Pilgrims Attack Thomas Morton’s Maypole

In 1627, a few years after the first Thanksgiving, the Plymouth colonists sent armed men to break up a wild May Day party at the settlement of Merrymount, where colonist Thomas Morton had raised a maypole, sung bawdy songs, and invited Native American women to join the festivities. The Pilgrim leadership saw the celebration as pagan, immoral, and dangerously friendly toward local tribes, so they arrested Morton and cut down the pole. They shipped him back to England and later shut down the settlement.

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