06/09/2026
On this day in history the first person (a lawyer) was deported from British North America back to England (and later deported to Maine), Thomas Morton.
He was kicked out of Massachusetts because
this free-living, prospering, sharp-tongued Anglican conflicted with his pious neighbors. Morton erected a maypole, encouraged conviviality and merriment, wrote b***y verse, poked fun at his saintly neighbors, conducted religious services using the Book of Common Prayer, monopolized the beaver trade, and sold fi****ms to Native Americans. The Pilgrims invaded and burned Thomas Morton’s city because the puritans were competing with Thomas’ fur trade, they didn’t like him selling guns to natives, and thought he was a pagan blasphemer. The puritans cut down the maypole in 1627, arrested Morton, and exiled him to the Isle of Shoals and then England. While in England he wrote the first book that was officially banned in a territory that would become part of the United States. In the book he said the pilgrims/puritans were religious fanatics that were cruel to their native neighbors. He sued (and won) to get the charter for Massachusetts revoked by the crown, but by the time he won the English were too distracted by the English civil war to enforce the judgement.
When he came back the Puritans “proved him wrong” by imprisoning him, taking all of his stuff, and deported him to Maine where he died a broken broke man.
