Tisquantum

Tisquantum, commonly known as Squanto, was a Patuxet man who became an interpreter and intermediary for Plymouth Colony. Before the colonists arrived, he had been kidnapped by Europeans, taken across the Atlantic and eventually returned to New England.

Finding his community devastated by epidemic disease, Tisquantum lived among neighbouring peoples and assisted the English with diplomacy and agriculture. His actions were shaped by survival and regional politics, not simply the friendship narrative of later tradition.

In Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower, William Bradford and Myles Standish confront hunger, disease and political uncertainty, while the settlement’s survival depends on an alliance with the Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and the mediation of Tisquantum.