B R Burg. Journal of Homosexuality. Volume 56, Issue 2. 2009.
Over three decades have passed since Arthur N. Gilbert became one of the first academics to write on postclassical homoeroticism in military history. He created a small furor back then with the publication of two scholarly articles. The first, “The Africaine Courts-Martial: A Study of Buggery and the Royal Navy,” appeared in a 1974 issue of the Journal of Homosexuality. The second, published two years later in the Journal of Social History, carried the title, “Buggery and the British Navy, 1700-1861.” Articles in research-oriented quarterlies such as these two rarely gain widespread notice, but the pair by Gilbert were exceptions. It is easy enough to understand why they gained immediate fame, or more accurately perhaps, instant notoriety. Gilbert understood the value of attention-getting titles. The word “buggery” in learned journals produced enough raised eyebrows in the dark age 30 years ago to assure his gaining a hearing. But there was more to the articles than the then-shocking titles. The pieces appeared at a time when most historians doubted such a thing as gay history actually existed anywhere but in ancient Greece (Williams, 1974). To suggest there was a viable history of homoerotic life in any reputable fighting force since Philip of Macedon routed the “Sacred Band of Thebes” at Chaeronea in 338 B.C. seemed even more preposterous. Then, too, the article on HMS Africaine had appeared in volume one, number one of what was then merely an upstart periodical. There were some who thought it unlikely there would be a volume two, but the Journal of Homosexuality is still with us, and so is the effect of Gilbert’s work. To the surprise of many doubters, both of his articles were carefully researched, with data culled from original sources in long-established, respected, and accessible archives. Each article contained interpretive insight and scholarly apparatus, enabling others to locate the data, check its validity, and use it in their own researches. Still, the true importance of the work lay not in its method or theoretical prognostications. Gilbert’s articles proved without a doubt that a history of all-male sexuality within military organizations actually existed, that it was not a figment of homosexual rhetoric or the spawn of perverted fantasies. Anyone taking time to dig at places like the Public Record Office in London as he did would find it where it had reposed unnoticed or ignored for centuries. The rest, of course, is “history.” By the 1980s, investigating same-sex connections among those in uniform had emerged as an academic cottage industry, and its expansion has continued to the present without any signs of diminishing vigor.
In the years since the first wave of scholarship on gay history in the 1970s, the direction of research has been dramatically altered. The questions asked by early investigators, while relevant enough at the time they were posed, were much the same sorts of questions being asked by almost every other manner of historians. As a result, Gilbert (1974) was concerned with legal niceties, prosecution, and punishment. His analytic framework centered on Freudian anality, reflecting the preoccupations of the day (Gilbert, 1976). No discursive tracks yet existed for defining and investigating homoeroticism as a constellation of multidimensional and constantly evolving phenomena. Classical catamites, buggering Templars, Finocchio’s drag queens, Stonewall rioters, and all else between and beyond were “homosexuals” in the view of historians. As more intellectual effort and solid research went into gay history, however, far greater depth and complexity were uncovered than could have been imagined in the late 1960s and the 1970s. James Boswell (1980), Alan Bray (1982), Martin Duberman (1991), Rictor Norton (1992), George Chauncey, Jr. (1994), Randolph Trumbach (1998), and a good many others writing over the past several decades have taken substantial steps to reveal the intricacies of the homoerotic past. One of the more notable results of their thoughtful and probing research has been the discovery of gay subcultures, or “molly” communities that date from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Probably the most thoroughly documented of these is that which emerged into public consciousness in London during the reign of Queen Anne. This vigorous community and the reaction to it created voluminous records, allowing for a thorough chronicling of mollies, molly houses, homoerotic bonding, and the mass of literary and legal responses they engendered.
