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 Case: Mingo, Massachusetts, January 29, 1712

Execution for "forcible buggery"

The diary of Samuel Sewall for January 29, 1712, recorded that a grand jury, meeting at Charlestown, Massachusetts Colony, found reason to arraign "Mingo, alias Cocke Negro, for forcible Buggery."

The following day, January 30, Sewall's diary added tersely:

Try'd the Negro, GOD furnish'd the Court with such a series and Frame of evidence that he was brought in Guilty. Not one word spoken on his behalf. Condemn'd.(1)

On Friday, February 15, Sewall's diary included an entry seemingly referring to Mingo:

Went to Charlestown, and heard Mr. [Simon] Bradstreet [preach] from Provo 24:32 ["Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction"]. He brought it [the meaning of the proverb] down to the [unnamed] Condemned Malefactor then present; [Bradstreet?] had prayed excellently for him before: executed presently after Lecture. Mr. [William] Brattle Pray'd at the place of Execution.

Mingo, or Cocke Negro, a slave of Wait Winthrop, a chief justice of Massachusetts and major-general of the colony's militia, seems to have been executed under the Massachusetts law of 1697, which provided death for "buggery," meaning both bestiality and sodomy.

Sewall's statement that Mingo was guilty of "forcible Buggery" suggests that the crime in this case was non-consensual sodomy (the issue of force versus an implicit consent would probably not have been cited if the case involved bestiality). However, no additional information has been found concerning this charge in the Winthrop Papers, existing newspapers, or Cotton Mather's diary.

References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 127-128, citing Samuel Sewall, The Diary of . . . 1674-1729; Newly Edited from the Manuscript at the Massachusettes Historical Society by M. Halsey Thomas, 2 vols. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 677, 678. Additional references to Mingo: vol. I, pp. 388, 446, vol. 2, p. 617. Though "Mingo" may have been a common name for Blacks, the fact that a "Mingo" was mentioned as a mourner at Wait Winthrop's funeral in 1717 suggests that that Mingo was different from the Mingo executed in 1712. Reference to the Massachusetts "buggery" law of 1697, vol. I, p. 380. Jonathan Ned Katz thanks Robert Joyce, Jr. for informing him of this document.