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.

John Lawson: 1709

"Sodomy is never heard of"

Lawson, a British gentleman, surveyor and traveler, published a narrative of his voyage to Carolina. This earliest-known mention of native sodomy by an Englishman denied its existence. Lawson reported that although the Indians he observed "are called Savages, yet Sodomy is never heard of amongst them." The Indians "are so far from the Practice of that beastly and loathsome Sin that they have no Name for it in, their Language."(1)

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 127, citing John Lawson,History of North Carolina, edited by Frances Latham Harris (Richmond, Va.: Garrett & Massie, 1937), p. 208; Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (NY: Crowell, 1976), p. 612 n. 8. For a biography of Lawson see Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 8, p. 318.