A Special Instrument Of God

A Special Instrument Of God

In 1619, when many people were considering whether to go to the New World, one person had a unique reason—he was trying to go home.

AN AMERICAN Indian named Tisquantum (Squanto for short) had come to England via the slave trade. In 1605 Captain George Weymouth captured Squanto and took him to England, where he learned English. Spending nine years in England before returning to his people, the Patuxets on Cape Cod, he traveled home in 1614 on Captain John Smith’s vessel. He was not home long before Captain Thomas Hunt, part of Smith’s expedition, lured Squanto and twenty-six other unsuspecting Indians aboard his vessel under the pretext of trading with them. Once the Indians were on board, Hunt’s crew clamped them in irons and took them to Spain, where they were sold into slavery. Many never returned to their homeland. Squanto was delivered into the hands of local friars, who introduced him to the Christian faith.

Squanto did not remain long with the Spanish monks. Making his way to England, he managed to get passage on the American-bound ship of Captain Dermer in 1619. When Squanto arrived back on Cape Cod, he learned that every single person in his tribe had died. In 1617 smallpox had ravaged his people, and no one had survived.

In early November 1620, the Pilgrims reached the shores of Cape Cod. They had been members of that Separatist congregation of Scrooby, England, that refused to conform to the Church of England and as a result, had fled to Holland. Twelve years later, they set sail for America to build a new life, fearing their children would lose their English identity. They settled in a place they called Plymouth, named after the town in England where they started their voyage.

The settlers soon discovered that Indians had cleared the land at Plymouth but had not farmed it for some time. One March day, after a devastating winter of hardship and sickness, an English-speaking Indian named Samoset walked into Plymouth. He had learned English from fishermen he had met along the Maine coast. From Samoset the Pilgrims learned that they had settled on the homeland of the Patuxets, the tribe that disease had wiped out four years earlier. Samoset informed the Pilgrims that the Patuxets had been a large, hostile tribe that viciously murdered any white man who encroached upon their shores. After the death of the Patuxets, no other Indians had inhabited the land for fear of the death curse that might fall on any who settled there. So it came about that God led the Pilgrims to perhaps the one plot of uninhabited land on the East Coast, the very land where Squanto had grown up.

Samoset introduced the Pilgrims to Squanto on March 22, 1621. Squanto brought news that the great Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag and leader of most of the surrounding tribes, was coming to visit the settlers that very day. When Massasoit arrived, Squanto helped the Pilgrims agree to a peace treaty with Massasoit that would last for decades.

When Squanto arrived in Plymouth, the Pilgrims were in desperate straits. Nearly half had died during the previous winter, lacking the skills for survival in their new land. Squanto showed the Pilgrims how to fertilize and protect the corn they planted, how to catch fish from the streams, and how to harvest the food the land provided. If God had not sent Squanto, the Pilgrims would never have survived. One of the Pilgrim leaders called him “a special instrument sent of God for our good, beyond our expectation.”

Reflection

Who has God used to profoundly influence you? God always provides the help his children need. Look around you, and you might be surprised at whom God wants to use in your life.

Abraham named the place “The Lord Will Provide.”

Genesis 22:14