Tisquantum. or Squanto, the guide and interpreter c1864.

by Brownell, Charles de Wolf

Antique print of Tisquantum, or Squanto, the guide and interpreter of the colonists.

Rare wood engraving with contemporary hand colour, from Charles de Wolf Brownell’s The Indian Races of North and South America: comprising an account of the principal aboriginal races; a description of their national customs, mythology, and religious ceremonies; the history of their most powerful tribes, and of their most celebrated chiefs and warriors..., published in Hartford, Conn. in 1864 by Hurlbut, Scranton & Co.

Tisquantum (c1585-1622), known as Squanto, was probably the last surviving member of the Native American Patuxet tribe. He acted as an interpreter and liaised between the southern New England native tribes and the Mayflower Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth during their first winter in the New World when they made their settlement at the site of Squanto’s former summer village in 1621.  He lived with them for 20 months and showed them how to sow and fertilize crops, and introduced them to the fur trade, which was important in reducing their debt to their London financial backers.

After exploring the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts in 1605, George Weymouth had taken Squanto back to England and presented him to the person who had funded his voyage to the New World. Squanto is believed to have been brought back to Massachusetts in 1614-15 by English explorer John Smith. With other Indians, Squanto was seized by one of Smith’s men, Thomas Hunt, who took the Indians to the Mediterranean port of Malaga in Spain to be sold into slavery. Squanto managed to escape, travelled to England, joined the Newfoundland Company, and again returned to North America in 1619 – only to find that his Patuxet tribe had been destroyed by disease, so he joined the Wampanoag people.

Squanto was taken to Plymouth by Samoset, a Wampanoag Indian who had become a friend of the English settlers. Because of his fluency in English, Governor William Bradford made Squanto his Indian emissary. Squanto served as interpreter for the Pilgrim representative, Edward Winslow, during his negotiations with Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoags. Squanto died during an expedition around Cape Cod while serving as a guide to Governor Bradford.

21.5 x 13 cm  (8 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches). Image approx. 17 x 11cm (6 ¾ x 4 ¼ inches) Page slightly soiled and evidence of previous framing.