John Sassamon - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Wassausmon was a Massachuset who in 1633 may have lost his family and many villagers during the smallpox epidemic. Historians believe that he had earlier been orphaned and raised in the home of Richard Callicot, where he may have been indentured. By his early teen years, he had been introduced to Christianity and learned to speak English. He is believed to have met and been mentored by the Christian missionary John Eliot during this period, and may have known and worked with him for as long as 40 years. Eliot mentioned the death of Sassamon in his diary.

By the Pequot War (1637), a joint effort by colonists and Native American allies to suppress the Pequot in present-day Connecticut, Sassamon was skilled enough to serve as an interpreter to the colonists. He fought with them alongside Richard Callicot in the service of Captain John Underhill. In 1651, John Eliot established Natick and Ponkapoag as praying towns. They were reserved for Native Americans who had converted to Christianity and were willing to live according to English custom in permanent agricultural settlements. Eliot recruited Sassamon as one of two schoolmasters to teach both English and Christianity to the residents. Sassamon was probably considered among the Natick / Ponkapoag elite, natives who won the respect of English colonists through adoption of Christianity and English custom.