Sources

Source Analysis

The sources History of Plimoth Plantation 1620 -1647 by William Bradford, Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan, and Minutes of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, 1622-1632, 1670-1676, with Notes and Excerpts from Original Council and General Court Records, into 1683, Now Lost all detail the views of mainly English colonists in the 1600s in Puritan society. Pedro Font’s Complete Diary of the Second Anza Expedition and An Historical, Political, and Natural Description of California by Don Pedro Fage both describe Native American practices as discovered by Spanish colonists exploring California in the late 1700s. Using primary sources from this time period gives a better understanding of the view many colonists of different nationalities took regarding sexual practices different than their own and the consequences they faced. In addition, they also highlight the distance America has come in tolerating, if not always accepting, deviations from heterosexual gender normative practices.

The primary sources are useful in understanding views of colonizers from England and Spain regarding sexual practices in colonial America. The 17th century sources give understanding of what types of consequences were sometimes faced by those settlers who dared to deviate from heterosexual, puritan sexual practices. The Spanish diaries hint at what was to happen to Native Americans who allowed sexual and gender differences to be accepted within their communities. The sources can be used to compare what has and has not changed in acceptance of sexual differences in Modern America.

Overall most of the secondary sources are strong and useful in depicting American perception of sexuality in its early days. The only source that is not strong for the topic is “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the “Third Gender” Concept”. It is not a strong source for this topic as it only peripherally relates to sexuality in America, stating “We join an increasing number of anthropologists who caution against using caricatures of other cultures to advance locally situated arguments. The “third gender” concept encourages Westerners to make poorly informed assumptions about the meaning and significance of gender dynamics in non-Western societies.” [1] The two sources that discuss Thomasine Hall clarify how a transgender person was treated in colonial America, which is helpful because it can be contrasted to how transgender persons are treated in current American society.  Richard Godbeer’s article examining sodomy laws is helpful because the close examination of the penalties for sodomy in early America, and how the public perceived accused sodomist, increases the understanding of colonial America’s views on sexuality that was outside heterosexual norm.

The strongest secondary sources include Bronski’s  A Queer History of the United States, a comprehensive history of Queerness in America, which is an invaluable source to show how American perception of sexuality has changed through time and the effect this has had on its culture. He writes, “Full citizenship was, and to a large degree still is, predicated on keeping ‘unacceptable’ behavior private. This complicated relationship between the public and private is at the heart of LGBT history and life today.” [2] His book examines what was hidden in the past and brings it forward to relate to how Queer citizens live in America today. Similarly, Sex and Sexuality in Early America is a strong source due to its comprehensive look particularly at early American sexual perception, Smith states “The history of sex and sexuality is still a fairly new area of research. Even less has been studied in early America. This volume’s central purpose is to advance that knowledge” [3]. Understanding where America was in its beginnings regarding sexual acceptance is important to understanding what progress has been made. Together, with the possible exception of the Towle and Morgan source, these sources give a comprehensive look at how the American culture perceived and accepted different type of sexuality in its early days, which makes it possible to contrast to American views of sexuality currently.  

These sources as a group, although they discuss a variety of types of sexuality, all in general discuss the subject of sexuality. Of the secondary sources, one source is about homosexuality and laws that affected male homosexuals in colonial America, three relate to transgender perception, understanding, and treatment in early America, one examines sexuality in early America in general, and one discusses Queer history across and in conjunction with America’s history. The arguments they present are related to the different topics they discuss, so there are some differences in the argument of each source. In general, though, most of the sources have a purpose of examining views about sexuality of a specific time period using information from that time period and relating those views to the culture of the country at that time. The primary sources are in the words of people who lived in colonial America and relate colonial views of sexuality as they happened including accounts of homosexuality, sexual freedom, and gender fluidity.

These sources are successful in painting a picture of how sexuality was viewed in early America. The primary sources use direct stories and the secondary sources draw mainly from primary accounts, creating a clear understanding of the way out of the norm sexuality was viewed in early America.

[1] Evan B. Towle and Morgan, Lynn Marie. “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the “Third Gender” Concept,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 8, no.4 (2002): 681.

[2] Bronski, Michael. A Queer History of the United States: Revisioning American History (Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, 2011) ,12.

[3] Smith, Merril D. Sex and Sexuality in Early America (New York: NYU Press, 1998), 4.

Source List

Home