Meet the Historian! Peter Mancall and The Trials of Thomas Morton
MEET THE HISTORIAN Annette Chats with Dr. Peter C. Mancall, Author of a Book About a Man Whose Parties Outraged Puritans, But Who Was So Much More A Fascinating Troublemaker Than That Suggests
How Long Is This Post? About 5,000 words or 24 minutes to read the video transcript.
Note from Annette
Englishman Thomas Morton put up a maypole in 17th century Massachusetts, and danced around it with his mates, including local Natives, ticking off the strict religious Englishmen who had settled in New England. Hilarious though it is to picture Morton outraging the prim Mayflower-n-Puritans brigade, Morton’s maypole dance is not even the most interesting thing about him.
Turns out, the maypole thingy was just one sign of a battle over the future of early New England. Did it have to become the place of grim religion, witch hunts, and anti-Indigenous attitudes? Turns out, Morton’s life and his writing suggest that nothing in the American past (and by implication, the present) was inevitable. And that’s the subject of the book I recently riffed upon at Non-Boring History:
The Man Who Told the Puritans "Up Yours" (1)
Parties? Booze? Englishmen hanging out with local Native people in early Puritan New England? Surely not! And yet, yes. A vision of alternative New England that was very different from what we got. Meet The Trials of Thomas Morton. a book that won't just make you think differently about early Massachusetts, but about history itself.
Today, enjoy my video and/or—for Nonnies (paid subscribers) —the transcript of my chat with historian Dr. Peter Mancall, author of The Trials of Thomas Morton: An Anglican Lawyer, His Puritan Foes, and the Battle for a New England.
Interview with Peter C. Mancall
Transcript below
TRANSCRIPT
Edited for clarity