Squanto had been kidnapped by English sailors fifteen years before and taken to London, where he was trained to be a guide and interpreter and learned English. He managed to escape on a returning boat. By chance, or through God’s providence, the Pilgrims had hit America next to the tribal home of the Native American who was certainly the only fluent native-English speaker for hundreds of miles around and arguably the most fluent English speaker on the entire continent: and he had been delivered into their hands, or they into his.
