On the morning of March 20th 2026, in preparation for the commencement of our Andalusian Cultural Debris Excursion, Alan Cornett, Gavin Bledsoe, my wife, Laura and I were at the bus station in Malaga, Spain, to purchase tickets for our journeys to Ronda, Granada, Cordoba and back to Malaga over the following two weeks. A pleasant morning, having dined at the rich breakfast buffet and having walked through the explosion of senses that was the main market of Malaga before reaching the bus station. It was 1230, the promise of a leisurely afternoon upon completion of the task.

Just then I received a message from a long time Twitter mutual, but one with whom I have never spoken. John Johnson issued a strange and, from what I could tell, hopeful challenge. He asked whether we had the time to go to the State Historical Archive in Malaga to “snap a picture of a notarial deed dated 22 Oct 1614, Cap’t Thomas Hunt to Juan Bautista Reales for the transfer of a score of ‘indios’.” he continued that Tisquantum, aka Squanto was in the group of kidnapped natives. “Though this deed was re-discovered in 2012 there appears to be no image of it available Capt Thomas Hunt had been working with Captain John Smith mapping the New England Coast.”

I read these messages out loud to our party: a wife who is always open to adventure and two historians who understand the importance of this lark should it succeed. So while Laura and I completed the bus ticket purchases we sent Alan and Gavin ahead to the State Archive and then we followed close behind.

Laura and I arrived at 1:15 pm. This being 45 minutes before closing on a Friday afternoon before a week long school holiday for Holy Week, when we walked in the door, the look on the security guard’s face said he had no time for and American adventure. I looked him in the eyes and asked in poor Spanish, “Donde estan mis Amigos?” He thought for half a second, then pointed with his left arm down the hall. We walked into a small office where a small man in a white lab coat was telling Alan and Gavin it was not possible. They both looked at me and said it looked like they may not be able to help us.

Enter Carmen Jurado, the newly installed chief of research in the Archives. She comes in and asks what is happening. We explain to Carmen in broken Spanish and broken English that the Native American who helped the Pilgrims survive in Massachusetts was sold here in Malaga in 1614 and that the record was here. Carmen says the notarial deed certainly exists but may be difficult to find. If you only had the year. We tell her it was 1614. She pulls up a list of the books from 29 notaries whose work they have from 1614. She asks who the notary was. We have no idea.

They say they can’t go through 29 archives to look for it. Also it’s all in old Spanish which nobody speaks or reads and it’ll be hard to locate even if they know the Notary. So Alan and Gavin get to work. Gavin finds an article in the internet archive that seems to have a partial picture of the document. Carmen and the other archivist decipher the name after 15 min. They find that name in their cross reference.

At this point Carmen runs out the door and up the stairs and goes to the vault to look while the lab coat gentleman, named Bernardo, asks for my life history, driver’s license number and a lien on my grandchildren. Totally worth it. Suddenly Carmen sweeps in the door like a champion to say she found the volume. It is tremendously delicate. Opening it may break some pages. Does it have to be today because if so the answer will be no.

We ask her if this is interesting to them. Both very seriously nod their heads. We tell them this is very important to the United States and many of our friends. Carmen tells us she will find it but that it takes time. White linen gloves and patience. We tell her to take her time. She says she will take a picture and email it to me.

So here’s why all this is important: Reales and Hunt recorded the deed in the state archives. Two deeds. In the first Hunt tells of how they rescued Indians who had been in a boat and asked for rescue. In the second, Reales tells that Hunt went ashore and captured them intending to sell them into the North African slave trade. Reales ransomed them from slavery. After Squanto was sold by the Englishman to the Spaniard, a Carmelite priest, said Spaniard spread the “indios” out to families to care for them for a period of 8 years.

Squanto worked at the parish of the Holy Martyrs and became Catholic. He was baptized and confirmed in Málaga. The after 2 years in Malaga, Squanto walked onto a ship and made his way to England where he worked and learned English. He paid his passage back across the ocean and found his Wampanoag tribesmen. Then when the Pilgrims landed they found a Catholic English-speaking native who helped them survive their first winter. It is entirely possible that but for a Franciscan priest who ransomed Squanto, the Pilgrims may not have survived their first winter in New England. That’s history. American history. And the record of it is in Málaga. In a book. One of 29 books kept by notaries in Málaga in 1614. That are still searchable only by name of the notary and year. Nothing in the contents. This is what makes Carmen’s work so important.

And here is the deed.

 

The point of this story is the team effort it took. First Alan and Gavin got past the security guard. Then Carmen stepped in and took charge in her first week on the job as head archivist. Then Gavin and Alan were searching the internet archive for anything that could help, which they found! Which Carmen and little lab coat guy figured out, with which Carmen did more database searches then went out and down to the archives. And we had to make sure Gavin got food cause he was shaking and in need of sustenance. Then I filled out paperwork.

*THIS* my friends is what the internet can do for us. This is why we make mutuals and cultivate relationships. We only could do this because we had the ephemerals and could track down the volume. There are thousands of such volumes in hundreds of archives around the Western world. Even more in Abbeys and monasteries and private collections. There’s one friend I have who would be perfect for this task: Chase Steely. Only him would I trust to care for the records with the respect they deserve and to scan them. But nobody can afford to pay him his due and nobody will hire people off the street to do this. We need an army of Chase Steelys but there’s only one of him.

It’d be a dream to have a resurgence in historians spending time looking through old volumes. For Example, the Spinola family transaction books are in the Palazzo Spinola in Genoa with every transaction by year for several hundred years in volumes on shelves ready for research. One family. Malaga’s archive has 29 books of notarial deeds from 29 notaries just in 1614. Treasures to mine. Who will do it? We know how much Henry II spent on Eleanor of Aquitaine during her imprisonment because Henry was fastidious in his record-keeping. And because certain historians were interested enough to spend time searching through records.

Just as there are untold unknown saints in heaven who are forgotten to history because nobody told of their interesting lives of heroic virtue, there are untold fascinating stories existing in books of notarial records, church records, family records, that will never be searched because where would anyone start and who would pay them to do so? I wish I could. That time for me is long passed.

Who will find the nuggets that can shine light upon or even change our history?

Keep thinking…