Radio Script #1185

Little Talks on Common Things
January 7, 1979

This program has several times referred to the dependence of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth on the region to the northeast now known as the State of Maine. Today I want to give you more details about that dependence.

In his book, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Governor William Bradford, who succeeded the Pilgrim’s first governor Carver when the latter died in 1621, records the colonists’ first personal encounter with an Indian. They had seen natives at a distance, but none in close contact until on a spring day following their first terrible winter in America, they heard a shout from the hilltop, uttering the English word “Welcome! Welcome!”

There they saw an Indian without bow and arrow or other weapon, with hands extended in peaceful fashion,repeating again and again that word ”Welcome.” When a few of the Pilgrim men approached the Indian, they discovered that his English was broken and very limited, but that his vocabulary was extensive enough for him to reveal, with the help of many gestures, that his name was Samoset, and that he was of a tribe located not far away in what is now the town of Bristol. Despite the cold spring weather he was almost naked. He asked for beer, but Bradford says, “Having no beer, we gave him strong liquor.”

The Pilgrims became wary when Samoset showed no sign of leaving, but they finally sheltered him for the night in the house of Stephen Hopkins. He left the next morning, saying he would soon return with companions. The Pilgrims were especially glad to see this English-speaking Indian because of their terrible winter experiences. During December, after their decision to settle at this place on November 30, they had put up 17 dwellings and a storehouse. But between December and May repeated deaths occurred. When spring finally came, the original 102 passengers of the Mayflower had been reduced exactly 50% to 51, augmented by two births.

What had caused such unusual depletion of their ranks? First, the long, late-season voyage had made them weak and with little resistance to disease. Also, they had been mostly in-door workers, quite unready for the outdoor, wilderness tasks, especially in winter. Much hard tramping for animals and birds to supply food had further weakened the men. Frequent sleeping out on the cold ground did not help. But, according to historians, the probably most likely reason why so many more men than women died, in proportion to their respective numbers, was day after day of wading ashore from the Mayflower’s boats while they were building the houses, for they then spent nights on the Mayflower, whose boats could not quite reach shore, necessitating wading in waist-deep water. The single greatest cause of death seems to have been pneumonia. Whatever the cause, when April came, 13 of the 24 married men had died, and 21 of the single men and servants. Sixteen families had lost one or more members. To conceal from the Indians the fact that the colony was losing so many men, all graves were smoothed over and no markers placed. Hence the arrival of English-speaking Samoset was a great relief, revealing that not all Indians were hostile.

Where had Samoset learned his English? He made it clear to the Pilgrims that he had several times in recent years visited the British fishing stations at Monhegan and Pemaquid on the Maine coast, where the fishermen always gave him plenty of beer, and with whom he traded fur for knives, axes and trinkets. Bradford makes no mention of Samoset saying he ever got firearms from the fishermen, though it was not long before the Indians had muskets, powder and ball, and knew how to use them.

So impressed was Gov. Bradford with Samoset’s story that when the Mayflower returned to England late in April 1621, he and his counsel decided to send the little shallop left with them to Pemaquid to get badly needed provisions from the British fishing fleet that Samoset said would be assembled there. That trip was successful, and the Pilgrims did get enough to tide them over until June when the second ship to come to Plymouth, the Fortune, arrived from England.

When one considers the wretched state of the colony at the end of the first winter, it seems unbelievable that not a single survivor returned to

England with the Mayflower. The explanation is of course chiefly due to the determination of those colonists and their devout, religious conviction that, despite all the winter’s suffering, God would see them through. But perhaps almost as important in the decision for no one to leave was the help that came from those fishermen drying their fish at Pemaquid.

On his original visit Samoset said he would return with others. Sure enough, two days later he came with five other Indians. One of those was named Squanto, who was to play a conspicuous part in the development of the Plymouth Colony.

