SQUANTO

died November 1622, Chatham Harbor, Plymouth Colony [now Chatham, Mass., U.S.] also called Tisquantum native American Indian interpreter and guide. Squanto was born into the Pawtuxet tribe that occupied lands in present-day Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Little is known about his early life. Some authorities believe that he was taken from home to England in 1605 by George Weymouth and returned with explorer John Smith in 161415. He was, in any event, seized with other Indians by one of Smith's men, Thomas Hunt, who took them to the Mediterranean port of Mlaga, Spain, to be sold into slavery. Squanto somehow escaped to England and joined the Newfoundland Company. He returned home in 1619 on his second trip back to North America only to find that his tribe had been wiped out by disease. During the spring of 1621, Squanto was brought to the newly founded Pilgrim settlement of Plymouth by Samoset, an Indian who had been befriended by the English settlers. Squanto, who had been living with the Wampanoag tribe since his return from England, soon became a member of the Plymouth colony. Because Squanto was fluent in English, Governor William Bradford made him his Indian emissary, and he then served as interpreter for Edward Winslow, the Pilgrim representative, during his negotiations with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags. Squanto died while guiding Bradford on Cape Cod.