The Jamestown Colony was mostly Gay Men who often got Gay-Married & adopted Indian Children together

[Ian David]

Homo Sex in Colonial America

<snip>

When both US News and the New Yorker ran pieces on the 400th anniversary of Jamestown in 2007, they were both so annoyingly ignorant of the fact that almost all of its inhabitants were men that I submitted my thoughts to both magazines. US News, which appeared first, of course said No, (they never have liked gays very much), but the New Yorker, which ran their Commemorative Piece a few months later, published the following from my letter to the editor:

"Jamestown was initially an all-male settlement. ...in subsequent years...male colonists outnumbered women by roughly six to one in the 1620's and four to one in later decades... It is difficult to believe that a group of young and notoriously unbridled men remained celibate for an extended period of time. It seems likely that some male settlers deprived of female companionship would have turned to each other instead.


"Settlers in the seventeenth-century Chesapeake often paired off to form all-male households, living and working together. ...it would be truly remarkable if all the male-only partnerships lacked a sexual ingredient... IT SEEMS REASONABLE TO ASSUME, {my caps and bold}, that much of the sex that took place... was sodomitical."

These words are from Sexual Revolution in Early America, by Richard Godbeer an associate professor at UC Riverside and published by Johns Hopkins.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-kramer/homo-sex-in-colonial-amer_b_205399.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. It seems more reasonable that if they wanted female companionship

it would have been fairly easily had among native women.

[Occam Bandage]

3. There wasn't much attested intermarriage in the Colonial period.

Not nearly as much as generally occurs when two cultures live side-by-side.

[rockymountaindem]

4. I wasn't talking about marriage n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

17. Don't know about Jamestown

but at Plymouth there were a group of settlers who went to Cape Cod rather than to live in the confines of the colony. Here's a quotation with citation about them:

from "Gordon B. Hinckley, Shoulder for the Lord" by G. M. McCune, p. 35:

Two of the early immigrants to Plymouth Colony were Gabriel Wheldon of Arnold, Nottingham, England, and his brother (name unknown0. Gabriel had been married in England before sailing to America, but his first wife named Margaret, evidentally was deceased at tht time of his migration.

Both brothers had a free spirit much like Stephen Hopkins and found their way to the camps of the Wampanoags. There they both fell in love with two of the daughters of Chief Quadequina, younger brother to the Great Chief. The eaach married and Gabriel gave his second wife the English name 'Margaret' after his first spouse. The two counseled with their father-in-law and his older brother Massasoit regarding what to do. The Plymouth Colony would probably punish them for their intermarriage. Massasoit advised them to return to the colony and all would be well.

The Plymouth Colony tribunals saved face by banishing the couples from Plymouth for life but did not send them back to England. Gabriel and Margaret established their home in [Mattacheese, later Yarmouth,}Barnstable where the Hinckleys come in the late 1630s and here Gabriel and Margaret raised a large family of girls. One of these was Catherine 'Catone' Wheldon who married Stephen Hopkins' oldest son Giles on 9 Oct 1639.

[Retrograde]

20. Pochahantas and John Rolfe

were the famous couple, mostly because formal arrangements were so rare. The English came mainly to colonize, and in later years brought significant numbers of women over and discouraged intermingling.

The Spanish, on the other hand, did mix a lot with the native peoples, and even developed a complex system of terms for the offspring of these unions. There are collections of paintings depicting the various categories: the Denver museum had a collection of charming domestic scenes showing a father from class A, a mother from class B and their children in class C.

[Occam Bandage]

22. The Spanish did intermarry quite a bit,

as usually happens when cultures shared the same territory. The English were fairly noteworthy in the extent to which they shunned regular relations with their neighbors.

[Retrograde]

34. So did the French

especially the fur traders. There's a fascinating book, Ghost Empire that speculates what North America would be like if the more tolerant French Catholic attitude (OK, the author's French-Canadian and has a bias) prevailed instead of the British get-them-out-of-the-way-so-we-can-take-their-land one. Getting back to the original topic, this book hints at a strong relationship between the explorer LaSalle and one of his native guides.

[Ian David]

5. IF they WANTED female companionship. My guess is, many did NOT. Maybe MOST. n/t

[rockymountaindem]

8. Why not? The premise of the OP is that they more or less became gay in the absence of women

I say, "what absence of women?"

[Ian David]

10. Exactly. There were plenty of hot Native American chicks to be wooed, bought, or enslaved.

There was no shortage of women.

