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Dr. Douglas Peake retells the story of Squanto in a special episode of The Salty Pastor Podcast.
Just like Matthew 5:13 says, Christians are the salt of the earth so join us as we find our saltiness on our journey through life together. Listen as Dr. Douglas Peake dives deep into the topics of his sermons each week, breaking down content, discussing evidence, telling stories and speaking into current events using biblical truths and principals.
[00:00:00] We can give thanks for the divine hand of God, leading and guiding the establishment of the first people who came to the Americas, and they came in order to pursue their faith.
Hello everyone. I am Dr. Douglas Peake and I am your Salty Pastor. And I am here wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving celebration. Today is going to be a special episode of the Salty Pastor. And I wanted to just take an opportunity to be greatful. For everything that God is doing in your life and in my life and in the world today, and help you celebrate this special day where we give thanks for all that we have and all that we've become to God.
And where this special day [00:01:00] came from. But first thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for telling your friends about the Salty Pastor. We've had an incredible run of growth here, and we just want to see God do new things, uh, in the new year, in order to help bless people, to learn about their faith in order to grow their faith, by employing
the critical thinking skills that are necessary for confident, courageous living, for the capacity to navigate obstacles and problems and deal with the harsh realities of life. And in the midst of those difficulties experienced joy. And that's what the Salty Pastor is all about. Helping you discover the strength of your faith so that you may live in joy.
Now, today. I wanted to tell you the story of TIS Squantum otherwise known as [00:02:00] Squanto, it's an interesting story and it is encapsulated in the story of the first Thanksgiving celebrated by, the pilgrims with the Wampanoags tribe. Now Squanto, as he's commonly known as wasn't a member initially of the Wampanoags, he was a Pawtuxet Indian.
Now this story today doesn't resolve revolve around the pilgrims, and all the events that led up to their adventures across the North Atlantic and the founding of the new colony. And it's not a story of the Mayflower compact and how they set up their colony. It is actually a story of salvation. That's right.
It is how their salvation came through an Indian. Some call them Native Americans today. Who was known as Squanto. Now it is in his story [00:03:00] that I want to tell you about this Thanksgiving day. Now Squanto who was born in the region surrounding Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the 1580s. Now we really don't know anything about his early life, except that he grew up in the Patuxet
Tribe. The neighboring time, the Wampanoags, uh, we're like distant cousins, so to speak. It wasn't a very large tribe, but they had a summer village, they inhabited right on the coast. And their daily existence revolved around the catching of fish, the planting and harvesting of corn and hunting, primarily foul, but they also would enjoy large game like deer.
That was an occasional treat. Now the, an order to understand the entire story of Squanto. We now need to understand who John Smith was and what he [00:04:00] did now. John Smith is known for starting the first British cannot. John Smith is known for starting the first British colony in the Americas known as James down in Jamestown, Virginia.
Now this colony was established purely on the basis of Ben's business interests, the place where they decided to land in and build the colony was an estuary. Meaning there were all these fingers and tributaries. In this region where a number of what is commonly known as tributary tribes of Indians. Now these Indians or Native Americans had a sustainable economy that revolved around fishing and the planting and harvesting of corn and hunting.
Therefore, when the British landed and found a Jamestown, they didn't really care because the land had no useful purpose for them. On the other hand, the primary goal of the British colony, was tobacco farming. You're a patent insatiable thirst for tobacco products. And so the land where [00:05:00] Jamestown was founded was chosen for the potential to grow tobacco.
And the Indians had no knowledge of tobacco at this time. Now what's interesting about the Jamestown colony is that the values clash between these first colonists and the native Americans was immediate and it escalated quickly. Now, due to the time we have today together, I can't describe everything that went on, but suffice it to say that the leader of the colony John Smith was unfavored by the early colonists.
So he and his two ships sailed up the coastline to find a new Virginia. What he discovered, uh, came to be known as New England. He and his other ship captain by it was captain by his Lieutenant, Thomas Hunt, sailed into the Cape Cod bay around 1614. And this was about six or seven years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
Now Squanto who is in his early [00:06:00] twenties when John Smith and Thomas Hunt sailed into the Cape Cod bay, uh, had an interesting encounter. You see now John Smith and Thomas Hunt met the protects tribe. And then Thomas Hunt, without permission or knowledge of John Smith lured 24 Patuxet onto his ship under the deception of trading.
Once they were on the ship, he immediately set sail for the Spanish coast. So he entrapped them and his intent was to sell them into slavery in the Spanish slave markets. Now, John Smith did not know this and was unaware of it because he was on the other ship and he was sailing back to a different spot.
