Colonial America: The Age of Sodomitical Sin, 1607-1783, by Jonathan Ned Katz

The years from 1607 to 1783 constitute the founding era of what became the United States. In the early years of this era, in these American colonies, the penalty for sodomy was death, and a number of executions are documented. Sodomy was usually conceived of then as anal intercourse between men. But why was sodomy thought of as treason against the state and punished so harshly? And what do we know of sexual and intimate relationships between women in these years, and the laws and responses to such intimacies? This feature presents or references the original documents that Jonathan Ned Katz collected in his books Gay American History (1976) and Gay/Lesbian Almanac (1983), along with evidence that others subsequently discovered. Published originally on OutHistory in 2012.

Legal Case: Boys, Massachusetts Bay, June 29, 1629

"5 beastly Sodomitical boys"

The Reverend Francis Higgeson' s journal of his trip to New England on board the ship Talbot reported : "This day we examined 5 beastly Sodomitical boys, which confessed their wickedness not to be named." "The fact was so foul," said Higgeson, "we reserved them to be punished by the governor when we came to new England." The governor, he said, afterwards sent the boys "back to the company to be punished in old England as the crime deserved."^[1]

On September 29 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony assigned two members to acquaint a director of the Massachusetts Bay Company in England with the boys' misdemeanor,

and advise what punishment may be inflicted upon them, and how the Company may be legally discharged of them.

In England, sodomy was at this time a crime for which males over fourteen could be hanged. The boys' fate is unknown.

References

"Francis Higgeson' s Journal, . . ." in The Founding of Massachusetts (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1930), p. 71. On the General Court: Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed. Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston: Wm. White, 1853-54), vol. I, pp. 52, 54 (courts of Sept. 19 and 29, 1629). On hanging: Edwin Powers, Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts: 1620-1692 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966 ), p. 43.