Returning to the Africaine: After the passage of so many decades, it is clear that the publication of an extensive body of research on gay history has made it possible see events on the ship during her 1811-1815 cruise to the East Indies and South Asia in a very different way than had been the case when Gilbert first wrote about buggery among her crew. It is now apparent on re-examining the Admiralty records of inquiries, investigations, accusations, denunciations, depositions, courts martial, and their aftermath that erotic life on board the ship was not just a series sex crimes committed by an assortment of seagoing sodomites. Instead, the Africaine carried as part of her crew a genuine homosexual subculture similar essentially to the molly communities that both titillated and taunted English consciousness in the eighteenth century and whose existence in one or another form continues to the present day.
Sodomy and sexual indecency were nothing new in the Royal Navy by the time Captain Edward Rodney, a scion of the renowned Admiral George Brydges Rodney, sailed the Africaine into Portsmouth Harbour in December of 1815 (Stephen & Lee, 1921-1922, p. 86). They had been proscribed in various sets of naval regulations promulgated by the Commonwealth government in the 1640s and revised over the years into the 1749 Articles of War that remained in force with only slight tinkering until 1861 (Articles of War, 1794). Although the cases vary widely from the earliest prosecutions in 1706 to those conducted during the Napoleonic Wars, there is a constant among them. Almost every investigation, court martial, or instance of summary punishment involved pairs of mariners accused of violating one or more of the articles. In several cases, men were charged with having multiple partners over short periods of time, but the activities in which they engaged were uniformly dyadic, with no linkage to any similarly inclined groups or to segments of their ships’ crews. Admiralty records dating from the century before the Africaine completed her Asian cruise and set a homeward course for England contain no suggestion of the existence of anything that could be construed as a homosexual network or community.
The first complaints on board the Africaine about sexual transgressions came in May of 1813, when the ship was well into her eastward voyage. At that time, five of the crew reported seeing Midshipman William Crutchley and servant boy John Westerman under the half-deck violating the second article of war prohibiting “uncleanness, or other scandalous actions, in derogation of God’s honour.” Another midshipman, identified only as Mr. Garroway, was somehow involved in an unrecorded way with the same offense. Captain Rodney and one of his lieutenants conducted a private inquiry into the matter (ADM 1/1259, Report on Africaine Discipline, pp. 2-3, 5-6, 8-10). All three of the accused were punished for their actions, although precisely what they did cannot now be recovered. Garroway was permanently turned out of the ship when it reached its next port. Crutchley was put ashore for six weeks, and Westerman lost his comfortable job as the captain’s servant, a post he had probably secured through family influence. He was made an ordinary member of the crew, assigned to the mizzentop, and required to stand watches, a duty he very likely avoided in his previous assignment. At approximately this same time, Emanuel Cruz (Cross), a Spanish-speaking Santo Domingan of African ancestry, spent eight weeks in irons for attempting an unspecified sexual act with a marine, William Dane (ADM 1/1259, Order for Beauchamp court martial; ADM 1/5453, Beauchamp-Bruce court martial, pp. 25-26). The captain apparently found nothing in the conduct of any of these men to warrant requesting a court martial, which could not be done in any case until the ship reached a harbor with a substantial Royal Navy presence. There is no indication that any of the four, Garroway, Crutchley, Westerman, or Cruz, engaged in sodomy, a capital crime according to the 29th article of war that stated if “any person in the fleet shall commit the unnatural and detestable sin of buggery and sodomy with man or beast, he shall be punished with death by the sentence of a court martial.”
The following year, in 1814, one of the Africaine’s lieutenants, received a complaint about crewmembers identified only as Brown and Wardell committing unclean acts in the forechains. He reported it to Rodney who conducted an inquiry on the quarterdeck. Since there was no actual evidence of proscribed conduct, nothing was done. At about the time of the inquiry, word reached another of the ship’s officers that Robert Silvers, a boatswain’s mate, and one Johnson, of the carpenter’s crew, were lying on deck together clad only in their shirts. The lieutenant, who received the report in the early-morning darkness of the middle watch, ordered two midshipmen, the master at arms, and the quartermaster to surprise the pair in whatever evil acts they were performing, but the small task force was not quick enough. They found nothing. Silvers was also reported to have been seen with his arm around Johnson’s neck, calling him “My Dear.” The matter eventually came to Rodney’s attention, and he threatened to turn Silvers and Johnson ashore when the ship came to port, but once more due to lack of evidence, nothing was done (ADM 1/1259, Report on Africaine Discipline, pp. 4-5, 10-11, 13, 16-17).