Now, what is interesting is once Thomas Hunt got to the Spanish coast where the slave markets existed, he brought him a [00:07:00] Squanto out to be sold in the market and on the day. And this is what's really remarkable. When you think about this story on the day that Squanto was presented to be sold, there were some Belgian Monks
in the crowd. Now, these Belgian Monks had started a ministry. And the ministry they started is that they would go to the slave markets. They would scrounge together what little money they could, and they would get donations from Christians in small churches in Northwestern Europe. And then they would redeem or purchase people who had been captive and made to be sold as slaves in the slave markets against their will.
On this particular day, Squanto was there. And these Belgian Monks purchased him in [00:08:00] order to set him free. It's really interesting. Why in the world would a Patuxet Indian from Cape Cod who was captured against his will, taken across the Atlantic ocean, sold in a slave market, and be bought by Christian Belgian Monks.
Well, we're going to answer that question in just a moment. The reason why. The Belgium Monks purchased various peoples, particularly natives was for education and evangelism. It was their hope that they could redeem these natives who were captured against their will. They could teach them English. They could then lead them to the Christian faith to discover Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Then they could return to their native land and share the gospel. Now, this is [00:09:00] a phenomenal upstream idea. And that is when these guys come, we're going to redeem them. We're going to lead them to Christ and we're going to send them back home. So the first thing they did is they taught Squanto how to speak English and then Squanto becomes a follower of Christ.
Finally, they taught him about the culture in which he lived or was living at this time and then useful skills that he could barter employment with in order to get back home. Then an opportunity came. And so the monks grounds together a little bit more money. And they sent him to England where he started to work because he could speak English.
And because he had skills that he was taught, he started working in various areas. He eventually got employed on a ship heading back to North America where he returned home. So the story of [00:10:00] Squanto is really interesting in that he was captured, he was taken to Spain and then sold in the slave markets by Christian Monks who purchased his freedom
in that moment. They taught him English. They taught him skills. And they taught him about Jesus Christ. So now Squanto has been given the power and the skillset to get back to his native country. And that's exactly what happens sometime in 1619, he arrived back in what is now known today as Cape Cod. So let's talk a little bit about what happened when he returned.
Now, when he got back to his native land, he went to the small village right there on the coast. And what he found was very disheartening. His village was empty, even though it should have been filled with his people. [00:11:00] So he went to the neighboring tribe, the Wampanoags, and they told him that a disease or a precelance had come through the land and killed all of those in his tribe.
And in that moment he learned, he was the last one of his tribe alive. They also told them that from the moment that it happened, All the other tribes around considered that village as cursed. So no other Indian would ever go up to that area. So since they were distant cousins, he joined their tribe and lived among them. One year later,
the pilgrims show up. Now, before we talk about the meeting between the pilgrims and Squanto, you need to understand a little bit about the pilgrims and this is a part of history that is never taught in our schools anymore. [00:12:00] And I'd like to share it with you now. Okay. You need to understand that right after the Protestant reformation in the early 1500.
King Henry the eighth saw an opening to get what he wanted. Now there are differing views on Henry the eighth. Was he a good guy or a bad guy? Everybody agrees though. He was very influential, influential. Now, from my perspective, as a Christian and a theologian and a historian, I want to point out that he is the one who argued and implemented the divine right of Kings.
And this is heresy against Orthodox Christianity. What he said basically is that God had created Royal people better than everybody else. So only they had the blood bright to rule. This of course was heresy. Now. No one understands that he did this anymore because our history has been [00:13:00] whitewashed. And nobody wants to talk about the religious or Christian influence in what he did and how it impacted everybody.
Now, King Henry the eighth, uh, was in a pickle because he really wanted a male heir to the throne, but he couldn't find a woman to birth him one. And so he's known for going through lots and lots of wives. Now as a Catholic, he was required with one of his wives before he can marry another woman to get an annulment.
But the, at that time he was in a political struggle with the Pope. So when he requested to have his first marriage, uh, annulled, the Pope
refused.
So then king Henry seeing an opening because of the Protestant reformation split England off from the Roman Catholic church and started the Anglican church.
What's interesting is the basic structure was Roman [00:14:00] Catholicism, except the difference was the king was the pope. Now after his death, his daughter Mary, took over the throne and she wanted to return England back to Roman Catholicism. And so her reign became known as bloody Mary because she murdered Christians like crazy to get what she wanted.
