Making Sense of the Merrymount Debacle

Many of the disputes that the Puritans (including Bradford’s Separatists and Winthrop’s Congregationalists) had with dissenters are buried in court transcripts, as per Anne Hutchinson’s trial at Newton, or have been preserved in texts written by Puritan leaders, who naturally had their own interests in preserving history. If one begins with the assumption that the Puritan leaders were not only interested in defending themselves personally, but were also committed to interpreting history according to Calvinistic theology, then there is a clear basis for reading against the grain of historical documents.

But does this mean that a reader of American literature ought to believe the dissenting viewpoint without question? It is often fashionable to do this, perhaps because rebels are more appealing than those in power, and there is some satisfaction in tearing down figures of authority. However, it is crucial to investigate the claims of those whom the Puritans punished as aggressively as a reader may investigate the logic of the punishment itself.

What reasons, then, might a reader have to believe Thomas Morton over William Bradford, or vice versa, about the events of May 1, 1638?

Bradford’s account is prefaced by a string of slanderous claims about Morton’s character, styling him the “Lord of Misrule” and asserting that Morton sought to inaugurate a “School of Atheism” in his community at Merrymount (334). The bitter personal nature of such remarks, coupled with Bradford’s disapproval of the “dissolute life” (334) led by the inhabitants of Merrymount, cast doubt on the accuracy of the text, suggesting that Bradford’s ideological differences with Morton have begun to cloud his comprehension of the May Pole celebration. Morton explains that this was an “old English custome” affiliated with an Anglican holiday that has a long history (301). Naturally, Morton’s festivities and his association with the Church of England represented the sort of religious and social philosophies that Bradford had attempted to escape by coming to the New World. Morton’s presence in North America was thus a challenge to the utopian visions that Bradford and Winthrop cherished for their communities. In this light, Bradford’s motive for distorting the facts would be clear: to eliminate a rival colonist and purge the new colonies of the “corruption” that he was already facing among servants like Thomas Granger.

What motive would Morton have for slandering Bradford? Revenge might factor into the equation, since both accounts were written after Morton had already been overthrown and sent back to England. Morton points out that the “precise separatists” (301) misunderstood the symbolism of the May Pole, “not knowing that it was a Trophe erected at first in honor of Maja, the Lady of learning,” rather than a “whore,” as the Puritans ostensibly claimed (303). However, he is unable to resist a petty dig at Bradford, painting him and his colony as anti-intellectuals who see university education as “unnecessary learning” and do not realize that “learninge does inable mens mindes to converse with eliments of a higher nature than is to be found within the habitation of the Mole” (303). The exchange of insults like this discredits both figures to some degree.

Morton’s economic interests as a competing colonist also fuel his opposition to Bradford, since the primary disagreement between the two communities (Plymouth and Merrymount) hinges on the question of whether or not to sell guns and ammunition to the Native Americans. Morton would clearly benefit from this, and Bradford’s involvement in the Pequot War would have already placed his colony in jeopardy without additional firepower for neighboring tribes.

So, both figures have a motive to distort the claims of the other. Whom to believe?

1) Morton does not deny Bradford’s most incendiary claims about a “dissolute” lifestyle. Rather, he argues that the Pilgrims were “troubling their braines more than reason would require about things that are indifferent” (303). Since some of Bradford’s chief complaints are drinking and dancing, seemingly harmless occupations by contemporary standards, Morton seems more reasonable on this count.

2) Weapons sales to natives are a more troubling matter. Bradford’s emotional outbursts about the “horribleness of this villainy” seem to undermine his credibility, since Morton was not openly allied with a neighboring tribe against the Plymouth colony (336). Furthermore, Bradford’s decision to take Morton by force on his own property in order to remove the threat of his personal corruption and financial negotiations from the area suggests far more aggressive behavior than Morton’s. However, Morton claims that the Puritans were jealous of the “prosperity and hope of the Plantation at Ma-re Mount,” which implies that he misunderstands the military predicament that Bradford had gotten himself into through the Pequot War (303). Clearly, he brought some of the hostility from Bradford upon himself. As Kenneth Hovey and Thomas Scanlan point out, New English Canaan was meant to be read as a “mock-heroic epic,” where caricatured names might reinforce the satirical themes of the narrative (295). Morton seems to have willfully provoked his neighbors, which reinforces some of Bradford’s claims about his arrogance. However, the fact that he did not explicitly attack them or openly threaten them with an opposing military alliance suggests that Morton’s sense of justice was more consistent than Bradford’s. If justice is any measure of credibility, one might conclude that Morton is the more reliable of the two.

Morton’s project at Merrymount is compelling by contemporary standards for several reasons. He offered servants a much more egalitarian living arrangement than Winthrop’s fixed caste system at Massachusetts Bay. His sympathy for Native Americans obviously positions him well for recognition as a progressive thinker for his time. He seems aware of the difference between metaphor and fact, as per his characterization of Miles Standish as “Captaine Shrimpe” (306); consequently, his purpose in the New World was significantly more modest than that of the Puritans, who frequently equated the metaphors of Old Testament stories with their own experience. This distinction made Morton much less dangerous. He sought economic freedom and social egalitarianism. He might be said to have been the first American capitalist, though he would likely have been horrified if he could have anticipated the rise of institutions like Enron and Wal-Mart that have bullied local economies and short-changed laborers.

Would it be too much of a stretch to hold Thomas Morton up as an American hero? Maybe his colonists wouldn’t have lasted too many winters on their party mountain, and maybe it would be embarrassing now to try explaining to children why dancing around a May Pole is more honorable than killing the “enemy” tribes, but many of the attributes that the U.S. now claims as a free-market democracy were much more evident at Morton’s Merrymount than they were at Massachusetts Bay or Plymouth.