Bradford could interpret Tisquantum as a gift from God to Plymouth.

Modern readers can understand why the governor thought that without accepting the moral logic behind it.

A man’s suffering does not become justified because someone else later benefited from the skills he gained while surviving it.

Tisquantum helped Plymouth.

That is historically important.

But he was more than the help he provided.

He was a Patuxet man before the colony existed, and the most truthful version of his story begins there.

What The Name Patuxet Changes

One of the most effective ways to understand Tisquantum is to use the name Patuxet often enough that Plymouth stops feeling like the natural beginning of the place.

Names shape historical imagination.