Read it through once

This first Indian to come among the Englishmen was Samoset, whose home was in Maine. He told the Pilgrims of yet another English-speaking Indian, Squanto by name, who had more fluency in the language than he. Small wonder that he did, for Squanto had been kidnapped by one Thomas Hunt in 1614, sold into slavery in Spain only to escape to England, where he found a home with the treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. He made at least one round trip to America and back before returning again in 1618; jumping ship, he made his way back to his home at Plymouth only to find that his people had been wiped out by the disease of the year before. The role of these two Indians in the first years of the Pilgrims’ life in America was immense. Before March had run its course, they had arranged a meeting between the English and Massasoit, the chief of the local Wampanoags, which resulted in the concluding of a treaty of peace and mutual assistance. It was Squanto who instructed the Pilgrims in the ways of planting corn with herring taken from the local brooks where they ran thick in the spring. This first corn crop was to assume a critical role in their life before the year was out.