Squanto spoke much better English than Samoset, and, though an Indian, he showed remarkable acquaintance with English customs. He had, as we say, “been around.” The Pilgrims learned that Squanto had been one of a group of Indians kidnapped by an unscrupulous sea captain, Thomas Hunt, in 1614, and he had been taken to Europe. Sold into slavery in Spain, he had somehow escaped and made his way to London. For six years he had been in England, a part of this time in the home of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the· man who would later secure a royal title to lands in Maine. At least once, and perhaps a second time, Squanto had come to Monhegan and Pemaquid on a Gorges ship, and he became thoroughly familiar with that region at the mouth of the Damariscotta River, and with the Kennebec Indians who frequented the area. He was able to tell the Pilgrims much more about the British fishing fleet than Samoset could, and even gave the names of some of the ship captains.

From the spring of 1621 on for several years, Squanto was a valuable person for the Plymouth Colony. He served as their interpreter at meetings with various tribal chiefs, he was the most influential figure in the Pilgrims’ negotiation of a treaty with Massasoit, Chief of the most powerful of the Cape Cod tribes. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant their corn, using fish for fertilizer, and he paved the way for the colony’s growing fur trade that enabled them to payoff their debt to the company of Plymouth Adventurers who had financed the Mayflower voyage. Governor Bradford said of Squanto, “He never left us until he died.”

Despite this Indian’s value to the Pilgrims, he did have a darker side. Although he had been chiefly responsible for getting the Pilgrims in touch with Chief Massasoit, he was extremely jealous of that Chief, and sought to discredit him with the colonists. On one occasion, Squanto sent a message to Plymouth with word that Massasoit intended secretly to attack and annihilate the colony. When a month passed and nothing happened except clear evidence of Massasoit’s friendship, Miles Standish and Gov. Bradford made a careful investigation. They learned that the whole notion of an attack had originated in Squanto’s mind, and was the result of his obsession to gain favor with the Pilgrims at Massasoit’s expense.

But Squanto did not outlive the year 1631. Before that year had ended he was taken on a fishing expedition to the south shore of Cape Cod, and according to Bradford, died of “Indian Fever.”

The real nub of this story is that a turning point in the Plymouth Colony from catastrophe to hope and eventual success came when an Indian shouted the English word “welcome” from the Plymouth hilltop. Samoset’s welcome, Squanto’s friendship, and the peace with Massasoit were not the only results of the Pilgrims’ connection with Maine. In 1629 they obtained a royal Charter that not only gave them exclusive right of trade with Indians along the Kennebec River, but also granted them complete ownership to a tract of land fifteen miles on each side of the river from Merrymeeting Bay to the falls above Norridgewock.

It was that huge tract of land that the colony sold in 1661 to four men, whose heirs in turn sold it in 1749 to the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase. Through that chain of transactions the deeds of all land 15 miles on each side of the Kennebec, where are now all four of Kennebec County’s cities, date back today to the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth. When they received their Kennebec grant, the Pilgrims at once set up a trading post at what is now Augusta, and placed a manager in charge of it.

In his History of Augusta, James North tells us that Cushnoc, the old Indian name for the place, had often been visited for trading purposes before 1629. Anxious to payoff their debt, the Pilgrim leaders pulled all sorts of political strings to secure exclusive rights of trade there. After getting the grant and establishing the trading post, the Pilgrims placed on the river two magistrates empowered to try all cases of trespass.

In the spring of 1634 a vessel commanded by one Captain Hawkins appeared on the river and started trade with the Indians. In disregard of the magistrates Hawkins persisted. That led to an incident involving a Pilgrim made romantic by Longfellow – John Alden, winner of the hand of Priscilla Mullins, whom Miles Standish wanted to marry. From the episode we know John Alden was in Maine in 1634. With three others he proceeded to cut the anchor cables of Hawkins’ ships. But Hawkins’ men discharged guns, killing two of Alden’s men. In the skirmish Hawkins himself was fatally wounded. Alden was arrested and charged with murder of Hawkins. The trial resulted in complete acquittal on the grounds that Alden represented interests that had exclusive rights to Kennebec trade and was lawfully trying to protect those interests.

And with that story we end our account of the Pilgrim Fathers’ relations with Maine.

Year: 1979