Plymouth could have failed, as other European colonies had failed.

The Wampanoag-English alliance could have developed differently.

Regional political balances could have shifted in other directions.

Later generations know the outcome and therefore tend to read inevitability backward.

Tisquantum did not have that luxury.

He made choices without knowing he was participating in a national founding myth.

He was trying to survive the present.

That is one reason his story should be told at human scale.

He was not living in a textbook chapter called “The First Thanksgiving.”

He was living in a dangerous, rapidly changing homeland after personal catastrophe.