The Mayflower People by Anna W. Hale

Author:Anna W. Hale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roberts Rinehart
Published: 1995-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

When Master Smith had left to continue mapping the coast, Hunt invited twenty young Patuxet braves to a feast on the ship to celebrate the successful trading. Among them was Tisquantum, or Squanto, one of the most outstanding youths in the village. He was known especially for his speed and endurance in running, and often carried messages from his chief to other tribes. A one-man Postal Service!

The story is that Squanto, who apparently was not married, went to his parents for advice.

“Shall I accept this stranger’s invitation?” he asked.

His mother answered quickly, “No! We’ll never see you again.”

His father thought for a minute and then said, “Yes, my son. It is an honor for you to represent our tribe with these people from another world.”

So Squanto was rowed with the other youths out to the ship. In the meantime, Hunt had given secret orders to his first and second mates.

As soon as the braves were seated at the table in the cabin, the doors were quietly closed and locked. The sailors were ordered to raise the anchors and unfurl the sails. Slowly and steadily the ship moved out of Patuxet harbor, heading for Cape Cod.

There was nothing Squanto and the others could do.

They had been trained since boyhood never to show fear or anger, so their faces may have been without expression. But this was a harder trial than any had ever faced—even alone in a wintry forest. Yet they showed courage and self-control.

At Nauset on Cape Cod, where the “huggery” between the natives and the Pilgrims would later happen, Hunt stopped to get more water. While there he managed to pick up seven more young natives. They and the Patuxet group were able to talk with each other because most of the tribes in that area spoke different dialects of the same Algonquin language.

During the two or three months they were at sea, the captives probably didn’t try to make friends with the English sailors. But they must have picked up quite a bit of English anyway.

After many weary weeks at sea the ship went through the narrow Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, with Europe on the left side and Africa on the right. The captives who had survived the crossing had no way of knowing they were seeing two different continents at the same time.

Finally the ship came into the harbor of Malaga. The anchors were dropped, ending Squanto’s long voyage.

Hunt took his cargo of men to the bustling marketplace and sold them as slaves. Many were taken to North Africa where their lives would be bitter and short. No doubt he congratulated himself on making so much money so easily.

Squanto’s fate was different. He was taken as either a slave or servant to a Catholic monastery in Spain. There he lived and worked from the fall of 1614 to about 1616 or 1617. He learned Spanish and may have been taught about the Christian faith.

Then two priests apparently helped him get to England, where he lived in the London home of a shipping merchant named John Slany.

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