As I heard afterward, he promised to come back again, and when, six days later, he did so, there was with him another Indian, one who could talk almost the same as do our people. His was a strange story, or so it seemed to me, so strange and cruel that I wondered how he could be friendly with us, as he appeared to be, because of having suffered so much at the hands of people whose skins were white.
Squanto had been a member of the same tribe that owned the land where our village of Plymouth was built, and his real name, so Governor Bradford says, is Squantum.
SQUANTO'S STORY
Seven years before the Mayflower came, he had been stolen by one Captain Hunt, who had visited these shores on a fishing voyage, and by him was sent to Spain and sold as a slave. There a good Englishman saw him and bought him of his master. He was taken to London, where he worked as a servant until an exploring party, sent out by Sir Ferdinando Gorges, was about to set sail for this country, when he was given passage.
While he had been in slavery, the dreadful sickness broke out, which killed or drove away all his people; therefore, when the poor fellow came back, he found none to welcome him.
How it was I cannot say, but in some way he wandered about until coming among the tribe of Indians called the Wampanoags, where he lived until Samoset happened to come across him.
As soon as he knew that we of Plymouth were English people, he had a desire to be friendly, because of what the good Englishman had done for him.
I have heard father say many times that but for Squanto, perhaps all of us might have died during that terrible winter when the good Lord took fifty of our company, which numbered, when we left England, but an hundred and two.
LIVING IN THE WILDERNESS
You must know that in this land everything is different from what you see in England. Of course the trees are the same; but oh, so many of them! We are living now, even after our homes have been made, in the very midst of the wilderness, and in that winter time when Squanto and Samoset came to us, bringing the corn we needed so sorely, we were much like prisoners, for the snow was piled everywhere in great drifts.