Module E From The Beginning To The Civil War

At the time of our country's founding, sexual behavior outside of marriage for the purposes of procreation was illegal. Beliefs about sex and sexual acts and the laws governing relationships and sexual behavior were based largely on Judaeo-Christian traditions and were carried over by the settlers from England.

It's important to realize that LGBTQ+ history doesn't stand alone or as a separate historical timeline. Rather, the history of LGBTQ+ people and the events impacting sexual orientation and gender identity minorities are deeply embedded into social, political, cultural, and world history of all types.

Take a look at this timeline over the next several pages and note the intersections of sexual orientation and gender identity with other aspects of culture, politics, and wold events. This timelines includes periods up to the time of the Stonewall riots in 1969. We will look at the post Stonewall period later in this course.

Let's begin with a look at the history of some terminology.

Terminology

Lesbian – 1732 – the term lesbian first used by William King in his book, The Toast, published in England which meant women who loved women.

Homosexual – 1869 – Hungarian journalist Karl-Maria Kertheny first used the term homosexual.

Bisexual – 1894/1967. 1872 – the pamphlet, “Psychopathia Sexualis” was translated from German and one of the first times the term bisexual is used. 1967: Sexual Freedom League formed in San Francisco in support of bisexual people.

Gay – 1955 – the term gay was used throughout Europe earlier, but this is the year most agree that gay came to mean same-sex relationships between men.

Transgender – 1965 – John Oliven, in his book, Sexual Hygiene and Pathology, used the term transgender to mean a person who identifies with a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth.

Colonial Life and Founding of the Nation (1607-1770)

1607 – Founding of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.

1619 – Approximately 20 Africans sold into slavery in Jamestown, Virginia.

1620 – Colonial Plymouth established with Puritan norms. Mayflower contract signed by the men in the group “…for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith…” Established gender norms that determined the nuclear family unit was the basis for all other institutions such as government or church. Men held leadership positions, while women’s purpose was submissive and to “please your husband and make him happy.”

1624 – Richard Cornish of the Virginia Colony is tried and hanged for sodomy.

1630 – Massachusetts Bay Colony was established believing they had made a “covenant with God to build an ideal Christian community.”

1631 – Massachusetts Bay General Court, in accordance with Puritan religious and moral beliefs, declared that the following were considered sex crimes and were punishable by whipping, banishment or execution: fornication, adultery, rape, and sodomy.

1637, 1638 – Trials of Anne Hutchinson in the Massachusetts colony for holding religious meetings in her home since she was not allowed to hold these types of meetings in the male-dominated churches. She was banned from the community.

1649 – Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon are charged with “lewd behavior” in Plymouth, Massachusetts, believed to be the first conviction for lesbian behavior in the new world.

1687 – New England Primer published and used in colonial schools (90 pages). Some consider this as the first school-based textbook. Content included letters and words, as well as religious-based prayers and instruction such as, “God created man, male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures.”

1691 – Virginia passes the first anti-miscegenation law, forbidding marriage between whites and blacks or whites and Native Americans (overturned in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia).

1714 – Sodomy laws in place in the early colonies and in the colonial militia. These laws remained in place until challenged in 1925.

American Revolution, Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution (1770-1787)

1775 – Slave population in the colonies is nearly 500,000 people.

1776 – Declaration of Independence.

1778 – Lieutenant Gotthold Frederick Enslin of the Continental Army becomes the first documented service member to be dismissed from the U.S. military for homosexuality. Read more at U.S. History Naval Institute Blog / Timeline of Military Gay History.

1779 – Thomas Jefferson proposes Virginia law to make sodomy punishable by mutilation rather than death. It was rejected by the Virginia legislature

The New Republic / Divergent Paths of the American People (1787-1850)

1788 – U.S. Constitution adopted. Includes a three-fifths clause that counted each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of congressional representation and tax apportionment.

1789 – Olauda Equiano, a former slave, publishes the narrative, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African. It was one of the first widely read narratives of slave life at the time. In it, he describes same-sex relationships he had with other men and the existence of same-sex relationships within the slave culture since slaves were not allowed to marry.

1839 – Margaret Fuller begins hosting conversations about the “great questions” regarding their role and gender around Boston.

1845 – Margaret Fuller published the book, “The Great Lawsuit”, which asked women to claim themselves to be self-dependent.

1848 – Seneca Falls Convention held in Seneca, NY. First women’s rights convention of 300 men and women. Many signed the “Declaration of Sentiments” which listed the variety of ways women had been disenfranchised from American society.

1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed between the U.S. and Mexico that ended the Mexican-American War and added land which is today California, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

1848 – Gold discovered in California, which begins the gold rush. The non-native population in California grew from 1000 to 100,000 by 1849 and was mostly men. The population of San Francisco grew from 850 in 1848 to 25,000 in 1850.

1849 – Lifelong partners Jason Chamberlain and John Chaffee sail from Boston to California to seek their fortunes in the California gold rush. They lived together in Groveland, Ca until Chamberlain died in 1903.

1850 – California becomes a state.

1852 – Writer J.D. Bothwick reports his attendance at a “miner’s ball” – a men’s only dance held in Angels’ Camp in California.