The Mayflower Papers by Various

Author:Various
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T04:30:00+00:00

From Thomas Morton, New English Canaan, The Third Book (1632)

Thomas Morton (1576?–1647?) is chiefly known to students of American history and literature as the antithesis of the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. To their piety, discipline, and sobriety, he opposed a pagan delight in revelry and self-indulgence. They expressed themselves in the “plain style,” a simple and direct form of writing whose only embroidery is its steady reference to the events and phrasing of the Bible; Morton customarily writes in a fantastic style, charged with word-play and classical allusion in a mannered display of wit and learning. They are instruments of the Reformation; he is a child of the Renaissance. But the argument can be made that Morton was more significantly the first Englishman to view the American wilderness as the locus of freedom and joy rather than as a wasteland to be redeemed through hardship and toil. Three times he came to New England, where, in old age still an avid hunter, he died. Here in four brief chapters from his only book, the New English Canaan, he gives his version of the massacre at Wessagussett in 1623 together with a mock-heroic account of his own encounter with the Pilgrim Fathers in 1628.

CHAPTER 5

Of a Massacre made upon the Savages at Wessagussett.1

…Some of the plantation [at Wessagussett], about three persons, went to live with [Obtakiest]2 and his company, and had very good quarter…. There they purposed to stay until MasterWeston’s arrival, but the Plymouth men intending no good to him (as appeared by the consequence) came in the mean time to Wessagussett, and there pretended to feast the Savages of those parts, bringing with them Pork and things for the purpose, which they set before the Savages. They ate thereof without suspicion of any mischief, who were taken upon a watchword given, and with their own knives (hanging about their necks) were by the Plymouth planters stabbed and slain, one of which were hanged up there, after the slaughter.

In the meantime the Sachem had knowledge of this accident by one that ran to his Countrymen at the Massachusetts,3 and gave them intelligence of the news; after which time the Savages there consulting of the matter, in the night (when the other English, fearless of danger, were asleep) knocked them all in the head in revenge of the death of their Countrymen. But if the Plymouth Planters had really intended good to Master Weston, or those men, why had they not kept the Savages alive in Custody, until they had secured the other English? Who by means of this evil managing of the business lost their lives and the whole plantation was dissolved thereupon, as was likely for fear of a revenge to follow, as a relation t.4 this cruel antecedent. And when Master Weston came over, he found things at an evil exigent5 by means thereof, but could not tell how it was brought about.

The Savages of the Massachusetts that could not imagine from whence

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.