According to the record the Pilgrims discovered a conspiracy among the savages to massacre the Englishmen at Wessagusset. Possibly, as some say, they simply invented the plot. Be that as it may, they rushed to the assistance of their unsuspecting white neighbors. Then, under the pretense of joining with the Massachusetts in feasting and trading, they conducted a surprise massacre of their own among the natives. During this murderous affair Captain Standish cut off the head of one Massachusetts brave of some renown for his previous insults to the Pilgrims and took it back to Plymouth where he stuck it on a pole for all to see. After that it was much too dangerous for Weston’s traders to remain at Wessagusset.
The following year Sir Ferdinando Gorges’ son, Captain Robert Gorges, with a commission from the Council of New England as general governor of the country brought over some people and occupied Wessagusset as a fur-trading post. But things did not go well for him either. Gorges soon abandoned the place and his people scattered, some going to Virginia. A few, however, remained in the vicinity and set up a trading post at Nantasket (Hull) which was made permanent by the frequent addition of discontents from Plymouth.
Still later, in 1625, a shipload of colonists, composed mostly of indentured servants under the command of a Captain Wollaston, came to Boston Bay. The captain set up a trading post close by Wessagusset at Quincy. By 1627 he too had given up. The difficulties, whether of the Pilgrims’ secret connivance or not, were too great. He gathered up most of the servants and sailed for Virginia where he sold their indentures at a very good profit.
Wollaston would have taken all the servants and sold their time if it had not been for one Thomas Morton. An educated man, a lawyer of sorts with a bent for both pleasure and profit, Morton saw an opportunity for greater gains in the fur trade than anyone had yet garnered. His plan was to sell guns and liquor to the Indians in exchange for skins and to let the devil take the hindmost.
Appealing to some of the worst rogues among Wollaston’s servants on the promise that they would prosper Morton conducted a successful mutiny. After all, who wanted to be sold into slavery in Virginia? Soon thereafter, with his disreputable associates, Morton set up his own trading post, calling it “Merrymount,” and commenced his illegal barter with the Indians to the great consternation of the Pilgrims.
Beaver, otter and valuable deer skins found their way in great quantities to the new truck house, while Merrymount became “a sort of a drunkard’s resort and gambling hall” and worse. The jolly host of Merrymount, revelling in “riotous prodigality,” had a great Maypole erected for the entertainment of visiting factors who wanted to dance and frisk with pleasurable Indian maids. Fishing and trading vessels along the coast much preferred to do business with the open-handed Morton rather than the close-fisted Pilgrims. Therefore, trading goods were as easily come by at Merrymount as were beaver skins. Everyone was quite happy about the situation except the fathers at Plymouth.
Morton had even discovered their profitable new trading grounds in Maine. The first year the Pilgrims extended their fur trading operations to Maine, in 1625, they gathered in 700 pounds of beaver besides some other furs on the Kennebec, mostly in exchange for the corn they had by then learned to grow at Plymouth. But now Morton was outbidding them with his more attractive trading goods and getting nearly everything of value in that vicinity too. The very existence of the Plymouth Colony seemed to be at stake.
Complaints, cajolings and threats were of no avail. Morton, the lawyer, was too clever. Something had to be done and force was the final resort. Captain Standish was sent with some soldiers to arrest the obnoxious neighbor on the charge that he was violating the royal proclamation prohibiting trade in guns and powder.
“Captain Shrimp,” as Morton contemptuously called Standish, succeeded in his mission only after a fight. He captured Morton and took him to Plymouth. There he tried his best to have the erstwhile “host of Merrymount” hanged. But in the end Morton’s only punishment was to be shipped back to England.
As it came about, the Wessagusset area was no sooner eliminated as a competitor for the beaver trade than the Pilgrims were faced with new and much more formidable rivals in the same neighborhood. These were the Puritans, the advance guard of whom arrived at Salem under Captain John Endicott in 1628. As recruits of the great Massachusetts Bay Company they were soon coming by the thousands. Under the leadership of Governor John Winthrop they overran the Boston Bay region. And there wasn’t much the fathers at Plymouth could do about these new neighbors except to offer religious advice on the relative merits of Brownism and Separation.