Gay pilgrim

Meet the pilgrims of Merrymount who rejected most Puritan values in their community, including that of heterosexuality. Morton had a much closer relationship with the Indigenous people than other pilgrims, something which gained him no support from those in the nearby Plymouth Colony.

A Case Study of Provincetown, Massachusetts and Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort by Karen Christel Krahulik, and Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Out er Cape by Peter Manso. Wollaston eventually fled the area, leaving Morton in charge of the colony, which was renamed Merrymount.

The Pilgrimage for LGBTQ :

Much of what is known about queer history in this period is learned from looking at the criminal complaints against those accused. By all accounts, the maypole celebration was well enjoyed by the people of Merrymount.

And it was also this act that spurred the ire of their neighbors. Records of celebrations at Merrymount indicate that the residents were more open about their sexuality than most. Thomas Morton, from Devon, England, had previously visited the New World and he returned to what is now Massachusetts as a trader alongside Captain Richard Wollaston and his men in Morton, with a background in law, helped the captain establish the trading post known as Mount Wollaston, which quickly grew into a larger colony.

Provincetown nyupress org: Plimoth Plantation began researching the gay history of the colony about 10 years ago, in preparation for bringing its replica of the Pilgrim ship Mayflower to gay-friendly Provincetown

Alas, Merrymount was not to be sustained forever as the Puritans in the nearby colonies were determined to get rid of it. Although homosexuality certainly existed amongst the Puritans, it was considered to be a sin and there were harsh penalties for those who were accused.

Yet, this was not the mindset of all pilgrims. In other nearby colonies, same-sex relations were explicitly banned while there was no such rule in Merrymount.

They wholeheartedly believed that it was an abomination. Inhowever, Morton encouraged a rebellion in the colony after finding out that Wollaston had been selling servants into slavery in Virginia. More from us: The Bizarre Origin of Chainsaws. Socially, pilgrims are often associated with the stringent religious beliefs of the Puritans who sought to separate the Church of England from all Catholic practices.

Morton was tried and convicted for selling guns to the Indigenous people, and was marooned on the Isles of Shoals until he was picked up by a ship and returned to England. Morton became lord of misrule and maintained, as it were, a school of Atheism.

Perhaps the most famous example of their open views was when they created a maypole that they danced around in honor of Ganymede and Zeus, figures associated with same-sex partners. In fact, there was one American colony that strayed so far from these beliefs that they embraced homosexuality.

Dig into the history and you'll see plenty of early American colonizers were super gay—and their compatriots had views of it that were complicated, to say the least.