The stories we tell ourselves: The great American saga

Historian Andrew Lipman’s latest biography, “Squanto: A Native Odyssey,” reminded me of a less than obvious reality — namely, that his book’s folkloric namesake did, in fact, exist. Squanto, arguably the second most famous Native (after Pocahontas), was a real person whose real backstory equipped him serendipitously to assist the real Pilgrims.

Of course, I knew that. Every American schoolchild does (or should). Nevertheless, it struck me as strange that the archetypal hero of whom our collective memory tends toward mythological embellishment was just as real as anyone I might encounter at the grocery store.

The great American folklore is one of our most precious national treasures. But Squanto was no Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed. He was, like Christopher Columbus, Paul Revere, and George Washington, a man whose life surpassed his flesh-and-blood existence. The fact that we have, for centuries, venerated him, tells us a lot about ourselves. 

From time immemorial, societies, cultures, and tribes tell themselves stories about their heroes. Those stories and heroes, in turn, convey important truths about the people’s values. This has been true of the Greeks, the Romans, and obscure communities long since forgotten. Roman homes, for example, prominently featured imagines maiorum, wax masks honoring and prolonging the memory of deceased ancestors. In Shakespeare’s telling of the great drama, Gaius Cassius Longinus taunted Marcus Junius Brutus:

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods! …
Now is it Rome indeed, and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say
There was a Brutus once that would have brooked
Th’eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.

Such words carried dreadful weight for the senator of Et tu, Brute? repute, a man whose ancestral past seemed to obligate him to kill the tyrant, his friend, Julius Caesar. Cassius essentially constrained Brutus to participate in the assassination on the grounds of his long-distant predecessor’s famed opposition to monarchy. According to one analysis, “Centuries earlier, a distant ancestor of Brutus named Lucius Junius Brutus led the rebellion which overthrew the oppressive Roman monarchy in order to establish the republic. According to Cassius, Brutus’ ancestor would have tolerated a devil ruling Rome before allowing Rome to be ruled by a king.” Amazingly, the senior Brutus led his revolt in 509 BC; 465 years later, in 44 BC, Marcus stabbed Ceaser.

How many of us today are influenced by 465-year-old stories about our ancestors? Marcus Brutus knew the stories, and those stories shaped his values. He, like Lucious, valued freedom from tyranny and bold, dramatic violence in the face of despotic rule.

The Romans, of course, were not unique in this regard. How many of our own stories — whether fictional, historical, or somewhere in between — convey similar truths about the complex, precarious relationship between man and power? George Washington has become our Cincinnatus, a hero whose very name speaks parables about relinquishing authority. U.S. presidents were not term-limited until 1951: until then, every president (besides Franklin Roosevelt) looked to the almost mythical fables about Washington in much the same way Brutus looked to his ancestor. Washington’s two-term-only precedent may not have been legally binding, but it was indissoluble in an even more serious sense. Who (besides Roosevelt) would dare defy the father of his country?

Notably, however, many ancient cultures might not have celebrated Washington or seen his defining qualities as strengths. Societies that revered powerful kings or worshipped their heroes as gods, for example, might have perceived Washington’s meekness as a weakness. The fact that Americans, from the early days of the Republic, have repeatedly told and retold these stories — passing them down like a sacred treasure from one generation to the next — reveals what we have historically valued in our leaders. From the start, we learned that we wanted more leaders like Washington, and so we perpetuated the myth (?) . Author Mason Locke Weems invented the popular cherry tree fable to exhibit the man’s “Great Virtues.” Painter Emanuel Leutze memorialized Washington’s masculine valiance while crossing the Delaware. The whole of American society and the historical enterprise seems to declare over the first president’s life, “Remember this man! Emulate him!”

Thus, legends are born. Great men arise on the battlefield and in the arena, yes. But even great men are often forgotten. Legends — great men who outlive themselves — are forged around campfires, where pioneers weave their folk tales and sagas, in the classroom, where teachers and students recite commemorative poems, and at simple wooden desks, where historians recapture the sweeping American epic.

And what role did Squanto play in that cross-generational narrative?

Firstly, Squanto represents the all-important American spirit of adventure. Although we do not often think of Squanto as an adventurer, his life attests to the many obstacles he overcame — kidnapping, slavery in Europe, and the death of his entire Patuxet tribe — all of which uniquely positioned him to assist the Pilgrims. He was an archetypal underdog, much like Joseph, the Hebrew who suffered betrayal, was sold into slavery, and faced the extinction of his people, equipping him “to save much people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

Secondly, Squanto serves the frequently recurring role of the Divinely-appointed guide. Every Fellowship needs its Gandalf — the trusted Good Samaritan, without whom, survival is impossible. The American saga is replete with exactly this kind of character, legends like Sacagawea and Thomas A. Watson, who played irreplaceable roles at pivotal moments in history, while figures like Frederick Douglass, in a larger sense, guided the nation from apathy about injustice to moral indignation. Heroes like these capture and embody the central American virtue of compassion and service to one’s fellow man.

Finally, Squanto serves as an altogether fitting reminder of why we should give thanks. How often throughout our history has the American dream narrowly been saved — by what? Sheer coincidence? Dumb luck? Divine providence? What if Squanto had perished with the rest of his Patuxet family? What if he hadn’t known how to translate the English language for the crew of the Mayflower? The possibilities are grim to consider.

But thank God it didn’t happen that way. That is why we celebrate Thanksgiving. That is why Thanksgiving itself — particularly, the story of the first Thanksgiving — has become such an integral part of the great American narrative.  

The story of our great country and the great men and women who made it should thrill us. It should make us grateful. We ought to join the bards of yesteryear to preserve these tales, to ensure our children and grandchildren are acquainted with every myth and legend of this storybook land.

Every people group is morally obligated to maintain their oral and written traditions. As the Greeks say, “If a man doesn't boast about his house, it will fall on him.” Thanksgiving, the culmination of an abundance of gratefulness for our shared, larger-than-life heritage and the holiday marking God’s hand of protection over this nation, is the perfect day to begin.