The Heath Anthology of American Literature includes two
different accounts of a single historical event that occurred in
early colonial New England. To modern readers, the accounts of this
1620’s event - indeed the event itself- might seem
inconsequential, but it was something Nathaniel Hawthorne himself
found significant enough to write about nearly 200 years later. The
controversy was the establishment of the Mare-Mount colony in the
Plymouth colony and the major conflict was between the puritan
separatists who had come to America to establish a religiously
governed colony, and newer settlers whose intention in the New World
was quite the opposite.
What
can be reasonably inferred as fact from the two rather different
accounts is that in 1922 Thomas Morton, an English lawyer, arrived in
New England with a large company. Soon, as provisions and money
dwindled, Morton’s captain sold many of the servants in the
company. Then, after a series of events of which Morton may have been
the catalyst, the remaining servants claimed their freedom and Morton
renamed his new property Ma-re mount. In celebration, there was a
debatable amount of merriment at the settlement, to which the
separatists strongly objected.
This brief summary of events is all that can be
deciphered as fact from the correlations between the Mare-Mount
accounts of William Bradford, the Plymouth colony governor and
religious leader, and Thomas Morton, the licentious settler of
present day Quincy, Massachusetts.
The differences in fact between the two accounts are
significant, but not overly startling given the obvious disdain each
had for the other. While Bradford speaks of the inhabitants of “Merry
Mount” (as he called it) drinking ten pounds worth of liquor
before noon, Morton records that even on the biggest day of
celebration there was but one barrel and one case of beer for the
merry-makers. While Bradford accuses Morton of raising up the maypole
as and idol and worshipping it, Morton claims the maypole was “after
the old English custom” (288) and was established to mark the
site of the celebration. Morton argued that the Maypole celebrated
wisdom and intellect, not idol worship or a memorial to a woman of
ill repute.
It is obvious that factual inconsistencies are not the
only differences within Morton and Bradford’s accounts. Perhaps
even more striking is the difference in tone and the style with which
they write about the events as they occurred. Not surprising from a
puritan leader, Bradford’s account is written with stark,
methodical attention to proper form, concrete imagery, and historical
accuracy. It is recorded in formal language and almost resembles the
writings of the historical books of the Bible-- which he would have
been well versed in. Bradford’s account reads as a cold,
unemotional account—almost like that of a modern police
account-- even though it’s not difficult to infer that Morton
and his settlement personally troubled Bradford.
Morton’s record of the events, in his only major
work, the “New English Canaan,” outline the events with a
very different style and attention to detail. Although occasionally
Morton’s account slides into an approach of rebuttal, for the
most part Morton retains a more flowing, more fanciful description of
his settlement. He does not portray Ma-re Mount with cold language,
but with adjectives and poetry and descriptions. He appeals to
tradition and English culture in justifying the Maypole. Morton’s
account reads more like a letter to a friend than a historical
account—which might indeed be more appropriate since Morton
obviously wasn’t writing his account to share with his
separatist neighbors, but more likely his readership in England.
While Morton and Bradfords records of the events of
1662-1625 differ significantly both in fact and in tonality, it is
clear that the events at Ma-re Mount were significant in history not
only for the purpose of outlining this specific event, but also in
adding dimension to our understanding of puritan culture.
Works Cited
Layter,
Paul, et al., eds. The Heath Anthology of American Literature.
Lexington: Heath, 1994.
