nose. Hard!
"Ahhhhhh!" Hunt yelled. "You gave me a bloody nose!"
"You deserved it," Squanto added calmly.
All right, Indian!" Hunt snapped. "I am definitely going to sell you now!" He pointed a gun at Squanto. Reluctantly, Squanto had to walk to Hunt's boat.
The boat ride was many days, but finally they arrived.
But England was not the country they were in now, they were in Spain! Hunt took Squanto and tied him to a stake. Then he started calling out. "Buy an Indian slave for forty doubloons!" he yelled. Spanish people all crowded around. Fortunately, one of them was a Spanish monk.
"What are they doing to you, friend?" the monk asked
"This man has kidnapped me, and now he is selling me, Squanto replied.
"That is wrong!" the monk said.
"This is wrong!" he announced to the crowd. "This man is an innocent native who was kidnapped!" A buzz of excitement went around the crowd.
"Yes! Yes!" a man said. "We should let him go!" Finally, everybody agreed. Squanto was released and he lived for four more years with the Spanish monks.
But again, he was more homesick than ever, and longed to return to his home and his tribe.
Finally, he was able to get on a ship that was going to Canada, which at least was closer to his Patuxet village than Spain was. And when he was in Canada, he met a ship captain named Thomas Dermer who was an old friend of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. Thomas Dermer took him back to England, where he met up with Sir Fernando again. Sir Fernando agreed to send Squanto back to his home, but first he had to go back to do some exploring in other parts of the New World, and also to try to make friends again with all the Native people up and down the coast who were mad because of the way Thomas Hunt had been treating them. Squanto agreed.
Squanto became good friends w ith Thomas Dermer, and they traveled, explored, and made maps together. Finally, their work was done, and the ship sailed back to the little village where Squanto had been born.
CUULUNK! The sound rumbled through the air and the boat struck land. Squanto ran like a giddy child, eager to see his tribe, his friends, and his relatives. He leaped to shore, but what he found was not a tribe but a ghost tribe. Bones lay everywhere. Squanto picked up a skull, but the jaw crumbled in his grasp.
Squanto fell to the ground on his knees. His put his hands to his face and shook his head slowly. He was the last Patuxet alive. All the others had died from sicknesses brought by the white explorers! Squanto looked up at Thomas Dermer with a sullen face.
"I am so sorry, Squanto," Dermer soothed. "But I am an explorer, therefore I must explore." So Squanto was left alone in the deserted village.
After a few days, he traveled to the nearby village of the Wampanoag's, where Massassoit and the other men and women of the tribe welcomed Squanto and allowed him to stay with them. This was in November, 1619, almost exactly one year before the Pilgrims would arrive from England to settle on the very spot where the village of the Patuxets had once stood!