John Morton set up a good time colony, raised a maypole, consorted with the Indians at drunken orgies and had a generally good time until the Puritans showed up an pooped on his party. So WI Merrymount had survived and/or overshadowed puritanism? WI America was born a pagan country? What are the butterflies?
WI Merrymount had survived and become the dominate colony?
- Thread starter Fordicus
- Start date
And exactly how was such a "colony" supposed to survive? By winter they're all hung over, freezing and starving because no one set up farms, reliable shelter or any useful economy with which to obtain necessities. Those that don't go crawling back home die in the woods.
Faeelin
Banned
I don't know. We only have the Purtians' perspective on the debauchery and hedonism of the colony. It looks like it was run by nonconformists who found Native Americans' lifestyle more attractive...
This. I wouldn't trust the Puritan account for a Mississippi minute, considering that they thought dancing and singing were sins (among other things); they were primed to consider any non-Puritan the second coming of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Let's not overegg the paganism of Merrymount; really they were just Anglicans who elected not to go to Virginia. Not that an Anglican colony in New England isn't fascinating in itself though....
Hm. Let's assume that Morton is able to stave off Plymouth and properly develop Mount Wollaston. This is going to be a bit of a big ask; given that the majority of colonists to the region were Puritans, he's going to find it very difficult to avoid being overwhelmed by demography. In the 1630s the English authorities didn't want colonists leaving for the New World at all, and as Morton would be trying to attract Royalists I doubt he's going to have much luck; look at the difficulty Ferdinandino Gorges had in the same time period.
One interesting side effect of this, however- assuming that Merrymount lasts at least another five years or so- is that the colonisation of Massachusetts might be completely derailed. Boston is only just across the water from Morton's colony, after all; while it's possible that Winthrop wants to pick a fight and settles in the same place as OTL, he could decide to try a site on the Connecticut or Narragansett Bay instead.
I suspect that, in the best case, all of this places the Morton in the same position as Roger Williams in Rhode Island, surrounded by more populous, unfriendly Puritan neighbours. Unlike Williams, however, Morton isn't going to have any friends in England to save his bacon by giving him a colonial charter. The King is unlikely to for the reasons I mentioned above, and come the Civil War Parliament is more likely to explicitly grant the area to one of Morton's neighbours than ratify his claim.
I suspect that allowing Merrymount to survive only ensures its destruction a few years later, in more bloody circumstances; perhaps this is a TL where New England experiences something similar to Acadia's Civil War in the same period, or more likely an equivalent of Maryland's 'plundering time'.
Hm. Let's assume that Morton is able to stave off Plymouth and properly develop Mount Wollaston. This is going to be a bit of a big ask; given that the majority of colonists to the region were Puritans, he's going to find it very difficult to avoid being overwhelmed by demography. In the 1630s the English authorities didn't want colonists leaving for the New World at all, and as Morton would be trying to attract Royalists I doubt he's going to have much luck; look at the difficulty Ferdinandino Gorges had in the same time period.
One interesting side effect of this, however- assuming that Merrymount lasts at least another five years or so- is that the colonisation of Massachusetts might be completely derailed. Boston is only just across the water from Morton's colony, after all; while it's possible that Winthrop wants to pick a fight and settles in the same place as OTL, he could decide to try a site on the Connecticut or Narragansett Bay instead.
I suspect that, in the best case, all of this places the Morton in the same position as Roger Williams in Rhode Island, surrounded by more populous, unfriendly Puritan neighbours. Unlike Williams, however, Morton isn't going to have any friends in England to save his bacon by giving him a colonial charter. The King is unlikely to for the reasons I mentioned above, and come the Civil War Parliament is more likely to explicitly grant the area to one of Morton's neighbours than ratify his claim.
I suspect that allowing Merrymount to survive only ensures its destruction a few years later, in more bloody circumstances; perhaps this is a TL where New England experiences something similar to Acadia's Civil War in the same period, or more likely an equivalent of Maryland's 'plundering time'.
Sounds like an American Civil War a few centuries earlier than OTL: Anglicans versus Puritans.
Warming up popcorn.
Shhhhh!
Please don't remind the "Daughters of the Mayflower" that they were forced to emigrate (evicted from England) to Massachusetts Colony after Oliver Corwell and his Puritan Army lost the English Civil War.
You might hurt their feelings.
Shhhhhh!
Warming up popcorn.
Shhhhh!
Please don't remind the "Daughters of the Mayflower" that they were forced to emigrate (evicted from England) to Massachusetts Colony after Oliver Corwell and his Puritan Army lost the English Civil War.
You might hurt their feelings.
Shhhhhh!
By all accounts Merrymount was a prosperous colony and Thomas Morton was genuinely interested in an alliance with the Algonquian Indians of that area. He seemed to be a highly principled man actually. What might help the colony is if they had larger numbers, more women, and a better armed populace. By all accounts, the Puritans were jealous and it didn't help that this was close to the time of the English Civil War. If it had survived, you might be looking at a stronger Algonquian tribe, a substantial Metis population and that part of New England being viewed as a proto-hippie commune.
Mostly because the Crown was desperate for cash; the worse the King's money problems got, the more the authorities tried to clamp down on emigration to the colonies.
Having the odd churchman , gentleman or burgher emigrate wasn't a massive problem. But when large landowners such as Saye and Sele, Brooke, or Hampden, who have already led serious resistance to Ship Money, started preparing to liquidate their assets and leave the country, the Crown saw the move in terms of tax avoidance as much as anything to do with subversion.
The authorities generally took the view that if people were really that desperate to emirgrate, they should plant themselves in Ireland; at least there they're still paying tax and doing the Crown some good in holding the country down.
The Mayflower was supposed to land quite a bit further south. If the Puritans end up in Pennsylvania (say), that would leave Massachusetts to the Merrymount colony.