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.

Buggery Law: South Carolina, 1712

Death for "buggery"

South Carolina legislators included the text of the English "buggery" law and its death penalty in a South Carolina statute, an explicit incorporation rare in the Southern-colonies. Usually the English buggery law was simply assumed to be operative.(1)

This South Carolina buggery law of 1712 remained in effect for one hundred and sixty-one years, until 1873, when the death penalty was repealed.

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 128, citing Thomas Cooper, ed., The Statutes at Large of South Carolina . . . (Columbia, S. C.: Johnston, 1873), vol. 2, p. 465. For the S. C. law of 1873 see Crompton, "Homosexuals," p. 28.