Buggery Law: West New Jersey, 1681

Death for buggery?

The Quaker colony of West New Jersey, whose assembly met yearly starting in 1681, explicitly made only treason and murder capital offenses, though the English "buggery" statute may have been formally in effect.(1)

This colony's status changed when West and East New Jersey were united as a single royal colony in 1702.

 

References

  1. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 119, citing Barnes, Evolution, p. 28, which cites Aaron Learning and Jacob Spicer, eds., The Grants and Concessions . . . of the Province of New-Jersey . . . (Philadelphia: W. Bradford, 1752?), pp. 382-411; Andrews, Colonial, vol. 3, pp. 177-78; Crompton, "Homosexuals," p. 284.