Real American History, Why Not Tell It?

 

"Welcome Englishmen!  Can I Have a Beer?"

The first native contact for the Plymouth Colony pilgims was a native American who approached them asking for a glass of beer. It was Samoset, an Abenaki Indian from Maine. “Welcome Englishmen” he said, and then asked for that cold glass of beer.

The pilgrims were amazed at the English speaking native. They had no beer, but gave him brandy, biscuits, butter, cheese, and pudding, all of which he enjoyed. He stayed at Plymouth Plantation one night (the Pilgrims keeping careful watch over him).

It turns out Samoset had picked up English from fishermen visiting along the coast of Maine. And Samoset asking for a beer? How interesting, how human. Why, oh why didn’t they teach me that in history class?

Samoset spoke “broken English”, but he told the Pilgrims he would return with a native man who spoke English fluently.

Guess who that man was? Squanto. Remember Squanto the savior of the Pilgrims, who taught them to plant fish heads as fertilizer? No one ever explained how Squanto communicated with the pilgrims. After all, Squanto was teaching the Pilgrims survival strategies. How was Squanto fluent in English? you might ask. Squanto had been kidnapped a few years previously, taken by a British ship captain, eventually spending a few years in England. I think Squanto negotiated a trip back across the ocean, convincing the English he could assist in guiding a ship along the New England coastline.

Poor Squanto. When he arrived in the area known as" “Patuxet” he found it empty, his tribe gone. Most of the Patuxet tribe had perished from smallpox and other diseases. What trauma for the poor guy. Yikes. (The Pilgrims attibuted the empty land as providential, a gift from God).

Why leave this stuff out of the history books though? Were the writers of our history books embarrassed about the not infrequent kidnapping of Indians? Was it too sensitive a subject? Is there a bit of racism in not portraying them as human? Does history have to be so sanitized for children?

I’d really like answers to those questions.

Years ago I attended an Indian Powwow. I saw a group of Iroquois Indians sitting together and saw them laughing, really enjoying themselves. I had an instant reaction, thinking I thought Indians were sullen and serious. I guess the Indian of John Wayne and Hollywood was still deep in my subconscious. I caught myself but was ashamed and embarrassed by my ignorance.

A friend of mine went on a Plantation tour in the deep South. The guide pointed out the slave cabins and said “The workers lived over there”. My friend said “Excuse me, weren’t they slaves?” The tour guide seemed a little irritated with the question, as if it was “splitting hairs”. My friend continued “My definition of workers is someone who is paid for their labor, slaves weren’t really ‘workers’ per se.”

Until films like “Little Big Man” and “Dances With Wolves”, we were all somewhat ignorant I guess.

Interestingly, the portrayal of a transgender or "two-spirit" named “Little Horse” in the 1970 movie “Little Big Man” was positive, long before it became a big issue in America.

I hope someone can explain to me why our teaching of history left out so many good stories.

Sources:
Mourt's Relation: A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation Settled at Plimoth in New England

Of Plimouth Plantation, by Governor Bradford

Was Jamestown almost Spanish?

In 1561, the Spanish ship Santa Catalina captained by Antonio Velázquez, was blown off course near the South Carolina coast.  The winds then drove the vessel several hundred miles north.  The ship entered Chesapeake Bay.  The captain convinced, or more likely, seized two native Americans for display back in Spain, and potentially future translators.

One of the captured Virginia natives was Paquiquino, the 17-year old son of the local native leader.  He was brought to Spain and appeared before King Philip II.  He impressed the King and obtained permission to accompany a Catholic mission back to the Chesapeake region of Virginia.

Paquiquino had been converted to Christianity and claimed to want to spread the faith in America. He was baptised "Don Luís de Velasco".

Soon after the ship that brought them from Havana departed, Don Luís left the Jesuits, supposedly to locate his uncle and seek supplies for the mission. He didn’t return, and the Jesuits eventually realize that they had probably been abandoned.   The Jesuits struggled to survive.

Five months later the Indians wiped out the friars’ outpost except for a boy who escaped to tell the story. The Jesuits never returned to Ajacan; they moved their mission to Mexico.

Plymouth First Native Contact - a Request for a Glass of Beer

In the early days of spring, on March 1621, the Pilgrim men were gathered in the common house when the cry went up, "Indian coming!"  An Indian walked toward them, asking for a glass of beer! In English!  His name was Samoset, a Maine Indian visiting Massachusetts.  He had previous contact with English fisherman and had learned English.

You can imagine the shock of the Pilgrims.  Governor Bradford describes the event:

“But about the 16th of March a certain Indian came boldly amongst them and spoke to them in broken English, which they could well understand but marveled at it. 

“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 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".

Samoset also brought the well known Squanto to the Pilgrims, a few days later.  Squanto, a captive previous living in Europe, spoke fluent English.  It would be Squanto who would ensure the survival of the small colony, teaching the English how to grow crops  such as corn in the New World.