View source for Brooklyn Eagle: "sodomy", March 9, 1884

An article reprinted from the ''Boston Globe'' in the ''Brooklyn Eagle'' discusses the death penalty for sodomy and other crimes in colonial Massachusetts.<ref>OLD CRIMINAL LAW./ Punishments Prescribed in Colonial Massachusetts./ Branding and Other Penalties of a Harsh Code / Dishonored Burial of Suicides.''Brooklyn Eagle'', March 9, 1884, page 9. Accessed October 31, 2010 from: http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=QkVHLzE4ODQvMDMvMDkjQXIwMDkwMA%3D%3D&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom</ref>


Speaking of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the essay says:


::The General Court of Boston ordered a revision of the laws of October 27, 1647, directing the Committee on Revision to leave wide margins for references to Scripture, showing the close connection between civil and religious government of the Commonwealth. In this revision an act respecting capital crimes, passed in 1646, which was the first statute of the kind enacted in the colony, was incorporated.


The essay continues:


::This act imposed the death penalty in the case of idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, murder, poisoning, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, kidnapping, perjury in a capital case, conspiracy and rebellion, and in the case of rebellious sons and children who should curse or strike a parent.


The essay explains:


::This capital code was manifestly a close imitation of the Mosaic code and each section contains references to texts of Scripture in the Old Testament, wherein the offenses are forbidden in almost the same words in many cases.


Continuing this history, the article says:


::In 1649 rape was added to the list of capital offenses, and in 1652 burning of houses was likewise added, it being provided in case of burning other property than dwelling houses, meeting houses and storehouses, that the offender should "pay double damages to the party, damnified and be severely whipt." In 1646 it was also enacted that if any person shall be indicted for any capital crime (who is not then in durance [captivity]) and shall refuse to render his person to some magistrate within one month after three proclamations publicly made in the town where he usually abides, there being a month between proclamatiion and proclamation, his lands and goods shall be seized to the use of the common treasury till he make his lawful appearance. 


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