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Sexuality on trial in colonial America
00:33:04
John Gilbert McCurdy explores attitudes to sexuality and liberty on the eve of revolutionary war, by examining the trials of Robert Newburgh
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- [00:01]
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- [00:35]
Eleanor Evans
Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In 1774, as Britain's colonies in America teetered on the brink of revolution, one regiment was torn apart by the trials of a chaplain, Robert Newberg, who'd been accused of having sex with another man. In today's episode, John Gilbert McCurdy, historian and author of Vicious and Immoral Homosexuality, the American Revolution and the Trials of Robert Newberg, joins Eleanor Evans to discuss what the trials can tell us about perceptions of homosexuality in the early United States.
- [01:19]
Advertiser
We are talking today about a series of late 18th century trials that revolve or intersect with one man, Robert Newberg, which cover a raft of fascinating topics from sexuality in Britain's colonies in America to subversion of hierarchy and the evolution of ideas of individual liberty. John, thank you so much for joining me. And can we start with an introduction from you to Robert Newberg?
- [01:41]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Certainly. Well, Robert Newberg, he's a priest. He's a clergyman in the Church of Ireland, been born and raised in Ireland, born in 1742, grows up in Ireland with an elite family, attends Trinity College, and from there he goes into the priesthood, spends a few years in Ireland as a priest, and then in 1772 he embarks on his journey to join the British army, becoming a chaplain in the 18th Regiment afoot, which is also known as the Royal Irish Regiment. From there, because the regiment is currently or at that point stationed in North America, he departs to Philadelphia, arrives in Philadelphia in 1773 to join his unit to begin ministering to the men. And that's where the story begins.
- [02:21]
Advertiser
Can you take us into this regimen? What does life look like and what sort of role is he playing in this organization?
- [02:28]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Robert Newberg serves as chaplain. The trial transcripts are quite detailed in terms of where people live and how they live. We know there are these massive barracks built in the American colonies in the 1760s, mostly in the or a decade earlier for the Seven Years War. These are still standing. The British army has been stationed throughout North America not Necessarily to keep the colonists in line, but out of fear of a future invasion. So the barracks are massive structures. The one in Philadelphia could accommodate, it's estimated between 1700 and 1800 men. The enlisted men would have slept together in a room. One room, probably per regiment, rather per company. Usually two men would share a bed. Officers would be entitled to a room by themselves. Higher ranking officers received multiple rooms. This becomes a point of contention for Robert Newberg. He is a chaplain. A chaplain is not ranked, but according to British military understandings, at this time, a chaplain would be about the same as a lieutenant. A lieutenant would expect one room. But Robert Newberg shows up and he sees that, well, several other lieutenants have three and four rooms. Why am I only receiving one room? Why do they need extra rooms? Other rooms are used to store firewood, personal effects. Robert Newberg apparently carries with him multiple chests full of clothing. So he needs extra room for this, for these things, all of his material. But I think there is a suspicion. Why does he want an extra room? Is he trying to put on airs? Is the room going to be a place for assignations? He chooses one set of rooms, which he is told, you can't have that room or you can't have those rooms. And he says, well, why, why does it matter? Well, the room you wanted is near the tailor's room. It's a large room where the tailors will put together uniforms and repair uniforms. But also your room overlooks the outhouse or the privy. And Robert Newberg's response is, why does it matter which room I like? But there's. To me, there seems to be a suspicion there. Why do you want to be so close to the enlisted men? And why do you want to have a view of the outhouse? Then as now, outhouses were notorious places for male. Male trysts. So I think there is a suspicion there as well.
- [04:36]
Advertiser
Yes. And you've given us a real sense of sort of the close quarters and the ways in which rumors could spread about people's behavior and these suspicions could be levied. So that's really great insight. Thank you. So let's get into this story. Your book, vicious and immoral, covers the trials that surround Robert Newberg and his life. How do we begin to approach these trials? They're quite different in nature. Where would you like to start?
