Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/469

 i2s. vii. NOV. is, 1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and from that time he attached himself to them, and identified himself wholly with them.

His past history is interesting. He was a member of a tribe which had formerly occupied the very territory on which New Plymouth was now planted. Some years before the arrival of the Mayflower, a man named Hunt had kidnapped and carried off some 24 or 27of these Indians, Squanto among them, to sell them as slaves in Spain. How it happened we do not know, but we next hear of Squanto as lodging in London on Cornhill. In 1620 Squanto accompanied a Mr. Dermer on a voyage to New England, and on his arrival he found that the tribe to which he belonged had been exterminated by pesti- lence, and he was thus without home or friend. He proved himself a faithful servant to Mr. Dermer who writes : " Squanto cannot deny, but they (the Indians) would have killed me when I was at Namasket, had he not entreated hard for me." But Mr. Dermer met his death a few months after and Squanto disappears from view till he made his* appearance among the colonists at Plymouth. Thence forward he never left them.

'* He was," says Governor Bradford, " their interpreter : and was a special instrument sent of God for their good beyond their expectation. He directed them how to set their corn, where to take fish, and to procure other commodities, and alo was their pilot to bring them to unknown places for their profit ; and never left them till he died."

It is probable that Squanto was no1 wholly disinterested in his adoption of the service of the English. No doubt he usec his position to increase his own persona importance among his countrymen. But there can be no question of the value of his services. They were recognised by the Indians who tried to kill him as " if he were dead the English had lost their tongue.' Bradford and Winslow, though fully aware of his eye to bis own advantage, yet bea ample testimony to the assistance he gave them. He taught them how to set their corn, how to tread eels out of the ooze, how to catch the fish. He enabled them t< obtain supplies by barter, and conduct ec their trading expeditions. He helped the English to understand the Indians and th Indians the English, thus promoting tha mutual confidence the want of which hac been so fatal in other cases. He was thei go-between in some critical dealings wit] native chieftains : an employment in whic] more than once he nearly lost his life. An( ultimately he met his death in their service

"o wards the end of September 1622 the

>ressure of famine drove the Colonists

hey had recently been reduced to a quarter

)f a pound of bread per diem to seek for

upplies by endeavouring to get round the

dangerous headland of Cape Cod. Two

attempts having failed, the Governor went

limself taking Squanto with him : the con-

lusion is told thus in Bradford's own words..

" They could not get about the shoulder of Cape"

Cod for flats and breakers, neither could Squanto

lirect them better, nor the master durst venture

iny further So they put into Manamoac Bay

n'this place Squanto fell sick of an Indian fever, .leeding much at the nose (which the Indians take or a symptom of death) and within a few days he died there, desiring the Governor to pray for him hat he might go to the Englishman's God in heaven : ind bequeathed sundry of his things to sundry ot'^his English friends ; of whom -they had a great loss."

At Squanto 's death the Plymouth colonists tiad just reaped their second harvest of the [ndian corn which he had taught them tiow to plant. Previous to that Bradford tells us that they were so weakened by want that they had hardly strength to till the ground. By so small a margin had they thus escaped the extermination which, it must be repeated, had befallen many other attempts at colonization. The world owes much to the Pilgrim Fathers. It would be rash to say that they would have perished but for their Indian servant. He certainly however helped to keep them alive. And it seems hardly too much to say that the world', owes a good deal to poor Squanto. %|

G. CTJTHBERT BLAXLAND. Ringshall Rectory, Stowmarket.

NOTES ON DOROTHY OSBORNE'S LETTERS.

(See ante, pp. 304, 324, 344.)

FURTHER NOTES ON DOROTHY OSBORNE'S LETTERS.

On p. 15 of "The Everyman's Library " edition of the 'Letters,' Judge Parry writes :

"In 1649 Sir Peter returned to England and probably through the intervention of his father- in-law, Sir John Danvers.his house and a portion of his estates at Chicksards were restored to him."

For "father-in-law " we should surely read "brother-in-law." His father-in-law, if; alive, would have been 100 at this time.

F. 27. Sir Thomas Osfcorne's ccusinship^ to Dorothy was not, as might have been expected,,.