Summary

David interrupts his narration for a brief history of the English trading outpost at Merry Mount that “incensed the Plymouth Puritans” (58). In the middle of repressive Puritanical America stood a hedonistic community that copulated with the local Native Americans, that danced around a maypole once a month, worshipping Pagan gods, presided over by Thomas Morton, a promiscuous figure out of one of Shakespeare’s comedies. Like the conservative generation of the 50s, the Puritans were afraid of Morton and his followers robbing them of their virgin daughters, corrupting them with their pleasure-seeking ways.

Eventually, the governor brought in Miles Standish, head of a Puritan militia, to chop down the maypole and shut down the party. Morton was shipped back to England, then shipped back to America, because the English did not care about his “corrupting” influence. His story is essentially that of the...