Diary of Little Moon: A Mashpee Wampanoag IndianApril 25, 1619I am ten this year and excited to be included among the women for farming and home care. We have just come back from our winter hunting village. Creator certainly blessed the hunt this season. We did not expect such a bountiful availability of meat. Although I am not sure that there are many hunters left anywhere now. There has been terrible loss from the sickness brought on the trader's ships. Now yet another sickness brought by the white men has devastated our people. Our nation, once 15,000 strong, now numbers less than 2000 on this land (Sutzman). Some villages of our nation are no more. When the traders bring their goods they often bring their sickness.
June 12, 1619During storytelling this night Tisquantum (Squanto) of the Patuxet village has told his story. On one occasion after translating for the white men he was detained on the ship and taken to the white man's village across the ocean and sold (Native Americans.com,
English: Squanto or Tisquantum teaching the Plymou...
English: How Well The Corn Prospered. Squanto or T...
Squanto2007). We have traded with the white men even though they often bring sickness, now we learn that many of these white men do not come to trade; they steal away our people and sell them as slaves. Squanto was lucky to have been purchased by Christian monks who purchased Indian captives to teach them the love of Jesus and set them free (Native Americans.com, 2007). When Squanto returned home his entire family, his entire village had succumbed to the white man's illness in 1617 (Native Americans.com, 2007). Because Tisquantum has no village he has been accepted as a member of our village and is a great help to our sachem Massasoit.
August 20, 1619Mother and I will be joining the other women of the village in gathering supplies...