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LGBTQ History: Gay Pilgrims

In the summer of 1637, two working men at the English colony at Plymouth faced the possibility of execution, convicted of what was said to be a grave moral crime. John Alexander and Thomas Roberts had been caught in a homosexual relationship.

Plimoth Plantation Museum in Plymouth Massachusetts have discovered court records from their case, and from a handful of others to piece together the lives of the colony’s and America’s earliest gay and lesbian settlers.

Through the scant records the prosecution of Alexander and Roberts for homosexual conduct reveals layers of complexities in the pilgrim life. Though the maximum penalty was death, neither man was executed.  Alexander, who was perceived as the seducer and therefore was considered more responsible, was branded with a hot iron and banished from the colony, Roberts was allowed to stay, though the colony forbade him from owning land or participating in the political process.

The great Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius