Thomas Dermer

Thomas Dermer (c. 1590 in Plymouth, England – died in the summer of 1620, in Virginia) was a 17th-century navigator and explorer. Thomas Dermer explored the eastern coastline of America from 1614 to 1620. He was associated with Captain John Smith, The Newfoundland Company, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Jamestown, The Plymouth Company, and The Merchant Adventurers. Dermer, working side by side with Squanto, is credited with starting to normalize the relations between the Native Americans and Europeans. He was known to the Pilgrims from copies of his letters, that they had obtained. The Pilgrim colony directly benefited from the diplomatic ground work of Dermer and Squanto.

1614 to 1618: Explorations Born in Plymouth, England, Dermer first went to New England with Captain John Smith, who was sent out in 1614 by London merchants to lay the foundations of a new plantation and to trade with the Native Americans there. Dermer was to accompany Smith on his 1615 voyage to New England but the ship, after encountering pirates and the French, finally made its way back to Plymouth with great difficulty.

Dermer then spent some time in Newfoundland, 1616–18, with his associate, Governor John Mason, at Cuper's Cove (now Cupids), where he was possibly engaged in the fishing business but more likely involved in explorations of the island's natural resources. He wrote a letter, dated September 9, 1616, from Cuper's Cove, in which he describes in favorable terms the fertility of the soil, abundance of wildlife, and mineral potentialities, an evidence of his interest in the commercial possibilities of the area.

After their initial survey of the abandoned Patuxet village, the English and Tisquantum, proceeded inland to find survivors and to learn more of what had happened. After a day's journey westward they arrived at the inhabited village of Namasket (Middleborough, MA).

The outrage of Hunt's actions of 1614 caused hatred and distrusted between the Europeans and the Indians, to the point that when in 1617 a French fishing ship was shipwrecked on the shores of Cape Cod a few men escaped death only by being enslaved by the Nausets; all the others were killed. Dermer wrote: "...for which cause (the previous kidnappings and acts of violence of the Europeans) Squanto cannot deny but they would have killed me when I was at Namasket, had not he (Squanto) entreated hard for me..." Afterwards Dermer sent a messenger "...a day's journey farther west to Poconaokit (Bristol, Rhode Island), which bordereth on the sea, whence came to see me two kings, attended with a guard of fifty men, who being well satisfied with what my savage (Tisquantum) and I discoursed unto them, (being desirous of novelty,) gave me content in whatsoever I demanded, where I found that former relations were true". The 'kings' were Massasoit and his brother Quadequina. Dermer then writes: "...Here I redeemed a Frenchman, and afterwards another at Mastachusit, who three years since escaped shipwreck at the north-east of Cape Cod...".

Dermer returned with his men and Tisquantum to the boat at Patuxet, where they explored a few more days what are now the islands of Boston Harbor, prospecting for gold. By mid-June 1619, Dermer and his crew returned to Monhegan; Tisquantum was dropped off at Sawahquatooke

Dermer's Letter of June 30, 1620 A fully recovered Dermer left Jamestown in May 1620 heading to New England to "accomplish what his last discovery had omitted". He met with the Dutch at Manhattan and warned them that they were trespassers on English claims, afterwards he went on to New England. Extracts from this letter, which appears in New England's Memorial, makes a prescient statement, "...I will first begin with that place whence Squanto, or Tisquantum was taken away, which in Captain's Smith's map is called Plimouth...I would that the first plantation might here be seated, if there come to the number of fifty persons or upwards..." Five months later, in November 1620, the Mayflower will arrive at the tip of Cape Cod, and then six weeks later, deliver 102 Pilgrims, who also possess of a copy of Captain Smith's map, to this very place where they will found the colony of Plimoth Plantation, at the abandoned village of Patuxet.

1620: Death Nathaniel Morton, states that after Dermer wrote the June 1620 relation (letter), "...he came to the island of Capaock, which lieth south from this place, in the way to Virginia, and the aforesaid Squanto with him; where he going ashore amongst the Indians to trade as he used to do, was assaulted and betrayed by them, and all his men slain, but one that kept the boat; but got on board very sore wounded, and they had cut off his head upon the cuddy of the boat, had not his man rescued him with a sword..." According to Jeremy Belknap, Epenow believed that Dermer had come to take him back to England.

John Smith reported that Dermer escaped with multiples wounds (up to fourteen) and immediately returns to Virginia where he dies of complications of those wounds. In the 1650s Gorges would write that Dermer "..had the misfortune to fall sick and die of the infirmity many of our nation are subject unto at their first coming into those parts." Morton in New England's Memorial goes on to state that after the attack at Capoack, "...and so they (Dermer and one other) got away, and made shift to get to Virginia, where he died, whether of his wounds, or the diseases of the country, or both, is uncertain."

Legacy Captain Dermer, with the help of Tisquantum, began the process of normalizing relations with the New England Indians after years of kidnappings by Europeans (1525: Estevão Gomes, 1600s: Captains George Weymouth, Edward Harlow, Thomas Hunt, and others). The Nausets were hostile, but the Wampanoag Confederacy would take a more measured approach with the Europeans after Dermer's work and the social and political upheavals from the devastating epidemics of 1616 to 1618.

The result of Dermer's 1619 mission was quite satisfactory to his employers, who in their published manifesto gave him the credit of ".. making peace between the Indians of those parts and the English... of which the colony of New Plymouth afterwards reaped the benefits."

Fictional Reference British actor Nathaniel Parker portrayed Captain Thomas Dermer in the 1994 movie Squanto: A Warrior's Tale.