- [04:57]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Sure, I'm just going to start with how I found the trials. So I was working on a previous book. It was looking at quartering British soldiers in north America. And the papers I was looking at were the papers of Thomas Gage, who was commander in chief of the British army in North America from 1763 to 1775. And as commander in chief, he received everything, all the letters, all the correspondence, whether it involved him or not. So about 10 years ago or more, at this point, I was going through these papers and I found this trial transcript. And I thought it was very curious. There was this man who had been accused of having sex with another man. And I didn't know any of the characters involved, I didn't know any of the details. And so I set it aside and finished the book I was currently working on, finished that book, and then came back to it, realized that what I had found in the Gage papers was but the tip of the iceberg. And I found many more of these trials transcripts at Kew, at the National Archives. And so then I put all of this together and tried to pull apart who were the people involved, what were the issues involved, and what actually had happened to Robert Newberg. The trials that I look at are courts martial from the British Army. They are probably not perfect transcriptions, but they're very close to it. They're recorded at the time by officers in the room, getting down everybody what they've said, including very explicit language. These are preserved along with supporting documents, and these end up in what was once the Public Record Office and the War Office papers.
- [06:22]
Advertiser
So to look at the attitudes of the day then, and to be sort of looking at these trials closely, in this episode, we're going to be using a little bit of language that obviously is used differently today. I wondered if you could explain for listeners a bit more about what Robert Newberg is accused of in the language of the day and how that that sort of term evolved as well.
- [06:44]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Certainly, as your listeners may or may not know, in the 18th century, the term homosexual did not exist. It was invented in the 1860s as ideas about sexuality were changing. So if we're looking at the 18th century, the language is very different. In fact, the term that was used to apply to Robert Newberg was buggerer, coming from being a person who had committed buggery. This had existed in English law going back to the days of Henry viii and was defined as being either intercourse between a man and another man or a man and an animal. So it's, it's. It encompassed both what we would call sodomy and bestiality. The term homosexual certainly doesn't exist anywhere here, but buggerer is the term they go back to again and again to describe this man.
- [07:27]
Advertiser
So through these Trials then what did you find out about attitudes towards men who had sex with other men during this period in the army, and particularly Newberg's activities that led to this accusation as well.
- [07:40]
John Gilbert McCurdy
It's an unusual case in there are other cases we know of where men are accused of having sex with other men in the army, in the barracks. This was not the case with Robert Newberg. In fact, the accusation was that he had had sex with a servant, a personal servant who had served his family for many years, and that this had happened before he had joined the army. This made things a little strange, but it also meant that when Robert Newberg first joins his unit in Philadelphia in 1773, his reputation has already been smeared. Everybody already knows the story that he has had sex with men, or at least one man. And so they're constantly expecting him to act on this again. And that becomes the issue. That's unusual because the army doesn't always know how to handle this, because had there been an act of intercourse between two men, the army would have had a procedure for handling that. But this was more about rumors and reputation and what was called at the time, character. So it's very difficult for the army to try to handle this. Two things that are interesting to me. One, of course, is that the language is so explicit. Robert Newberg says, this doesn't matter. Basically, you can't prove anything. So this challenges the people around him to be more explicit, to start talking about, well, I heard these rumors. This is the person I heard the rumor from. This is what is reputed. You did. And so a lot more. Usually when we talk about these issues, it's innuendo or suspicions. These become much more explicit because there are a contingent of officers in his unit who want him out. They're court martialing him to get him out of the army. The other thing that I find very interesting is that the commanders are very uninterested in prosecuting this case. His commanding officer, who's a major of the unit at the time, and the commander in chief, Thomas Gage, have no interest. They write several times, I wish this wouldn't happen. I wish we didn't have to deal with this. We don't have good proof. It's just gonna make everybody unhappy and not solve the problem. So the army's very interesting. It's at the same time both determined to get rid of this man because of a suspicion of what he has done, and yet also completely convinced it is not worth its time to prosecute this man.
- [09:48]
Advertiser
Right. And I understand from what you said and what I've read in your book that it is so much caught up in ideas of impugning character starting rumors, and almost this subversion of hierarchy as well, in of people accusing superiors and that sort of thing. Can we pull out that thread a little bit more of how that aggravates Newburgh's superiors and what they're trying to do?
