by Rod Gragg
“He Saluted Us in English and Bade Us Welcome”
The Surviving Pilgrims Are Befriended by Unlikely Allies
By mid-March of 1621, the New England weather hinted of approaching spring, when gentle rains and warm days would bring a rich green hue to the forests surrounding the tiny cluster of crude structures that marked the site of Plymouth Colony. The surviving Pilgrims doubtlessly yearned for the warm days ahead. As before, they did their daily chores and worked to improve their fledgling colony, but now there were so few of them. Almost half their number now lay in unmarked graves on the hillside above the double row of hand-hewn cottages. Buried there were the loved ones with whom they had planned to make a new life—husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children. Yet, those who still lived were determined to see the original vision of a God-loving colony arise in the wilds of America. But with so few left, could they make that vision into a reality? They needed to prepare garden plots and plant the crops that would ensure their survival—and how could the few survivors adequately protect themselves from Indian raids?
The Pilgrims who survived their deadly first winter at Plymouth were thankful the colony had survived. They realized, however, that their severely reduced numbers made the colony vulnerable to Indian attacks.
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That was one of their greatest fears—that they would be slain in the wilderness by the Indians like so many before them. Over the winter they had repeatedly seen the smoke of distant Indian fires, and several times they had seen Indians at a distance. Once, a lone Pilgrim hid in the brush as an Indian hunting party passed just yards away, and on one occasion, Indians had stolen tools temporarily put aside by a Pilgrim wood-cutting party. A peace delegation led by Captain Standish had attempted to make contact, but failed to locate any inhabited Indian villages. One day in mid-February, two Indian men had appeared just outside Plymouth, but they retreated when some of the Pilgrims tried to meet with them. To improve security as their numbers were reduced by illness and death, the Pilgrims tried to strengthen their hilltop fortification, eventually mounting a half-dozen artillery pieces in the battery. Even so, they surely understood that the slow-firing firearms of the day, and even artillery, could be overrun by a rapid assault by a determined mass of enemies.
On Friday, February 16, 1621, the Pilgrim leaders met on the hilltop to review their defenses and to officially appoint Captain Standish as the colony’s military commander. Midway through the meeting, they were shocked to see a lone Indian man approaching from the woods, clad only in a breechcloth, and carrying a bow and arrows. As the Pilgrim militiamen scrambled for their weapons in alarm, the Indian boldly walked up the dirt street between the rows of cottages until face to face with the surprised Pilgrim leaders. “Welcome, Englishmen!” he said. “Welcome, Englishmen!” His name was Samoset, or so it sounded to the Pilgrims. He was a sub-chief of the Abenaki tribe from the coast of modern-day Maine, where he had learned English from cod-fishing crews from England. For some reason, he had been picked up by Captain Thomas Dermer on his 1619 expedition and dropped in the Cape Cod region, where he was presently living as a guest of the Pokanoket.
Speaking in broken English, he asked for some beer, to which he had apparently been introduced by Europeans in Maine. The Pilgrims had none, but they did find some “strong water”—aqua-vitae, perhaps—which they served him, along with some cheese, butter, and pudding—“all which he liked well.” Samoset then cheerfully began educating the Pilgrims, explaining that the site of their colony was known as “Patuxet” or “Little Bay” to the Indians, how its former inhabitants had died of a plague, and that the Pokanoket and other allied tribes were ruled by a leader named Massasoit or Ousamaquin. He also told them of another English-speaking Indian known as Tisquantum or Squanto. The Pilgrims treated Samoset as their guest, housing him for the night in one of their homes, and sending him away with gifts. Several days later, he returned with Squanto, who arranged a meeting with Chief Massasoit. When Massasoit arrived at Plymouth, the Pilgrim leaders treated Massasoit with the respect afforded a head of state. They seated him on a rug and pillows in one of the Pilgrim homes, and referred to him as the tribal “king.” Their respect and diplomacy were successful: Chief Massasoit agreed to a peace treaty that would be rarely duplicated in the American Colonial Era—both sides would honor it for more than half a century.
