Thomas Morton (1579-1647) - Heathenism is a religion too, right?

While American history paints colonial days as fervently religious, there is an untold, or at least undertold story.  Not everyone wanted freedom of religion, some just wanted freedom.  

Thomas Morton was a lawyer, a social reformer and an early English colonist from Devon, England.  He was a free thinker before visiting New England but the newness of the New World really captured his enthusiasm.  He loved the beauty of the land, the unique and abundant flora and fauna, the friendliness of the Native Americans, and, of course, the sheer novelty and uniqueness of being part of a New World.

Morton believed that organized religions were too rigid and enforcement of compulsory religion by government is overreach.  He believed people should be allowed the choice to not participate in religion at all.  Morton tested the religious freedoms granted to English colonists to see if they would be inclusive enough to allow for hedonistic atheism.  

Morton received royal permission to establish a trading post in the Massachusetts colony to engage in fur trading with the Native Americans.   Morton recruited thirty like-minded well-heeled men who brought with them many indentured servants to establish Merrymount with the intent to return to the days of merry old England before the Church took away all the fun.  Merrymount was located about 40 miles away from Plymouth.  Too close for comfort as it turned out.

Morton and Merrymount was popular with the Native Americans and the fur trade flourished.  Morton was reported to say he was received by the Native Americans with more hospitality than his fellow Englishmen colonists ever showed.   Morton served and sold alcohol to the Native Americans much to the distain of the Pilgrims and Puritans.  Worse yet, Morton sold fire arms to the Natives.  To the Pilgrims and Puritans this was tantamount to treason by aiding and abetting the enemy.   Another of Morton's controversial actions was setting up a Maypole in 1627 and hosted a festival which was described by William Bradford, Plymouth governor as:

(They) set up a Maypole drinking and dancing about it  many days together, inviting the Indian women for their consorts, dancing and frisking together (like so many fairies, or furies rather) and worse practices. As if they had anew revived & celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddess Flora, or ye beastly practices of ye mad Bacchanalians.

Morton's religious beliefs, or lack thereof, were criticized by nearby Plymouth colony as little more than a thinly disguised form of heathenism. After all Merrymount men were drinking liquor, having sex with Native American women, and selling firearms and firewater to the Native American men. Morton hosted drunken orgies in Merrymount in honor of pagan gods.

But, was Plymouth's only motive for arresting Morton his religious rule breaking ways?  It's never quite that simple. Morton's partner, Captain Wolloston, had sold some of the indentured servants to Virginia for some quick cash.  It was such a profitable endeavor he intended to sell more.  Morton found out about the scheme.  Morton could not abide with breaking up the community and decided to free the indentured servants from their indenture and receive them as equals. This act frightened the New World's ruling class fearing it would embolden all the indentured, 

Morton told tales of harsh Puritan injustices, how the Saints had declared a ship captain insane in order to steal his cargo, of a treacherous assassination of Indians at a friendly banquet, of how they had strung up an old man for stealing from the Natives, rather than the strong young artisan who was the real culprit; how they had beaten and bloodied and run into the wilderness a settler demanding free elections and equal food distribution.

But what incensed the other settlers most was Morton’s success with the sacred beaver trade. His friendly, fair treatment of the Indians brought them flocking to him with furs in hand. Also, Morton sold them guns, powder and shot, with which they could kill more game and profit more. William Bradford, governor of Plymouth, called him a “gain-thirsty” murderer for arming the “barbarous savages.” But Morton and his friends amassed large sums in a short time.

While the resentments of the Puritans and Pilgrims festered,  the next year's Merrymount pole was even bigger.  It was 80 feet tall topped with deer antlers.  The town made merry around the pole in a drunken orgy bigger than the prior year. Plymouth colony raised a militia led by Pilgrim Miles Standish to take control of the town, tear down the houses, scatter the colonists, cut down the Maypole, and arrest Morton.

Morton was tried in the Plymouth Court and found to be unacceptable. The Plymouth court knew they couldn't execute such a well-connected Londoner so he was marooned on an island off New Hampshire until an English ship could take him back to England.  So in essence Morton was exiled from the New World for refusing to conform to the Pilgrims and Puritans form of nonconformity.