Watch: The disenfranchisment of Native Americans continues today | The Raw Story: Though the story of the first American Thanksgiving in which the Pilgrims host a great banquet to thank Native Americans who helped them survive the first winter, there is a darker history to the encounter.
The man behind that generosity, Tisquantum (Anglicized as Squanto), had been kidnapped by a British seafarer named Thomas Hunt in 1614 while Hunt was serving under Captain John Smith (he of Jamestown and the story of Pocahontas). Hunt sold Tisquantum — a Patuxet nation member, which was a part of the Wampanoag confederacy — into slavery in Spain, from which he eventually escaped. Tisquantum then signed up as an interpreter for a Newfoundland-bound ship, and made his way back to New England only to find that he was the sole survivor of a smallpox epidemic that claimed every other Patuxet. He is nonetheless credited with teaching basic survival skills, like planting and fishing, to the Pilgrims and helping them survive the harsh conditions, which was the reason for the November 1621 feast Americans now celebrate as Thanksgiving.