In February 1621, the Pilgrims were shocked to see a lone Indian man boldly walking up the street in Plymouth. “Welcome, Englishmen!” he called out.
STORIES OF THE PILGRIMS
Massasoit’s decision to make peace with the Pilgrims would prove critical to the survival of Plymouth Colony. At the time of the treaty, the Pilgrims could muster barely twenty men to serve in the colony’s militia. Despite their firearms and artillery, they were massively outnumbered by the Indians. Why did Massasoit not order a massacre of the Pilgrims and wipe out the weak, struggling colony in its infancy? Why was Plymouth spared the repeated attacks and bloodshed that marked the early history of Virginia’s Jamestown Colony? Was it the Pilgrims’ generally respectful attitude toward the Native Americans, or the diplomacy they afforded Massasoit? Or did Chief Massasoit simply decide to exercise restraint? Again, to William Bradford, it was all an act of divine grace, in which “the powerful hand of the Lord did protect them.”
The English-speaking Indian whom Samoset introduced to the Pilgrims—Squanto—was in his own way equally important to the survival and success of Plymouth Colony. Squanto was believed to be the sole survivor of the Patuxet Indians who had inhabited the land on which the Pilgrims established their colony. In 1614, he was among the local Native Americans kidnapped by the notorious Captain Hunt to be sold into slavery in Spain. There, however, sympathetic Catholic priests managed to free some of the slaves, and Squanto found himself living in London, where he became fluent in English. In 1619, he came back to the Cape Cod region as an interpreter and guide for Captain Thomas Dermer, whose expedition disintegrated under Indian attacks. Squanto thus found himself free and back home—only to discover that the 1617 epidemic had wiped out his people and their village. Taken in by the Pokanoket, he was called upon to use his English to interpret for Chief Massasoit and the Pilgrims.
In addition to his key role in the critical peace treaty, Squanto became a valuable and trusted friend and teacher for the Pilgrims. He trained them how to fish, taught them how to plant corn, served as a pilot and guide as they trapped beaver and developed the colony’s fur trade, and he instructed them in the skilled tradecraft necessary to survive in the wilderness. He was, avowed William Bradford, “a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation.” The story of Squanto, Samoset, Chief Massasoit, and their impact on the survival of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony was recounted in rich detail by Winslow and Bradford in Mourt’s Relation:
Friday, [March] the 16th, a fair warm day towards; this morning we determined to conclude the military orders, which we had begun to consider before but were interrupted . . . for there presented himself a savage, which caused an alarm. He very boldly came all alone and along the houses straight to the rendezvous, where we intercepted him, not suffering him to go in, as undoubtedly he would, out of his boldness. He saluted us in English and bade us welcome, for he had learned some broken English among the Englishmen that came to fish at Monchiggon, and knew by name most of the captains, commanders, and masters that usually came.
He was a man free in speech, so far as he could express his mind, and of a seemly carriage. We questioned him of many things; he was the first savage we could meet withal. He said he was not of these parts, but of Moratiggon, and one of the sagamores or lords thereof, and had been eight months in these parts, it lying hence a day’s sail with a great wind, and five days by land. He discoursed of the whole country, and of every province, and of their sagamores, and their number of men and strength. The wind beginning to rise a little, we cast a horseman’s coat about him, for he was stark naked, only a
leather about his waist, with a fringe about a span long or little more; he had a bow and two arrows, the one headed, and the other unheaded. He was a tall straight man, the hair of his head black, long behind, only short before, none on his face at all; he asked some beer, but we gave him strong water and biscuit, and butter, and cheese, and pudding, and a piece of mallard, all which he liked well, and had been acquainted with such amongst the English.
He told us the place where we now live is called Patuxet, and that about four years ago all the inhabitants died of an extraordinary plague, and there is neither man, woman, nor child remaining, as indeed we have found none, so as there is none to hinder our possession, or to lay claim unto it. All the afternoon we spent in communication with him; we would gladly have been rid of him at night, but he was not willing to go this night. Then we thought to carry him on shipboard, wherewith he was well content, and went into the shallop, but the wind was high and the water scant, that it could not return back. We lodged him that night at Stephen Hopkins’ house, and watched him. . . . Saturday, in the morning we dismissed the savage, and gave him a knife, a bracelet, and a ring; he promised within a night or two to come again, and to bring with him some of the Massasoits, our neighbors, with such beavers’ skins as they had to [trade] with us.