- [10:09]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Well, Newberg is a chaplain, which makes him a bit of an unusual character within the army, because chaplains are. They're not fighters, they're not soldiers in a way. In fact, they're the antithesis of that. They're to comfort men who have been wounded or who are seeking support. And so Robert Newberg does gravitate toward that sort of role. And in his unit, he hears various stories, including a story of a private who had accused his superior, his captain, of corruption. And this lends the private in hot water. And so Robert Newberg tries to help out the private. The private is himself facing a court martial. And so Robert Newberg tries to find him a lawyer. This doesn't work, so he ends up helping him to write his own defense, arranges for witnesses. The army finds out that he is helping this private impugn his captain. And the army is so unhappy with this and begins to say, well, it's not just that this man, Robert Newberg, has performed this unnatural act. That's not enough. It's that he is looking to pull down the army from within. He is subverting the order of the military. And if he can do that, is he also going to pull down the nation, the empire, and the whole natural order?
- [11:21]
Advertiser
And so people go after Newburgh for this accused act and the ways they do this. It really interested me that they suggested his dress be some kind of signifier. The way he presented himself might be some kind of signifier. Can we go into that idea a little bit more?
- [11:37]
John Gilbert McCurdy
So the most frustrating thing about this book is that I have no image of Robert Newberg. So even though he came from an elite family, nobody painted his portrait or captured his likeness. However, the records that show up in the courts martial indicate that he really liked fancy clothes. And some of this, I think, is probably typical of men. Elite men in the 1770s, they were wearing wigs, stockings, velvet, very elaborate clothes that would seem very effeminate to us. And I think it seemed very effeminate to some people, especially in the army at the time. There are several instances where Robert Newberg's clothes are commented on, that they're very fancy, that they're Very flamboyant. And this causes a lot of interest from people around him. And it culminates at his court martial with an accusation that he looks like a macaroni. Macaroni was a term that had come into the English language in the 1760s. 1770s was a relatively new term, and of course, even at the time, people associated it with food. But more to the point, it was Nefet man, or what we might call a dandy. Someone who dressed elaborately and ridiculously. And much has been written on the macaroni that they're not necessarily seen as homosexual. The macaroni is not assumed to be a buggerer, but the macaroni is perceived to be genderqueer in a way that there's something wrong with him. He's not masculine enough. That these men who chose to dress in this effeminate, flamboyant way are a problem for the country, are a problem for its morals, potentially are going to be a problem for Great Britain as it's facing a rebellion from its American colonies. All of these things in the case of Robert Newberg converge upon this accusation that he has had sex with a man and that what he is wearing on the outside is fully indicative of his inner desires.
- [13:24]
Advertiser
Okay, so you, you've painted a strong picture there of what Robert Newburgh looks like. So just to recap, we've got a pastor who's in the American colonies. He's traveled from Ireland, where he previously shared a bedroom with a servant, which has led to some accusations being levied against him. Also perhaps the way he dresses. He's advocated for some lower level soldiers and challenged superiors, and he's been accused of this act. Can we bring in now this idea of pre revolutionary colonial America? What is this doing in this picture? What are the threads that you've sort of pulled out in this book?
- [13:58]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Yeah, so one of the things that I found so interesting about this case is it's happening right on the eve of the American Revolution. So Robert Newberg arrives in Philadelphia in 1773, and his trial will be taking place in August of 1774 in New York City. It's all coinciding with this movement toward independence that's happening in the colonies. In fact, while the trial is going on in New York In August of 1774, John Adams will be traveling from Boston to Philadelphia and even stops and admires the barracks where this very trial is going on. Of course, he can't get inside because the barracks are off limit to civilians. But Adams records this in his diary. He is on his way to Philadelphia for the beginning of September, when the first Continental Congress will meet. First Continental Congress does not declare independence. It is still trying to find a rapprochement with the British government. Obviously, that fails, and the Second Continental Congress will declare independence in July of 1776. So that connection interested me. Historians, we are told correlation is not necessarily causation. But I started asking this question of as this buggery trial is happening, at the same time the colonists are moving toward revolution. Do these two things intersect? And I think they do in a couple of ways. In one way, I think the language is very clearly connected. The idea of Robert Newberg, as he starts defending himself, will lean on a rhetoric of rights, and we'll even talk about equal rights. And I believe, in my. At least, I argue that he's making an argument for sexual liberalism, saying, I've been accused of having sex with a man. Nobody can prove it. It happened before I joined the army. Why does it matter if I can do my job and I can provide comfort to the men of the unit, as it were? Why does it matter what I look like? Even who have I've had sex with? And he never comes quite out and says, I have a right to have sex with men. He comes really close to saying, it shouldn't matter what I do in my private life. That should not apply to my public performance. The other things I found interested that seem to connect a lot of these things is I think, the fear of instability that's coming from those who seek to prosecute Newburgh are coming from British captains in the 18th Regiment who know that the world is about to be split asunder and know that they're going to be called into war and are very nervous. They're watching the colonists become increasingly defiant of royal authority, of parliamentary authority. And I think they're seeing this mapped onto this relationship between Newberg and the enlisted men around him. The same way the colonists are talking back to the king and Newberg, and the privates are beginning to talk back to the officers. And that's going to lead to chaos. The final point is I did try to track these characters and what happens to them after the trial ends. The trial ends in 1774. Six months later, the 18th Regiment is in Boston for the battle of Lexington and Concord. So this is. And this is the first opening battle of the American Revolutionary War. So men who are involved in Robert Newberg's trial will be injured and some killed in the opening battle of the American Revolution. Fighting for Great Britain. When the war comes to an end. Robert Newberg's chief prosecutors, as it were, stay loyal to king and country, his defenders. And he does have a handful of people, other officers in the unit, who agree with him that what he did should not matter. He's a good person. His character is strong. These men will leave the British army and become American citizens. And I find that a very interesting split. So where you stood on your opinion of Robert Newberg, correlated to where you're going to end up when the British Empire is split in two and you have to choose whether to go home to Great Britain or stay in America and forge a new life.
