A Very Grateful Thanksgiving Part II

In my first post on this topic, I focused on stepping out to make difficult changes in ones personal life for the better, but sometimes one cannot alter where they are situation. One such individual was Squanto.

A Very Grateful Thanksgiving

The similarities of the story of Squanto and of St. Patrick’s being kidnapped as teen boys taken away to a foreign land to become slaves for another reminds me also of the ancient Hebrew story of Joseph in Genesis chapters 37, 39-50. Sometimes really bad things happen in this life. There certainly has been a lot of capture of human beings who have been forced into slavery of another. It’s actually been common practice since the beginning of war.

In regards to Squanto whose name was also Tisquantum, he was born in the Patuxant Tribe in the area that became Plymouth, Massachusetts somewhere around 1580. History recounts that the Patuxant had friendly trading relations with explorers until one possibly, Captain Thomas Hunt, seduced a group of these young natives onto a ship only to set sail and sell them into slavery in Europe.

While miserable that this deceit now turned into capture was, providence had Squanto purchased by Spanish monks who treated him kindly and taught him in the way of Christian faith. They also knew that he greatly longed to return to his people so in time they coordinated for his freedom to go to England to make contacts there to sail back to his homeland. There he learned English and worked his way to eventually make the voyage back across the Atlantic.

However, it had to be absolutely crushing for Squanto to go through all of this only to find none of his family alive and the area completely abandoned when he returned. To make matters even worse, the Wampanoag attacked the group he sailed with and took him captive once again. Consider what is going on inside of Squanto through all of this as I fast forward to the arrival of the Pilgrims.

The Mayflower crew found the abandoned village once home to the people of Squanto, but they were not equipped for the climate and unknowledgeable about how to cultivate the land for food. Enough horror stories had transpired from ramifications of those explorers who ruined good relations with the natives from their exploits to create immense fear of retaliation for both groups.

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Squanto served as the needed interpreter for Massasoit and the Pilgrim to establish an amicable treaty between them. He also taught these sojourners how to survive. He was no stranger to the Christian religion as was first taught to him by the Spanish friars. But he also struggled with the power that came from his ability to translate between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims.

Massasoit never fully trusted Squanto for he accused him of using this ability as leverage to manipulate both his people and the Pilgrims. This worsened to the point of the Pilgrims having to take him in and give refuge from Massasoit. This is vastly different from how St. Patrick and Joseph’s life stories ended.

We too have our own struggles, choices, and decisions to make. Let us find inspiration and warning as to how to proceed when bad events happen in our lives. May we work through the trauma of injustice, find good through providence, and end well like Joseph who resolved NOT to take the place of God, but rather trusted Him, forgave and cared for his brothers who sold him into slavery prior to.