Also, you have to read the whole piece for the greater context, not just the four paragraphs I can post.

[Occam Bandage]

25. The English generally shunned any and all contact with the Native Americans,

except for during their frequent skirmishes. Women were not the only resource they didn't import from their neighbors; early settlers ignored Native American superiority in fishing, hunting, and farming techniques, preferring instead to import supplies and attempt rudimentary husbandry. They also seemingly deliberately ignored Native American techniques in warfare, eschewing effective woodland weapons like the tomahawk for inefficient but culturally European weapons like the musket. Were it not for the superiority of steel over stone, the English would likely have been driven into the sea.

The early settlers did end up importing women from England once the colony was stable enough that they could afford to support them. They imported many, many necessities and luxuries as well, despite the various Native American tribes demonstrating daily how to provide for a self-sufficient society not a full day's walk away. They even imported food during the early years, for God's sake.

[Occam Bandage]

2. Equating situational homosexuality to gay marriage is not an argument I am comfortable with.

It feeds into the right-wing theory that homosexuality is simply a choice made by depraved people who wish alternate routes of sexual satisfaction due to some internal or external factor.

On edit: I see I misinterpreted the tone of the letter. Or rather, interpreted it correctly, but for the wrong reasons. Regardless.

[Ian David]

6. Article says their relationships were recognized in ceremonies binding them under god.

Sounds like gay marriage to me.

[Occam Bandage]

9. An extraordinary claim. Without any context or evidence, I can't say

that it's anything more than an interesting claim, and that I would look forward to seeing the primary sources used.

[Toucano]

19. +1

I completely agree.

[Captain Hilts]

7. This explains the pink triangle that welcomes folks to Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown. nt

[Ian David]

11. Are you series? n/t

[Captain Hilts]

13. It's got the two points on the top, but it IS a pink triangle.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/22/Historic_Triangle_sign_on_U.S._Route_60_just_west_of_Grove,_Virginia_near_Busch_Gardens_Europe_theme_park_2-03-2008.jpg/300px-Historic_Triangle_sign_on_U.S._Route_60_just_west_of_Grove,_Virginia_near_Busch_Gardens_Europe_theme_park_2-03-2008.jpg

[Ian David]

14. OMFG! You're right Jamestown is STILL GAY! n/t

[underpants]

24. Oh my god I never noticed that

I grew in Yorktown (York County), actually worked IN Yorktown (bar), and many jobs in and around "the 'burg"

:rofl:

[Starry Messenger]

12. I wish I were having Thanksgiving with my Freeper uncle this year.

I would make sure to mention this.

[hlthe2b]

15. I find this to be ridiculous.... Were some men gay?--undoubtedly

More power to them... But to argue that the absence of lily white english women turned them teh gay? Sounds like an argument the RW wants to make about "electing to be homosexual" rather than born gay.... :shrug:

[Ian David]

28. I think they saw the recruitment posters and it attracted teh gay.

"Go ye to the New World and do manly things with manly men, with hardly any women around to distract ye. Fabulous!"

[ContinentalOp]

16. I read this as Jonestown which made it even more confusing -nt-

[Toucano]

18. We both need our eyes checked.

I did the same! LOL!

[chatnoir]

31. I did as well!

Which set off all manner of weird speculation in my head. :crazy:

[ColbertWatcher]

21. Hmm, I learn somehting new every day ...

... I had no idea that "sodomitical" was a word.

[Ian David]

29. But I think "Buggeriffic" is one I just made-up. n/t

[Orsino]

33. It may be an overstatement.

Perhaps the sex was merely sodomitical...ish.

[underpants]

23. edit-dupe

whoops see post above

[underpants]

26. They had hands and pigs right?

this seems like a awful big leap of assumption

[mitchum]

27. I always found Williamsburg to be a lot gayer than Jamestown

[specialed]

30. My family came to America via James Town.....

and I've often said I come from a long line of dead people who would bang anyone given half the chance. (RIMSHOT!) Oh......

[pnutbutr]

32. **WTF, most ridiculous piece of assuming garbage I've read in awhile**

Where do people come up with this shit?

[Duncan Grant]

35. **You have the intellectual acumen of a turnip.**

This "shit" is not unprecedented. Did you even bother to read the article or are you simply offering a knee-jerk reaction to a post on DU?

In order to consider Kramer's argument you obviously need more context. Well, (insult removed), let me point you to this link to get the ball rolling: http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/index.htm">Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England.

You might also want to research Larry Kramer.