It was really, really brutal. And it was at this point, we're Protestant christians are predominantly Catholic, formed what is known as the underground church in England. And in this underground church, they employed a congregational style of leadership. And what that means is that they were basically representative democracies.
And even though the Magna Carta, which was signed in 12 hundreds by king John, it granted rights to individuals that granted property rights and so forth. Uh, Kings took it back and tried to undermine it for at least a hundred or so [00:15:00] years, but it took about 300 years because before it actually became a value among various Christians, because it was coupled with the Protestant reformation.
Now a Bloody Mary died before, too long. And her sister Elizabeth took over the throne. And she returned to King Henry's vision for the Anglican church. However, She based it on the Divine Right of Kings and wanted to use the church purely for political control. And this is where the underground church started to shrink because there was a group of people who wanted to go back into the Anglican church and say it was okay, but there was also a group of people who said look, this congregational form of church leadership is preferred because of the Christian doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.
There isn't a Divine Right [00:16:00] of Kings, there isn't a Divine Right of this. We are all equal before Christ. And so. A man by the name of Brown, Robert Brown, led a separatists group away from the Anglican church. And what they basically said is we want to be independent. We don't want to be ruled or a part of the Anglican communion.
And so they believe that the church should have autonomy from the government. And this is the earliest personification of the idea of separation of church and state that the church should not be controlled by the state for political purposes. Well, the Elizabethton regime, persecuted them harshly. So they left for the more tolerant Holland.
And while they were in Holland, it was very small. The, they didn't do really, really well, but they were known as Brown Separatists or Brownness Puritans. As a matter of fact, William Shakespeare in his, uh, play. I [00:17:00] believe it's called 12 nights. He actually references the brownness and their separatists activity in one of his
lines. Now while they were in Holland, they saw their children growing up and they felt that their children were adopting the culture too rapidly. So they put together a project to immigrate to the New America where they could practice their faith in freedom. So just over a hundred pilgrims were on the Mayflower and it was a small ship, just over a a hundred feet.
It wasn't very big. Uh, my wife and I actually toured, uh, exact replica of the Mayflower when we went on our trip to Boston this fall. And it was pretty small to say the least, and they were packed in there with their animals and their food and everything that they could bring with them to immigrate. [00:18:00] And so in 1620, leave late in the year, they pulled up on the Massachusetts coast, and initially they stayed on the ship for quite some time actually, before they finally found a place where they were going to disembark and start a colony. And you know, where they wanted to start their colony on the exact site of Squanto former village.
That's exactly where they wanted to go. And so this was land that none of the Indians wanted. They didn't want anything to do with it. And so the pilgrims started there, and in the first that first winter, 50% of the pilgrims died. Either through a hunger or disease or exposure. And so during this period of time, things were looking pretty bleak and that's when the pilgrims met[00:19:00]
Squanto. And Squanto basically saved their lives. And this is how he did it first and foremost, because the Puritans were devout Christians. Squanto had an affinity for them because he was a Christian and he had been saved by Belgian Monks. And so there was a connection there. The second thing that happened between Squanto and the pilgrams,
was that he saw they were in dire straits. So he taught them how to build better structures, uh, to survive the elements in the spring. He introduced them to corn. And so what they would do is they, uh, initially started planting corn as a harvest in the fall. They had no idea what Corn was. Uh, back then, it's really interesting.
But what they would do is they would dig a hole and they'd throw a [00:20:00] whole ear of corn down in it, you know, and see what would grow up. And what Squanto taught them to do is he taught them how to use dead fish, how to get fish out of the ocean and then use the parts of the fish that they can't eat and so forth as compost in order to fertilize the corn, he also taught them how to
plant them in rows that it would quash cross pollinate so that it would actually produce more ears of corn. And then he taught them how to keep the animals away from the rotting fish. And then he taught them how to use other riding fish in order to attract animals in which they could trap. And then eat. So basically what Squanto did in his relationship with the pilgrims is he taught them how to survive in the new world.
And if it wasn't for Squanto has a relationship with them, the early pilgrims would have never survived. And so [00:21:00] let me ask you a question at this point, in the telling of this story, do you find it coincidence or divinely guided. By the hand of God that a young Indian in his twenties was captured, sold into slavery and redeemed by Christian Monks. Given perfect, uh, skills in order for him to get back home to his native country, finally gets there.
And then one year later meets people who came to the new world to pursue their faith and freedom. That is an interesting story to me. And because of the success and the sharing of Squanto's knowledge with those early Puritans, they were able to have a harvest in the fall. And the chief of the Wampanoags tribe brought his Braves and all of their people, [00:22:00] and they sat down and they had a great feast together, to celebrate
what had happened. And here's, what's really interesting. I just like to point out that the Jamestown colony from its earliest days had conflict with all the Native Americans, but the colony in the North had a peace treaty with the tribal Indians that lasted almost 50 years. And so it was a mutually beneficial relationship.
