“The Very Hydra of the Time”: Morton’s New English Canaan and Atlantic Trade

Abstract

On May 1, 1627, Thomas and the inhabitants of Mount--formerly Mount Wollaston and even more formerly Passonagessit--raised their infamous maypole, which in turn raised the ire of the precise at Plimouth. This maypole has become one of the most enduring icons of early British settlement in Massachusetts, trailing perhaps only the cornucopia that has come symbolize Plymouth-inspired Thanksgiving tradition, but in its day the Mar-re Mount maypole was for the Plymouth Separatists tangible symbol of the well-lubricated gaiety that accompanied the celebrations linking the Anglican Church with Britannia's pagan past. Bostonian Puritans likewise disapproved of these pagan significances, but also saw in the maypole reminder of the aristocratic hierarchy that sanctioned and lorded over the May Day bacchanal--a view that prompted John Endicott, during Morton's first brief exile, chop down the maypole and rebuke those still living at For later historians of Massachusetts, Morton's maypole continued justify an interpretation of Mount as place of drunken licentiousness, pseudoanarchical foil the rigid Puritanism of Plymouth and Boston. Likewise New English Canaan, Thomas Morton's account of Mare was relegated the status of second-class counterhistory William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation. (1) Fiction writers from Lydia Marie Child Robert Lowell have similarly focused on the jollity represented by Morton's maypole, for good or ill, as John McWilliams traces in his article, Fictions of Mount. Much like the gold coin nailed the Pequod's mast in Moby-Dick, the maypole of Mount reflects the mind of the observer, unlimited in its significations. semiotic flexibility of Morton's maypole indicative of the wider trouble New English Canaan has posed the two-pronged view of British colonization in North America, wherein religious Pilgrims dominated New England while Virginian settlements were focused on more secular economic interests. (2) and his plantation have seemingly always been problematic reality for the dominant narrative of Anglo-American colonization. Even his plantation's name, has engendered interpretive controversy. Though never in New English Canaan calls his rechristening of Mount Wollaston anything other than Ma-re Mount, the name has come down through popular history as Merry Mount, originally pejorative applied by Bradford and solidified in the American mythos through Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story The MayPole of Mount. As Karen Kupperman points out, the Puritan influence on American history is again seen in the fact that their construction, Merrymount, stuck (662). And while surely knew of the possibilities for punning on the name--he does joke that the Separatists threatened to make it woeful and not merry mount (136)--he consistently resists applying the lighthearted appellation himself. As this homonymic struggle indicates, much like the maypole itself, the settlement's name presents readers with a compound title of almost unlimited suggestibility'--one that evokes interpretations ranging from description of physical location bestiality (McWilliams 7). But amid the myriad possibilities, perhaps the most basic denotational definition offers the best insight into the rhetorical implications of the settlement's name. In 1892 C. E Adams maintained that Mount was evidence of Morton's playful linguistic Latinity, meaning, as McWilliams notes, Morton had in mind the ablative of mare and the name meant 'the hill by the sea' (6). (3) In thus naming his settlement seems point out its ties the Atlantic; and indeed, many of the attributes for which Mount became infamous have distinct ties the maritime world. Most critical historical and literary studies of Mount and New English Canaan dwell on Morton's connection the American interior, usually focusing on his advantageous trade and social relationships with American Indians. …