This occurs in Part 3 of the book. In this section, we see that Santiago's hand has begun bleeding. He is not worried, as this leads him to assume that the marlin must be getting tired too. He also believes that he allowed his hand to get cut because he was distracted, and this motivates him to pay more attention and try harder. As time passes, his hand starts to get numb, and he is angry with himself. He tells his hand to turn into a claw, but knows that this will not lead him to stop. Santiago is extremely tenacious and each difficulty only encourages him to work harder.
Bradford describes the natives as barbarians and savages in his description of them in his work Of Plymouth Plantation. Since I don't have the passage you need, I'm assuming that Squanto and Massasoit are different.
