Legion Troll
A fine upstanding poster
The Thanksgiving story you know probably goes like this: English Pilgrims, seeking religious freedom, landed in Plymouth, where they were greeted by a friendly Indian named Squanto, who taught them how to plant corn.
Once you learn about the real Squanto -- also known as Tisquantum -- you'll have a great yarn to tell your family over the Thanksgiving table.
Here's what really happened.
In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in modern-day Massachusetts, an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped Tisquantum from his village. (Europeans had started visiting the northeast of what is now the United States by the 1520s, and probably as early as the 1480s.)
Hunt took Tisquantum and around two dozen other kidnapped Indians to Spain, where he tried to sell them into slavery.
Tisquantum escaped slavery -- with the help of Catholic friars, according to some accounts -- then somehow found his way to England.
He finally made it back to what is now Massachusetts in 1619. As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Indians to ever return to North America.
But while Tisquantum was in Europe, an epidemic had swept across New England.
When Tisquantum returned, he found that he was his village's only survivor.
Into this bumbled the Pilgrims. They had shown up in New England a few weeks before winter.
Up until the Pilgrims, Europeans would show up, and Indians would be interested in their trade goods, but they were really uninterested in letting them stay.
Often, armed native people would even force Europeans to leave if they attempted to stay.
This time, the disease that had decimated New England ensured that they had a place to settle.
They find this cleared land and just the bones of the Indians. They called it divine providence: "God killed these Indians so we could live here".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thanksgiving-squanto-tisquantum-true-history_565471e1e4b0d4093a5917bb?cps=gravity_5035_2661390162759028910
Once you learn about the real Squanto -- also known as Tisquantum -- you'll have a great yarn to tell your family over the Thanksgiving table.
Here's what really happened.
In 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed in modern-day Massachusetts, an Englishman named Thomas Hunt kidnapped Tisquantum from his village. (Europeans had started visiting the northeast of what is now the United States by the 1520s, and probably as early as the 1480s.)
Hunt took Tisquantum and around two dozen other kidnapped Indians to Spain, where he tried to sell them into slavery.
Tisquantum escaped slavery -- with the help of Catholic friars, according to some accounts -- then somehow found his way to England.
He finally made it back to what is now Massachusetts in 1619. As far as historians can tell, Tisquantum was the only one of the kidnapped Indians to ever return to North America.
But while Tisquantum was in Europe, an epidemic had swept across New England.
When Tisquantum returned, he found that he was his village's only survivor.
Into this bumbled the Pilgrims. They had shown up in New England a few weeks before winter.
Up until the Pilgrims, Europeans would show up, and Indians would be interested in their trade goods, but they were really uninterested in letting them stay.
Often, armed native people would even force Europeans to leave if they attempted to stay.
This time, the disease that had decimated New England ensured that they had a place to settle.
They find this cleared land and just the bones of the Indians. They called it divine providence: "God killed these Indians so we could live here".
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thanksgiving-squanto-tisquantum-true-history_565471e1e4b0d4093a5917bb?cps=gravity_5035_2661390162759028910