In this imaginary late nineteenth-century illustration, Chief Massasoit of the Pokanoket tribe offers a gesture of peace to Pilgrim governor William Carver. At the actual meeting in 1621, it was Massasoit who was seated—as a guest of honor by Governor Carver and the Pilgrim leaders.
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Saturday and Sunday, reasonable fair days. On this day came again the savage, and brought with him five other tall proper men; they had every man a deer’s skin on him, and the principal of them had a wildcat’s skin, or such like on the one arm. They had most of them long [leggings] up to their groins, close made; and above their groins to their waist another leather, they were altogether like the Irish-trousers. They are of a complexion like our English gypsies, no hair or very little on their faces, on their heads long hair to their shoulders, only cut before, some trussed up before with a feather, broad-wise, like a fan, another a fox tail hanging out. These left (according to our charge given him before) their bows and arrows a quarter of a mile from our town. We gave them entertainment as we thought was fitting them; they did eat liberally of our English victuals. They made semblance unto us of friendship and amity; they sang and danced after their manner. . . .
Thursday, the 22nd of March, was a very fair warm day. About noon we met again about our public business, but we had scarce been an hour together, but Samoset came again, and Squanto . . . with three others, and they [made signs] unto us that their great sagamore Massasoit was hard by, with Quadequina his brother, and all their men. They could not well express in English what they would, but after an hour the king came to the top of a hill over against us, and had in his train sixty men, that we could well behold them and they us. We were not willing to send our governor to them, and they unwilling to come to us, so [Squanto] went again unto him, who brought word that we should send one to parley with him, which we did, which was Edward Winslow, to know his mind, and to signify the mind and will of our governor, which was to have trading and peace with him. We sent to the king a pair of knives, and a copper chain with a jewel in it. To Quadequina we sent likewise a knife and a jewel to hang in his ear, and withal a pot of strong water, a good quantity of biscuit, and some butter, which were all willingly accepted.
Our messenger made a speech unto him, that King James saluted him with words of love and peace, and did accept of him as his friend and ally, and that our governor desired to see him and to [trade] with him, and to confirm a peace with him, as his next neighbor. He liked well of the speech and . . . Captain Standish and Master Williamson met the king at the brook, with half a dozen musketeers. They saluted him and he them, so one going over, the one on the one side, and the other on the other, conducted him to a house then in building, where we placed a green rug and three or four cushions. Then instantly came our governor with drum and trumpet after him, and some few musketeers. After salutations, our governor kissing his hand, the king kissed him, and so they sat down. The governor called for some strong water, and drunk to him, and he drunk a great draught that made him sweat all the while after; he called for a little fresh meat, which the king did eat willingly, and did give his followers. Then they treated of peace, which was:
A member of the Patuxet tribe, Tisquantum, or “Squanto” as the Pilgrims called him, became an invaluable instructor for the Pilgrims, teaching them how to plant corn and catch fish, and serving as an interpreter with other Native Americans. William Bradford considered him to be “a special instrument sent of God.”
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1. That neither he nor any of his should injure or do hurt to any of our people.
2. And if any of his did hurt to any of ours, he should send the offender, that we might punish him.
3. That if any of our tools were taken away when our people are at work, he should cause them to be restored, and if ours did any harm to any of his, we would do the likewise to them.
4. If any did unjustly war against him, we would aid him; if any did war against us, he should aid us.
5. He should send to his neighbor confederates, to certify them of this, that they might not wrong us, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace.
6. That when their men came to us, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them, as we should do our pieces when we came to them.
Lastly, that doing thus, King James would esteem of him as his friend and ally.
