Sodomy laws in the United States
The first sodomy laws in America were created when America was still a colony of the British Empire. In the Jamestown colony (the first permanent settlement in America), sodomy could be punished by execution. Sodomy could be punished by execution in many of the other American colonies as well. In cases of rape or statutory rape, the victim was often punished also. Sometimes the victim was executed along with their rapist. Historians are not sure exactly how many people were executed for sodomy in colonial America: