Thomas Morton and the Puritans

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Thomas Morton and the Puritans

An anti-"city on a hill" with a maypole compensating for something? A pleasurable refuge for indentured servants freed from service and respected natives? A place where a man just wanted to annoy his uptight, religious neighbors? Those are the obvious conclusions, but with like most anything in history, there's meaning and significance that we don't catch at first glance. Thomas Morton had an agenda, puritan leader John Winthrop may have had a secret, and there are so many fictions surrounding their whole story, it's hard to tell what's reality and what's not. It's time to sift through the parts, and piece together a bigger picture, asking one, main question: Why were Morton and the Puritans engaged in a seemingly never-ending conflict with each other?

As a beginning part, it's best to see how a few, high profile people involved related to one another: Thomas Morton, William Bradford, and John Winthrop. Morton came to the New England area on the ship, Unity in 1624, under a man named, Captain Wollaston. It's important to note that he wasn't a young, drunken fool at the time. He was in his forties, was a lawyer back in England, and a well read "gentleman and a person of means" (American National Biography Site). The trouble began for the Puritans when he realized he could profit from the fur-trading business by partnering with the indentured servants of the formed, Mount Wollaston settlement. Through legal means he freed them from their contracts and took over. According to John P. McWilliams, in his article, "The Fictions of Merry Mount," the servants probably made around 1,000 pounds each (5). The Puritans saw this success, and the popularity that came with it, as a threat.

William Brad...

... middle of paper ...

...as. "New English Canaan." Lauter 283-94.

Murphy, Edith. "'A Rich Widow, Now to be Tane Up or Laid Downe': Solving the Riddle of

Thomas Morton's 'Rise Oedipeus'." William and Mary Quarterly. 3rd Ser. Vol. 53, No. 4.

October 1996. 755-768. JSTOR. <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-

5597%28199610%293%3A53%3A4%3C755%3A%22RWNTB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D>.

Pribek, Thomas. "The Conquest of Canaan: Suppression of Merry Mount." Nineteenth-Century

Fiction. Vol. 40, No. 3. December 1985. 345-354. JSTOR.

<http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0029-

0564%28198512%2940%3A3%3C345%3ATCOCSO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P>.

Warner, Michael. "New English Sodom." American Literature. Vol. 64, No. 1. March 1992. 19-

47. JSTOR. <http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9831%28199203%2964%3A1%3C19%3ANES%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2>.

Winthrop, John. "A Modell of Christian Charity." Lauter 296-304.

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