Lovely. Sometimes genealogy turns up stuff you'd rather not know.

[donco6]

Just found this guy in my mother's line:

"On the other hand it is known that a James Ruggles came from England to the Maryland or Virginia in January of 1745. He had been sentenced to death in London for taking part in a mugging of a man in a London park. The park was known as a hang out for homosexuals who were considered easy marks for robbery since most would be too embarrassed to report the crime given its notorious site. However, this one did not work, largely because an accomplish turned States Evidence and testified against Ruggles.

When his sentence was changed to transportation to the colonies, James service was to be "for life", whereas the standard length of service was for seven years. These men and women were popularly known as "the King's 7-year Guests". If they lived through the voyage to the colonies, and many did not. Once in the colonies these convicts were auctioned off for the time of their service. We do not know who bought James, and likely never will -- such records are very few and far between."

He's my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Wonder if he ever got over the homophobia?

[HillbillyBob]

1. I have always said the most violently homephobic have

something to hide.

[tabatha]

2. Attitudes can vary between siblings - so a distant relative

is nothing to be ashamed of.

[Donnachaidh]

3. the dirty little secret about indentured servitude

Many, many of the people sent to the colonies spent their entire lives as slaves. The slightest infraction could tack more years on your sentence. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more folks found a *guest* or two in their lines, if they trace them back to when they first came across.

England was notorious for emptying it's jails into the wilds of North America.

[donco6]

12. It sounds like this guy eventually won his freedom.

But he evidently never owned land, so he couldn't have done too well. But he did become the progenitor for a whole subset of "Ruggles" in the South. Interesting.

[htuttle]

4. Look on the bright side -- he may have just been a common thief

It's hard to avoid viewing the past through today's eyes, but since the Queen's Magistrate took the word of a gay mugging victim as evidence against your ancestor, the case may not have had as much to do with homophobia as it did with the victim's heavy purse.

They say that 'behind every great fortune is a great thief'. Perhaps his real crime to his descendants was that he didn't amass a ton of money before he got nicked. :shrug:

[davidinalameda]

5. I don't know if this primarily homophobia

or just someone who saw some easy marks

yes, I do realize that gays weren't exactly popular during this time as well

[elfin]

6. Many "confirmed bachelors" and "spinsters with dear friends"

in my own family distant history. But none apparently were so self loathing that they took it out on others as far as I know.

In more recent times, a niece committed suicide (25 years ago) and only many years after the family figured out that this self fear as to what the family might think was a possible cause.

Another nephew was gay bashed, but survived.

Another member went far away to pursue her desires and never made them clear to the family for many years, even though we had long discerned the cause of her absence.

The "family" in question would have accepted all of this, but the individuals in crisis were loathe to bring it to the forefront, due to the overall societal climate and fear that the family would be the same.

We are talking 20-35 years ago, when the overall atmosphere was so much different.

While I may "understand" homophobia -- I can NEVER accept it.

Love is love - the paramount universal in human experience - to deny it is inhumane.

[enlightenment]

7. Why call it homophobia?

It sounds like he was simply taking advantage of the 'easy marks' in the Park (which was probably St. James' - it was notorious in the 18th century for a wide variety of activities, including prostitution. If he had mugged a female prossie, would you think he hated women? Which is not to say that homophobia didn't exist - it was pretty well established by the early 18th century - just that your ancestor wasn't necessarily attacking gay men because they were gay, but because they were easy to target.

I am a bit confused about his receiving a death sentence for a mugging - even transportation seems extreme. There was more to the story, methinks.

We all have a few less than savoury characters in our family tree - I don't think your ancestor was a homophobe . . . just a blackguard.

If you're interested, there is an interesting website that has collected a large number of newspaper reports and similar that relate to homosexuality in 18th c. England. After reading some of them, I think you'll start wondering why your ancestor was charged with a crime at all, as 'mollies' were definitely targets of derision, both socially and legally.

http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/

[donco6]

10. Yes, I wonder if by "mugged" they meant "killed".

Or nearly so. The sentence seems a bit extreme for anything less.

Thanks for the info. Very interesting chapter I've stumbled on to!

[htuttle]

13. The O.P. said that the victim turned state's evidence, so he must have lived

My guess as to the reason for the severe punishment would be that the victim was of the upper class and/or nobility.

on edit:

Whoops, you said that an *accomplice* turned state's evidence, so I misunderstood and might be wrong. However, given the justice system in 1800's Britain, I'd still say the victim was 'somebody' to merit such a severe sentence for your ancestor.

[Ex Lurker]

14. Not really severe for the time

even pickpocketing was a capitol offense. You could get hanged at the drop of a hat in 18th century England.

[TEmperorHasNoClothes]

8. this is something you can let go

This guy was born 300 years ago and lived in a totally different era. They didn't even have words common in vocabulary to describe LGBT relationships. I would bet 99% of people, including gays, didn't know what loving someone of the same sex meant. Gays, even if they felt the attraction usually thought there was something wrong with them. There are a lot of interesting books on lgbt history to read. We probably have just as hard a time understanding the mentality back then as they would ours if they were plucked into our world.

[hlthe2b]

9. Exploitative for sure...

taking advantage of societal's homophobia to target this group... Devils advocate question: does this make him a homophobe or an exploitative scoundrel?

[donco6]

11. Probably more for the money, I'd suppose.

Though I'm sure there was no love lost for the "poofs" in those days.

It just was eye-opening to stumble upon all this info, after slogging through ship manifests and census books for so long.

[sui generis]

15. If he's your 5X great grandfather

then you have 128 genetic grandparents at that generation.

If you go back 23 generations you and I are 100% related - that's the entire population of 1250 Europe, including your snaggletoothed island ancestors, before the first plague, every man, woman, king, queen, peasant and costermonger.

why focus on one villain when we have so many villains in our past? Most villainous of course: that our great-greats ever enslaved and killed each other for war, profit, spite and sport. We're all much more closely related than we'd like to admit.

[donco6]

16. Just for fun . . . he's the furthest back I've ever gotten.

I know it's silly, but I find it really interesting. You plug along and find just names and dates on so many people - NOTHING about their lives really, just that they lived and died and procreated. Then all of a sudden you hit somebody like this . . . it's a little jarring! And the kicker is that he was probably a homophobe. Or just needed money. Hard to tell.

He went on to found something of a dynasty in the South - all Southern Ruggles are descended from him. That's a lot.