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Updated: June 27, 2025
The action seemed to be involuntary, and without any present purpose; for he remained in the same position, unobserved by Rodolph, until he and his attendants had retired to the hut appointed them by Cundineus, to rest and refresh themselves, end await the reply of the Chief. Rodolph then desired Squanto to make inquiries for Coubitant, and, if possible, to bring him to the hut.
He shared with Hobomok the friendship of the settlers for many years and both Indians gave excellent service. Through the influence of Squanto the treaty was made in the spring of 1621 with Massasoit, the first League of Nations to preserve peace in the new world. Squanto showed the men how to plant alewives or herring as fertilizer for the Indian corn.
On the captives being brought before him, he scornfully reproached them as the dastardly tools of the white men, and as traitors to their own nation; and he declared his intention of detaining Squanto as a prisoner, and as a hostage also, in order to ensure the return of Hobomak to New Plymouth, with the message that be designed for the Governor.
One pleasant evening in June, in the year 1620, little Philip noticed that there was less general story-telling than usual, and that the Indians seemed greatly interested in a long story which one of their number was telling. He could not understand the story, but he frequently caught the words, "Squanto" and "English." These were new words to him.
Squanto gazed on these with a significant look; and on being questioned by Bradford as to the meaning of so singular an offering, he informed him that it was the native mode of declaring war. The well-known enmity of the Narragansetts towards the Wampanoges the friends and allies of the settlers rendered this hostile declaration no surprise to the Governor and his council.
It seemed to the lads like a fairy tale, and for days they talked of nothing but this strange story. During the following summer young Philip heard many an interesting story about the English. Squanto himself came to see Massasoit several times, and from him Philip heard the story of his adventures across the sea.
The men of the colony were meantime hearing the report brought in by Nepeof, a sachem just from Namasket, of the treacherous proceedings there, and before they had been three hours at home Squanto and Hobomok were dispatched to discover the truth of the matter, while Nepeof was held as a hostage.
It was one of those momentary tableaux in which History occasionally foreshadows or defines her policy, and had an artist been privileged to study the scene he should have given us a noble picture of this first meeting of the Powers of the Old World and the New. Squanto at last returned, and Massasoit for the first time opening his lips said gravely, "Tell the white man he is welcome."
All three men laughed, but Bradford said, "I fear me Squanto hath done us no little harm with his double dealings, his jealousy of Hobomok, and his craving for bribes; but withal he hath been so good a friend to us, more than useful at the first when we knew naught of the place or how to live, or plant, or fish, that I thought right to risk even Massasoit's enmity rather than to give our poor knave up to his wrath."
Squanto in especial pleaded that this place was his own home, and that he had only left it for the village of the Nausets whence Hunt had stolen him, because all his people were dead of the plague, and he was afraid of their ghosts. His wigwam had once stood as he declared at the head of the King's Highway, and the Town Brook was his stewpond for the fish on which he mostly fed.
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