Buggery law: West New Jersey, 1681

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The Quaker colony of West New Jersey, whose assembly met yearly starting in 1681, did not pass a sodomy law. Only treason and murder were explicitly made capital offenses, though the English "buggery" statute may have been formally in effect.[1] This colony's status changed when West and East New Jersey were united as a single royal colony in 1702.

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References

Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac (NY: Harper & Row, 1983) p. 119.

  1. 1681: West New Jersey "buggery" law; Barnes, Evolution, p. 28, citing Aaron Learning and Jacob Spicer, ed., The Grants and Concessions . . . of the Province of New-Jersey . . . (Philadelphia: W. Bradford, 1752?), pp. 382-411; Andrews, Colonial, vol. 3, pp. 177-78; Crompton, "Homosexuals," p. 284.


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