07/10/2014
Subject: American Literature I: from the origins to the 19th century; group A.
Topic: Summary of The New English Canaan, by Thomas Morton.
Student: Laura Aliana Llorca.
This essay is about the first time that Thomas Morton travels to New England to settle. It
coincides with the period in which Plymouth is being created, and gives another point of view
of the Pilgrims settlement. Thomas Morton plantation is inhabitated by English people who
trust the English Church, so the troubles with the “Separatists” are served.
When Morton first arrives, he is astonished by the beauty of the place. It is interesting that,
neither John Smith or William Bradford had point at this before. Another quite noticeable
point is that it is the only time on the essay (or, at least, on the fragments that we have here)
when he speaks about his feelings and impressions in first person, as if it was almost poetry.
From this point untill the end, he will use the third person singular form to describe his own
adventure.
After the success of the settlement, there is a celebration around the change of name of the
place, from “Passonagessit”, the original one given by the natives, to “Ma-re Mount”. They
set up a Maypole, hang a poem on it and celebrate the day with songs. This whole festival is
seen as an offense by the Pilgrims, who are afraid of losin power with the increasing arrival of
Morton’s people. What I found most interesting here, more than the fights between the
Separatists and Morton’s people which are, considering the backgrounds and the situation in
New England at that time, something that I expected, is the amount of classical references that
Morton uses. These continuous references give the text a distinguished aspect, and gives the
image of Thomas Morton as a cultivated person. It looks like if this essay had been written
not only to inform (as Bradford’s and Smith’s supposely did) but also to express and even
entretain readers.
Then, due to the envys and bad feelings that the Separatists have among Morton, they get to
catch him and make him prisioner. He is blamed with hard accusations, which he is not up to
accept. Morton waits until it is the perfect time and tries to escape. Here, his estrategy reveals
again a different way of behaving than Smith. Morton is not as much as heroic figure based
on his muscles and his bravery, he is more a mind person. At the end, he gets ti and escapes,
but, even whe he arrives safe and prepares himself, he is caught again.
Once the Pilgrims have him, they discuss the right way to get rid of him. At the end, they
decide to send him to an unknown island, without food, clothes and guns. It is an interesting
way of punish him. They do not carry in their backs the responsability of having killed him,
but they send him there with the idea of getting him killed anyway. But Morton finds there the
help of some natives, that take care of him until a fishermen boat finds him and brings him
back to England. Thomas Mortond does not give up with all this story: the end of this essay is
a clear reference to what he will do next, which is come back to Ma-re Mount.