Something I didn’t learn in school (and can’t imagine why):
When the Pilgrims first met Squanto (whose real name was Tisquantum), he had already crossed the Atlantic Ocean as many as four times and had spent at least 15 years living abroad in Europe.
Squanto was kidnapped in 1605 and taken to England by George Weymouth, but he returned to North America with explorer John Smith in 1614 or 1615.
He was later seized along with other native people by one of Smith’s men, Thomas Hunt, who took them to the Mediterranean port of Málaga, Spain, to be sold into slavery.
Squanto somehow escaped bondage and fled to England, where he lived for five years, including time in the home of a London merchant before joining the Newfoundland Company.
He returned home in 1619 on his second trip back to North America, first to New Foundland and then south to his home in present-day Massachusetts, only to find that his people, the Patuxet, had been entirely wiped out by disease.
When the Pilgrims first met Squanto in 1621, he was the seventeenth century’s version of an international traveler (albeit an unwilling one), more worldly and knowledgable than almost anyone on the continent, including the Pilgrims.
I was never taught this in school.
It’s taken me 50 years to stumble upon this slice of history.
Why?
It was probably the result of a history that was written to marginalize or obliterate the achievements of non-white historical figures, obscure the institutions of racism and slavery that permeated our culture and propelled the American economy, and propagate a false belief in white exceptionalism.
It’s not unlike what conservative snowflakes like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are attempting to reignite and reinstitute in places like Florida and Texas, where the vast majority of citizens are apparently terrified of Black History Month, transgender people, multicultural studies, shifting pronouns, same-sex marriage, and women.
Makes me wish Squanto was still alive today to offer some wisdom to these cowards.
