“Plymouth” points forward toward colony, state, monument, tourism, Thanksgiving, and national mythology.

“Patuxet” points backward toward the Native community that existed before those things.

They are names for the same physical place at different moments, but they carry completely different historical centers.

Tisquantum belonged to Patuxet.

The English founded Plymouth there after epidemic disease devastated the original community.

Once those two facts are kept together, the landscape itself becomes part of the biography.

Every field where Tisquantum helped the settlers was already familiar to him.

Every path had a history before English feet used it.

Every English house stood within a place that had recently held Native homes.

The Thanksgiving story often asks readers to imagine two peoples meeting across cultural difference.