In early 1815, there was another incident—a case of attempted sodomy. A Black man, identified only as Marbona, tried to bugger the captain of the foretop, whom he found asleep on a chest. Moreland, the sleeping captain, hauled Marbona aft and related details of the assault to the officers. The attacker was put ashore in Manila. Later in the year, when the ship was at the Cape of Good Hope in June, John Westerman again ran afoul of the Articles of War. A man identified only as Bowser reported seeing him engaged in “unnatural practices” with one Wilson. Again, no evidence was brought to substantiate the story, but the accused were punished for lying together on the same chest. The captain ordered Wilson never to go on the lower deck. Westerman received a second demotion. He was made a scavenger and forced to mess on the main deck. He was also removed from the mizzen top to eliminate his influence over other boys assigned there (ADM 1/1259, Report on Africaine Discipline, pp. 3-4, 5-6, 10, 13-14, 16).
At this point, in the last year of the cruise and only six months away from its conclusion, there is nothing to establish that the violations of the second article of war on board the Africaine were different than similar cases that occurred over the preceding 100 years. They involved pairs of individuals (or possibly three crewmembers in one incident) engaged most probably in cuddling, fondling, or mutual masturbation, and one inept attempt at sodomy. All of that was to change when in October of 1815 more tales of sexual irregularity came to Captain Rodney (ADM 1/2427, October 9, 13, 1815, pp. 1-2, 11-12). If Rodney assumed the newest reports could be handled in a summary fashion as he had dealt with similar matters over the preceding years, he was much mistaken. An initial inquiry into the allegations generated a raft of charges and countercharges from those interrogated, and it quickly became clear there were problems far too large to be cleared up quietly in the ship’s great cabin or on the relative isolation of the quarterdeck. What was intended to be another small inquiry blundered into a mass of evidence revealing widespread sexual activity that included dandling and groping, boy rape, voyeurism, orgies of mutual masturbation, and frequent public or semipublic sodomy. When it was all over, two months after the Africaine had returned to England, several investigations would have been completed on board the ship and ashore, a string of courts martial would have taken place that destroyed careers of several promising young men, and numerous crewmembers would have been flogged, imprisoned, or hanged. In addition, the Africaine was disgraced and her captain faced an investigation ordered by the admiral commanding the great naval installation at Portsmouth.
To gauge the dimensions of the problems confronting Rodney, it is useful to have an idea of both the size of the ship’s crew and the numbers involved in the scandal. As a 38-gun fifth rate, the Africaine carried approximately 240 persons when fully manned. That number included, in addition to marines and the seamen (commonly called “ratings”), all the ship’s officers, warrant officers, petty officers, and idlers (men with occupational specialties such as stewards, servants, musicians, cooks, assistants to carpenters and sailmakers, and others exempt from standing watch). The number of sailors—able seamen, ordinary seamen, and landsmen—authorized for a fifth rate consisted of slightly less than half the total of men making up the ship’s full complement, somewhere near 120 men. On her voyage home from the East Indies in 1815, there were probably fewer crewmembers than the total specified in regulations due to deaths, those left behind when the ship sailed from various ports, and desertions, but the Africaine was probably not significantly undermanned. The ship was returning home and most crewmen were owed considerable amounts of pay, which meant that the number who deserted, at least in the year immediately passed, might have been low. Neither did the Navy’s persistent difficulties filling vacancies with qualified personnel or even unqualified personnel at foreign stations much affect the crew. Purser John Tapson wrote that deserters from East Indiamen were widely available and willing to join the Navy in the ports visited by the Africaine (Rodger, 1986, pp. 188-204, 348-351; Tapson, 1812, 1814; see also Vale, 2001, p. 44). In all, as many as 220 or 230 men were probably on board the ship in 1815. During the half dozen or so investigative sessions and in the series of courts martial that followed the inquiries, some 50 officers and men were deposed or charged, confessed voluntarily or under duress, or simply testified to what they had seen or heard. In all, over one fifth of the crew were directly involved in one way or another with the proceedings. The men named as witnesses, deponents, accusers, and accused represented a cross-section of the crew. Appearing before the inquiries and courts martial in various capacities were as many as 6 commissioned and warrant officers, 5 midshipmen, 1 cook, 1 cooper, 1 quartermaster, 1 boatswain’s mate, a carpenter’s yeoman, 7 boys from the first to the third class, and 18 ratings. Almost a dozen of the 30 or 35 marine privates who served on the ship were also involved in various ways.