- [17:43]
Advertiser
That's so fascinating that his supporters and prosecutors map in that way. And I really appreciated. There's a line in your book. So you've said it was not so easy to separate homosexuality and revolution. Both turned society upside down. And I think this correlation makes so much sense when you're reading it. And regardless of whether Newburgh is guilty of this, the act that he's accused of, he defends this quote, unquote, mark on his character. I've got a quote here from you saying it was as if every disagreement and division in the regiment was colored by sexuality. And I guess you track obviously the timeline of what happens to the regiment afterwards with these divisions that are sown.
- [18:20]
John Gilbert McCurdy
I would say the 18th Regiment had been a problem before Robert Newberg arrived. There had been divisions within the unit, which was already causing concerns in the upper echelons of the officers corps. Before this curious chaplain shows up. Before they reach Philadelphia, the unit had been in Illinois at Fort Dixartres and Cahokia. The regiment really seems to fall apart. The officers turn on each other. They force out the commanding officer. And General Gage sees all of this and is very concerned and wants them to have a new commanding officer and wants this unit to shape up, as it were. In fact, this is one of the reasons he pulls it back to Philadelphia, to try to get better leadership in charge. So the unit is already primed for a problem before Robert Newberg shows up. There's already this deep division between the captains, men like Benjamin Chapman and Benjamin Charnock Payne, and the subalterns, Lieutenant Alexander Fowler and Ensign Nicholas Trist. They've already been at odds with each other before Robert Newberg shows up. Robert Newberg shows up, and initially he doesn't seem to be a problem within the unit. In fact, he's close to one of the captains. Early on, they're very friendly. But as the rumors spread, as Robert Newberg's appearance becomes clearer as he becomes increasingly an embarrassment to certain people in the. In the 18th Regiment. Suddenly, these old divisions just map onto opinions about Robert Newberg. And so people who had been fighting over corruption are now fighting over sexuality. And everything gets fed through that lens of, are you for Robert Newberg? Are you against him? And if you're. If you're for him, are you then for all of the types of things he is also for? Are you for pulling down the British Empire, for allowing men to have sex with whoever they want to have sex with, for social disorder in the unit and throughout the empire? And so this question of buggery, which I think most people had an opinion about, but they didn't talk about a lot, suddenly becomes a way for them to talk about some of these other larger issues that they may not be.
- [20:23]
Advertiser
Comfortable talking about just on that point. Because am I correct in saying that some of the people who testified in the trials actually didn't want to talk about it? They just didn't want to. They acted like they didn't even know what was being talked about.
- [20:37]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Yes, certainly. So the officers can say more explicit things about what they think has happened. But in the trial, and it's a long trial, court martial takes place. It takes about three weeks to get through the entire thing in August of 1774. And during that time, it's not just officers, but it's also enlisted men, privates and corporals and sergeants who come forward to give testimony. And in trying to make the case against Robert Newberg, the prosecutor will go to the enlisted men and say, well, you know, what was being talked about? What was the reputation of reverend Newberg? What did he do? They will repeatedly refuse to answer or will say, I don't know. I don't know anything about that. They're very reluctant. And I think some of this is probably 18th century propriety. You don't talk about what people do in their personal lives unless you really have to. And the other thing was, the enlisted men knew not to speak against an officer. They had seen other enlisted men who spoke against officers themselves be punished. So they're very introspective about what they're going to say.
