Continue Reading Below Advertisement

He was much more helpful than Tisanalog and Tisdigital.

Tisquantum became Squanto, the archetypal friendly Indian. He helped the white man out, and in return the white man invited him to his bitching party. Even Steven! We suppose now you're going to tell us that Squanto doesn't accept payment in turkey. We have a word for people who go back on deals, Squanto. It's called ... well, never mind.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

WHAT HAPPENED:

Guns, germs and steel.

Native Americans got it worse than anybody in this country's history, and despite being the mascot for how great everyone was getting along back then, Squanto was one of the best examples. Kidnapped by an Englishman, purchased by Spanish friars and somehow able to talk his way back home, the guy had every right to hate England. When his buddy Samoset introduced him to the Pilgrims at the end of a mean winter, Squanto could have left them to suffer from freezing, starvation and Englishness.

Instead of generalizing, he taught them farming and hunting methods, while negotiating a little farm-aid from the Wampanoag tribe. If there was anything to be thankful for in 1621, it was Tisquantum. He corrected the Pilgrims' method of working the earth at high-speed to the sound of "Yakety-Sax."

But he didn't just save the Pilgrims from nature; he saved them from getting indiscriminately whacked, and paid for it with his life.

After five years of eating terrible pub food, Tisquantum made it back to his village only to discover that everyone had died of plague. All his family, all his friends, Shakespeare* ... dead in the five years he'd been in England. So on the bright side: he was now chief of his tribe. On the much darker side: