Thanksgiving Watch: Squanto - a Warrior's Tale (1994)

Watched:  11/24/2025

Format:  Disney+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Xavier Koller

I don't know that I've ever seen a movie make me decide, while watching an uplifting story that's part of the well-worn self-mythologizing of America, that the hero is 100% wrong.  But that's where I landed with Squanto: a Warrior's Tale (1994).   

And maybe that's what director Xavier Koller truly felt we should think.  He's Swiss, not American, and based on the script Disney gave him, it really isn't a compelling argument that Squanto was right that what his fellow locals needed to do was put down their weapons.

Before we get rolling, I have not thought about the narrative of Squanto since I was probably eight years old and we had a children's book about his life, which I can safely say:  I do not remember anything from that book, just that Squanto helped keep the Native Americans and the Pilgrims from murdering each other which led to the first Thanksgiving.  I also vaguely remembered he was not part of any tribe.

As the movie starts, Squanto is having a good week.  He just married Irene Bedard, which is a check in the win column.  But no sooner do they go for a lovers' leisurely stroll than he sees an early 17th Century British ship pulling up to his beach.  He's promptly kidnapped by the Brits who take him back to England, along with a warrior from the neighboring tribe.   

He's sailed to Plymouth, England where he finds himself in the clutches of an evil Michael Gambon.  After being forced to enter an arena and fight a bear (which he sings into a nap), Squanto escapes into the water and washes up on Mandy Patinkin's shore.  Patinkin is playing a friar living in a monastic-type situation.  

Once Squanto settles in with the cloister, he learns English and how to ride a horse.  Oddly, this is the bulk of the movie.  

Squanto's pal is stuck with evil Michael Gambon and has to perform for the amusement of others, until pulling the 'ol "oh, we have gold, I'll show it to you" trick that Europeans seems to fall for every single time.  So a ship readies itself to set sail for Massachusetts, and after shenanigans, Squanto heads back.

Did I mention the mystical hawk that seems to have a spiritual connection to Squanto and which allows the movie to blast a "caw!" at you every ten minutes?  Well, we have one.

Anyhoo, after almost being enslaved and/ or killed by the British for years, Squanto sails back safely to near his home, and to his buddy's tribe.  The buddy sees the Brits acting like colonizers and grabbing the women, so while the Brits sleep on their ship, he sets it on fire.  

Squanto is mad at his pal's tribe for all the murder and returns home only to find his whole tribe is wiped out by disease brought by Europeans, including Irene Bedard.  I mean, at this point, it seems that unless you're a friar, the Brits are a massive problem, and setting the colonizer's boats ablaze with colonizers onboard is the right move.

Instead, as the Pilgrim's arrive, Squanto brokers peace, giving a speech that is absolute nonsense about sharing a sun and moon.  Everyone hugs and has a big dinner.  All will be well!

But before credits roll, we're told that in 20 years Britain says "nah, we're gonna own all that land now".  

Should have burned that Mayflower boat, too, pal.

I kinda wanted to like this movie.  It was not as cringey as I expected - which is good.  The magical Native American stuff was a bit much, and the speech at the end absolutely horrendous.  It doesn't really paint the indigenous tribes as living in a Utopia, but it does portray a functioning society - maybe a little underpopulated and unde- built in our movie compared to reality, but it functions in a hand-wavey sort of way to get the ideas across.  As does the role of the Europeans.

The acting is fine.  The entire movie is clearly Nova Scotia trying to double for both Massachusetts and England.

But the script and editing do the movie itself no favors if we were supposed to think Squanto wasn't a sucker for seeking peace.  And that's a problem.  It makes compelling arguments against our hero all along the way.

Now, from an historical perspective - at least according to a quick Wikipedia check, this movie is only partially accurate, but still is doing way better than Pocahontas for cultural accuracy.  It does feel like whatever movie was being made realized it needed to do some truth telling in the wake of the success of Dances With Wolves and couldn't leave the movie with a kumbaya ending, so we get that text on screen saying "anyway, the Europeans went ahead and did the wrong thing anyway".

I am unaware if the traditionally known figures of colonial North American history like Squanto are even known or discussed in schools these days. I suspect no one knows how to talk about them anymore, and it's not hard to see why.  As a kid, I was basically told Squanto was the friendly buddy of the Pilgrims who helped them out because he was good and so were the Pilgrims, but older and wiser, one suspects Squanto's life before the Pilgrims where he was in Spain and England taught him to get in good with the people with guns and ships, that he knew they had the wealth and might of Europe behind them.  It certainly colors his motivations as less than simple kindness.