- [21:37]
Advertiser
So left to you to glean what you can from the records.
- [21:41]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Yes.
- [21:42]
Advertiser
What happens to Newburgh?
- [21:44]
John Gilbert McCurdy
Newberg defies my easy separation of those who stay loyal and those who side with colonists. Robert Newberg remains loyal to king and country. He will transfer out of the 18th Regiment into the 15th Regiment. So a different regiment of foot that is also at that time stationed in North America. So acting in the role of the chaplain all the way, he'll eventually retire. And at that point, it was a pretty good deal. If you had been an officer in the British army and you retired, you could retire on half pay for life, which I wish I could get half pay for life when I retire. But he then retires, goes back to Ireland, seems to be where he will live the rest of his life. He lives a long life. He lives until 1825, so well into.
- [22:23]
Advertiser
His 80s, knowing that that's the outcome for Newburgh. How can we see his case today? How would you characterize him for listeners today?
- [22:31]
John Gilbert McCurdy
I think there are a few pieces that are important for us today. I mean, one is, I think there's a perception that homosexuality or struggles over rights for sexual minorities is a new thing. Or maybe it comes about because of the 20th century stonewall, things like that. People knew about these issues very well in the 18th century. I was repeatedly surprised at just how conversant people were with many of the same ideas and stereotypes that I thought were much more modern. So the idea that there are men who exist who prefer to have sex with men, that didn't seem to really surprise anybody in the 18th century. I mean, they didn't like it, but it didn't surprise them. And that you can see these men, it's not just what they do in the bedroom or what they're wanting to do. It's that you can judge them based upon how they appear, by the clothes they wear, by the language they use. I think there are even insinuations about how Robert Newberg is carrying himself, how he's physically moving, which indicate for some people, this man is a buggerer. So all of that felt very familiar for those of us living in the 21st century. I think at the same time, we also might look at the past, look in the 18th century and say, well, this has had to be a horrible time to be a homosexual. This would be a miserable time. Sodomy was against the law. It was a capital crime in Great Britain and all of the. All 13 of the American colonies. So a man could be put to death for having sex with another man. This would be a terrible time. I think, though I found it's a little more complicated than that. Yes, sodomy is a capital crime. It's rarely prosecuted. It's becoming more prosecuted in the late 18th century in Great Britain. The American. American colonists don't have a lot of interest in prosecuting men for sodomy. Certainly Very little interest in putting men to death for sodomy. But there's also a larger conversation going on. This is the era of the Enlightenment, and a number of people are starting to say, can society perhaps be more forgiving or more tolerant of men? Because based on their desires, especially if these desires are inborn and are natural, who are we to prosecute these people? And we see this. So I think there is an emerging sexual liberalism that's coming because of the Enlightenment, because of a sense of individual rights and a great suspicion about what role should the state take in regulating individual actions and individual desires. And one other thing I would just connect to this is the case of Robert Newberg doesn't stand on its own in the book. It's. The book is just about the one case, but I also try to connect it to other conversations going on. And two years before Robert Newberg's case, there's a major case in Great Britain revolving around Captain Robert Jones, who's a man who's accused of having sex with another man. The other man is actually a young man. So it's not just a case of homosexuality. It's also a case of pederasty or pedophilia. But this man, Robert, Captain Jones is accused. He's prosecuted at the Old Bailey. He's sentenced to die. And this is followed in the British press with great interest. This also shows up in the Irish press and the American press. And there's a great deal of pressure on King George III to pardon Robert Jones. And he does. And he takes a great deal of heat for this. The king says the case hasn't been made. This man should not die. And this arouses a lot of. A lot of conversations in Great Britain. The American colonies were occupied by other things at that point. But I do think there's a great deal of people throughout the Anglo Atlantic at this point who are starting to question just how cruel the society needs to be toward men who have sex with men.
- [25:58]
Eleanor Evans
That was John Gilbert McCurdy professor of History at Eastern Michigan University and the author of Vicious and Immoral Homosexuality, the American Revolution and the Trials of Robert Newberg. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.