Little is known about Tisquantum’s early life, but what is known is that he was abducted from his homeland as a slave by an Englishman, Thomas Hunt, in 1614. He ended up in Malaga, Spain, where a group of Franciscans bought him in order to free him. It is apparently thanks to these Franciscans that he received baptism and became Catholic, though it is not clear to what extent he was catechized and practiced his new faith.

Tisquantum [...] years earlier, he had been lured, along with about two dozen other Wampanoag, onto a British ship bound for a slave market in Spain, according to James Seelye Jr and Shawn Selby, historians at Kent State University and authors of Shaping North America: From Exploration to the American Revolution. He escaped with the help of Catholic Friars and made his way to London, where he lived with John Slaney, treasurer of the Newfoundland Company, which had colonized Cuper’s Cove in Newfoundland in 1610. Tisquantum likely used this connection to depart England for home, working on a ship for Captain John Mason, the Newfoundland Colony’s governor. He then found passage on another ship that brought him south, where he eventually made his way back to Patuxet.