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.

Sodomy Law: New Hampshire, March 16, 1680

death for sodomy

On March 16, 1680, legislators of New Hampshire passed the colony's first capital laws, copied almost word for word from the Plymouth laws of 1671:

If any man lie with mankind as he lies with a woman; both of them have committed abomination; They both shall surely be put to death: unless one party were forced, or were under fourteen years of age. And all other Sodomitical filthiness shall be severely punished according to the nature of it.(1)

This law was next revised in 1718.

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 118-119 citing Albert Stillman Batcheller, ed., Laws of New Hampshire, Including Public and PrivateActsand Resolves and the Royal Commissions and Instructions, with Historical and Descriptive Notes . . . (Manchester, N.H.: John B. Clarke, 1904), vol. 1, pp. 11-13.