The evidence does not allow certainty.

This is another place where responsible history should resist turning uncertainty into a dramatic claim.

Early seventeenth-century descriptions of symptoms are often too limited for modern diagnosis.

Many diseases can produce fever.

Nosebleeds are not specific enough to identify a cause.

The safest conclusion is that Tisquantum became seriously ill during the 1622 journey and died shortly afterward.

The uncertainty itself is revealing.

His life is among the most famous Native biographies in early colonial America, yet basic details remain unknown because the written record was created by outsiders and preserved selectively.

We know what Bradford thought was important.

We do not know what Tisquantum’s surviving Native acquaintances said after his death.