The majority of men mentioned in the documentation on the Africaine affair were not accused of sodomy or indecency. The cooper, the quartermaster, the cook, a boy, two sailors, and a marine, were only deposed. Over 20 men named in the records were merely called as witnesses at various times. Another man, Boatswain’s Mate William Brown, was reported to the Africaine’s officers merely for offering explicit and obscene commentary on the situation (ADM 1/2427, October 11, 13, 1815, p. 5; Gilbert, 1974, p. 13). Only about two dozen men and boys, slightly more than 10% of the crew, actually faced accusations of sexual impropriety. The testimony provided at various inquiries and courts martial revealed a complex and enduring sexual community among the crew that included visible leaders, regular pairings and exchanges of partners, reversals of roles by men who alternated as insertors and insertees, a series of trysting places familiar to the participants, signs and gestures of recognition understood only by initiates, frequent intragroup solicitations, the exchange of treats for sexual favors, the recurrent involvement of several boys who served only as insertees, never as insertors, and a level of loyalty and cohesion sufficient to prevent members from informing shipboard authorities of their violations of regulations until persuaded to do so by threats of hanging or by promises of immunity from prosecution.
On October 9, 1815, when Captain Rodney and his officers assembled to take the first depositions, they heard from three men, marines William Dane and James Cooper and seaman Emanuel Cruz. All testified about seeing numerous of their shipmates engaging in anal intercourse and an assortment of other homoerotic activities (ADM 1/2427, October 9, 1815). The man their stories placed at the center of the sexual web of Africaine crewmen, Rafaelo Seraco, was in fact a member of the ship’s marine contingent. In the depositions taken that day and at investigations that followed, multiple accusations were leveled against him. Dane swore that on or about July 1, 1815, he happened onto Seraco “with his trousers … loose and his arms hanging on the shoulders of R[afaelo] Treake [Troyac], and his backside in quick motion, as if they were committing an unnatural crime” (ADM 1/2427, October 13, 1815, p. 1), which Dane added he was certain they were doing. Dane clearly knew enough to have a good idea what they were doing, even if he were not as certain as he claimed. He admitted in a separate deposition to having been previously buggered by both Emanuel Cruz and shipmate Dominico Gadize (ADM 1/2427, undated, p. 14). Another of Seraco’s companions, marine James Cooper offered even more damning evidence against him. On June 4, during the second dog watch, he said he saw him “with his yard actually in the posterior of John Westerman … they were committing an unnatural crime abaft the starboard round house before the foremast gun in the main deck” (ADM 1/2427, October 9, 1815, p. 11). The marine added that he had seen the pair engaged in the same act approximately three days later at the same time and at the same place. Cooper concluded describing his final observation of the two engaging in sex on September 26, again at the same time of day and at the same location on the ship (ADM 1/2427, October 9, November 2, December 5, 1815, pp. 5-12; ADM 1/5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, p. 8). He also implicated himself in violations of the 29th Article of War, confessing to having committed sodomy with a sailor, John Charles, four times in the autumn of 1815. The acts were committed, he added, at the same location where he had committed sodomy with Rafaelo Treake, who it would be revealed was as deeply involved in the Africaine’s sexually active coterie as Seraco. Not only was Seraco a participant in buggery, but Seaman Emanuel Cruz deposed during the opening day of the inquiries that six months earlier, in April of 1815, he observed Seraco standing nearby and watching while Treake buggered John Westerman. According to the deposition, neither Treake nor Westerman were wearing trousers when observed. A boy, Thomas Bottomy, also testified to watching Treake bugger young Westerman on at least one occasion (ADM 1/1259, Thornborough to Coker, January 3, 1816; ADM 1/1259, Order 3 for court martial of Rafaelo Seraco; ADM 1/2427, October 9, 11, November 2, 1815, pp. 2-4, 5-12; ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, p. 33; ADM 1/5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, p. 8).