Where they would trade improving the lives of the Native Americans and improving the lives of the Puritans. And so what we see here is the hand of God guiding these things so that when these people came, they were able to not only survive but to thrive. And so today I do believe that in [00:23:00] America, we can give thanks.
We can give thanks for the divine hand of God, leading and guiding the establishment of the first people who came, to the Americas. And they came in order to pursue their faith. Now, today, when you go back and you look at what they built, it's absolutely remarkable because so many of the values of these early
Puritans, have been the values that have helped so many people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of any type of barrier experienced part of the American dream. You see the early Puritans, the pilgrims came and they believed in one thing. And that was hard work.
That is we must work and we must be productive. Not only for ourselves, but for everybody else. The second thing that the [00:24:00] Puritans these pilgrims believed in was congregational leadership in their church. And that is, uh, the person who led the congregation was elected by the people in it. And so this is this first form of a representative democracy taking root in the New Americas.
Number three, that Native Americans and the Indians, or to be treated with respect and we needed to honor our commitments to them. And that's what they initially did. They also believed in educating. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons why the Puritans were so much more successful than the early colonies in the south is because the Puritans had some of the most extensive
educational system. They taught all of their kids how to read and write. They taught all their kids about sexual purity and they taught all of their kids about [00:25:00] the value of hard work. And so these values, all of these upstream ideas are the ideas that were woven into the initial founding of our nation.
Now that is worth giving thanks for. So on this Thanksgiving day, I just want to encourage you to think of how God even through great difficulties and tragedies, led Squanto to be in the exact place at the exact time that the pilgrims needed him. You know, I know that your life may have a lot of difficulties this Thanksgiving.
I know that over the last 18 to 24 months, we've had to suffer through so many obstacles and problems due to COVID. Some of it is directly due to the pandemic itself. I know many of you have gotten COVID. I know many of you who have had to suffer through long recoveries. [00:26:00] I know people who've lost loved ones because of COVID.
I also know people who are impacted by all of the things that the government did to try to mitigate the impact of COVID. Businesses that were lost because they were shut down, livelihoods that were gone. Uh, families were, were broken apart, uh, because everything was politicized about it. I know that there are a lot of things that look back over the last 24 months and say, man, things are so bad.
They're so difficult. There's such a mess. Yeah. We could look back. We couldn't remember all the bad things. Those early pilgrims could look back and say, well, one out of, two of us are dead and we barely survived, but they didn't choose to do that. They said, let us give, thanks. You see my friend. It is the attitude of gratitude.
It is the heart that can give thanks. Even in the midst of the darkest hour [00:27:00] is the heart that ultimately experiences joy. And joy is an upstream value. It is something that brings focus. It brings courage. It brings perseverance to our lives. You and I we've been given one life to live. We choose what that will be.
We choose whether we want to know and walk with God. We choose whether we will believe what he says about. Or believe what the world says about us. We know that our hearts are living souls, spiritual beings, and that this has been tainted by the world and its lusts. It's sin. And unless we take care of that tank, unless we deal with it, we'll never walk in the fullness of we who we are [00:28:00] called to be.
And that is the beauty of the redemption of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ came and he gave himself as a living sacrifice so that you and I could be set free from the influence of the taint. And we could walk in the fullness of new creation. And that redemption is what caused those early pilgrims to say, we don't want to be an arm of the government.
We want to be autonomous. It was that redemption that led them to Holland to try to find a new place to live and pursue their faith and freedom. It was that redemption that caused those little churches in North Western Europe to collect money and then give it to monks, who were in Spain, it was redemption that caused those monks to go to the slave markets that day [00:29:00] and to take what little money they had and purchase the freedom of Squanto.
It was redemption that taught them, help them to teach them English, lead him to Christ, and then set him free. So return back home with the skills that he needed. It was because of redemption that allowed Squanto to go and be of help in his time of need. And it was redemption on the day of Thanksgiving where they said, thank you God, for who you are and the blessings that you have given us, my friends, this Thanksgiving, don't let the opportunity to give thanks to God for the redemption of your soul.
Live in it, breathe it, walk it, love it. It will be the most filling wellspring of your life. You'll never have want, you'll never thirst again. [00:30:00] When you drink of the water that Jesus gives. Happy Thanksgiving.