Squanto: A Native Odyssey

Join us to celebrate the upcoming release of Squanto: A Native Odyssey with author Dr. Andrew Lipman.

American schoolchildren have long learned about Squanto, the welcoming Native who made the First Thanksgiving possible, but his story goes deeper than the holiday legend. Born in the Wampanoag-speaking town of Patuxet in the late 1500s, Squanto was kidnapped in 1614 by an English captain, who took him to Spain. From there, Englishmen brought him to London and Newfoundland before sending him home in 1619, when Squanto discovered that most of Patuxet had died in an epidemic. A year later, the Mayflower colonists arrived at his home and renamed it Plymouth.

Prize-winning historian Andrew Lipman explores the mysteries that still surround Squanto: How did he escape bondage and return home? Why did he help the English after an Englishman enslaved him? Why did he threaten Plymouth’s fragile peace with its neighbors with a daring plot that shocked colonists and Natives alike? Was it true that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed? Drawing from a wide range of evidence, Lipman reconstructs Squanto’s upbringing, his transatlantic odyssey, his career as an interpreter, his surprising downfall, and his enigmatic death. The result is a fresh look at an epic life that ended right when many Americans think their story begins.

For more information, please email programs@14beacon.org.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Andrew Lipman is associate professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University. His first book, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (Yale University Press, 2015) was a winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History. His second book, Squanto: A Native Odyssey, was published by Yale University Press in 2024.