All which the king seemed to like well, and it was applauded of his followers; all the while he sat by the governor he trembled for fear. In his person he is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of countenance, and spare of speech. In his attire little or nothing differing from the rest of his followers, only in a great chain of white bone beads about his neck, and at it behind his neck hangs a little bag of tobacco, which he drank and gave us to drink; his face was painted with a [deep red color, like mulberry], and oiled both head and face, that he looked greasy. All his followers likewise, were in their faces, in part or in whole painted, some black, some red, some yellow, and some white, some with crosses, and other [clownish] works; some had skins on them, and some naked, all strong, tall men in appearance. So after all was done, the governor conducted him to the brook, and there they embraced each other and he departed. . . .5
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“By the Goodness of God We Are So Far from Want”
The Mayflower’s anchor rose glistening wet from the waters of Plymouth Harbor. Soon afterward, the ship turned seaward and set sail for England. It was April 5, 1621, and the Mayflower was leaving for home. Aboard were the ship’s commander, Master Jones, and roughly half the ship’s crew—the rest were dead. They had died from the same ailments that had killed so many of the Pilgrims. Enough crewmen survived to get the ship home, however, and Jones had decided that it was finally time to go. Remarkably, as the Mayflower sailed eastward in the direction of the rising sun, not a single Pilgrim was aboard. All of them—every survivor, men and women alike—had opted to remain at their new home: Plymouth Colony. Whatever awaited them in the future, they had chosen to face it in America.1
On April 5, 1621, the Mayflower left Plymouth Colony to return to England. Despite the terrible toll the winter had taken on the ranks of the Pilgrims, none went back on the Mayflower. For the survivors, America was now their home.
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“God Be Praised, We Had a Good Increase of Indian Corn”
Fish, Fowl, Game, and Bountiful Crops Bring Health and Hope to Plymouth
By late spring of 1621, the Pilgrims had endured the worst of the sickness and death, had built seven homes, and would soon build more. They had negotiated a truce with Massasoit’s tribe, were learning from Squanto how to survive in the wildernes
s, and were planting the crops necessary to live through the fall and winter seasons. When Governor Carver died of heat exhaustion soon after the Mayflower’s departure, they voted in a new governor—William Bradford, age thirty-one. The young leader easily could have declined the post: his wife had died just a few months earlier, and he had been critically ill himself. But abdicating his duty was not William Bradford’s way: he assumed the post with the humble but capable manner in which he seemed to approach all responsibilities. In one of his first acts as Plymouth’s governor, he dispatched Edward Winslow—guided by Squanto—on a successful diplomatic mission to Chief Massasoit, which reinforced the relations established by the recent peace treaty. He dispatched another team on a mission that established a measure of peace with other tribes in the region, and he also reimbursed the Nausets for the corn that the Pilgrims had taken from them during their first days ashore.
A Pilgrim couple converses at waterside. All was not grim in the early days of Plymouth Colony: in the spring of 1621, widower Edward Winslow married Susanna White, who had lost her spouse in the winter’s great sickness.
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New World Indians plant corn in this sixteenth-century engraving. Learning how to plant the crop may have spared the Pilgrims starvation. “We set the last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn,” Edward Winslow wrote friends in England, “. . . and God be praised, we had a good increase.”
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In addition to his diplomatic duties, Bradford also oversaw a happy event which signaled the survival of Plymouth Colony—its first wedding. Susanna White and Edward Winslow had both lost their spouses in the great sickness of the winter, and on May 12, 1621, they were married to each other. Other events were anything but joyful—rabble-rouser John Billington was disciplined for disrespect toward Captain Standish, and two servants were punished for dueling with each other. Although unpleasant, both events were dealt with promptly and lawfully and demonstrated the stability and reliability of the fledgling colony’s government. Equally important, the colonists had learned how to catch fish and hunt game—and by summer’s end, their crops had produced a bountiful harvest. The corn that Squanto had shown them how to cultivate far outperformed the peas and barley they had brought from England, and promised to be the staple crop grown in America. “God be praised,” Edward Winslow observed, “we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good. . . . And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God we are so far from want.” Winslow’s joy at achieving survival and success in the New World wilderness was obvious in a letter he penned to friends in England:
