Squanto: A Native Odyssey Book Launch with Author Dr. Andrew Lipman
In-person and Online
About the Event
Join Plimoth Patuxet Museums and author Dr. Andrew Lipman as he launches his new book Squanto: A Native Odyssey (release date September 17, 2024). In this book, Dr. Lipman takes a fresh look at Squanto, the man famously associated with Plymouth Colony's early survival. Following the lecture, signed books will be available for purchase.
About the Book
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 Dr. 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? Was it true that he converted to Christianity on his deathbed? Drawing from a wide range of evidence and newly uncovered sources, Dr. 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.
About the Author
Andrew Lipman joined the Barnard faculty in 2015 after five years teaching at Syracuse University. His research interests include the Atlantic World, Early America, Native Americans, violence, technology, and the environment. His first book, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast, won the 2016 Bancroft Prize in American History. His second book, Squanto: A Native Odyssey, was released in 2024.
Dr. Lipman’s work has appeared in The Cambridge History of America and the World, Common-place, Early American Studies, Reviews in American History, and The William and Mary Quarterly and he’s contributed to Slate and TIME. His
research has been supported by the American Philosophical Society, The
Huntington Library, The International Seminar in the History of the
Atlantic World at Harvard, the John Carter Brown Library, Mystic Seaport
Museum, and the New-York Historical Society. He has consulted on
exhibits and programs at the Museum of the City of New York, N-YHS,
Plimoth Patuxet Museums, and the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Museum of the American Indian in New York and its National Museum of
American History in Washington. Additionally, he has served as a
consultant for television series and documentaries for PBS, TLC, and
the History Channel. Dr. Lipman is an elected fellow of the Colonial
Society of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the
Society of American Historians.
At Barnard, Dr. Lipman teaches a variety of courses, including “Introduction to American History to 1865,” “Early America to 1763,” “Revolutionary America, 1763-1815,” “Colonial Gotham: The History of New York City, 1609-1776,” and “A History of Violence: Force and Power in Early America.” He has also led graduate seminars at Columbia on Early American History and Native American History.