Once it became clear that Rafaelo Seraco would be one of those most often accused of sodomy, he moved rapidly to protect himself. He became a star witness, denouncing others with a zeal comparable to that they demonstrated when denouncing him. There is no indication in Seraco’s depositions that he thought he might receive leniency if he implicated others; but despite the absence of specific evidence, he well might have seen that as a possibility since Captain Rodney had earlier informed William Dane and James Cooper that it was certain that all iniquity would eventually be revealed and they might receive mercy rather than death sentences if they cooperated and told everything they knew. When it was Seraco’s turn to testify, he spun out tales of rampant shipboard sodomy and provided his interrogators with the names of 14 alleged perpetrators. One of those whom he denounced was Emanuel Cruz, who had testified that Seraco had been present on April 4 when Treake buggered Westerman. Two more of the 14 Seraco named were, of course, Rafaelo Treake and John Westerman, men whom he himself had buggered, according to Dane and Cooper. None of the remaining 11 accused by Seraco had any direct sexual connection with him that survives in the record. Two of them were boys, Christopher Jay and Joseph Hubbard, and nine were ratings or marines. Among those Seraco denounced was John Parsons, whom Seraco alleged had sodomized John Westerman the previous year. Seamen Robert Smith and William Brown (not the foul-mouthed boatswain’s mate of the same name) were also accused of buggery by Seraco, as were five previously unmentioned mariners whose names were listed only in the margin of one Seraco’s depositions, John Clarke, a crooked-eyed marine, Thomas Highton, Morgan Hughes, William Hunt, and another boy, Thomas Bottomy. Hubbard, according to Seraco, received Treake into his anus in February of 1815. Seraco claimed additionally that Hubbard told him of being buggered sometime between May and September by Seaman William Copley, a claim Hubbard would deny when interrogated later at Portsmouth by Admiralty investigators (ADM 1/2427 October 9, 11, November 2, December 5, 1815, pp. 2-10; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard examination, December 15, 1815, pp. 1, 3-4; ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 5; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 2, 15; ADM 51/2086, Africaine log, December 8, 1815; Gilbert, 1974, p. 112).
Seraco’s testimony contained a good deal of truth, whatever his motives might have been in confessing all. Joseph Hubbard affirmed a portion of the accusation leveled against him and Treake by Seraco, confirming that:
Treake thereupon caught [me] by one arm round the waist let down his trousers and placing his naked yard against [my] bare backside shoved it partly into [me] and thus attempted to commit an unnatural crime on him, but [I] being much hurt sung out “Oh” on which Treake shoved [me] and [I] fell … Treake got away to his hammock. (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard examination, December 15, 1815, p. 2)
Young Christopher Jay also confirmed some of Seraco’s claims and admitted he had been penetrated by Emanuel Cruz. He explained that the first time Cruz tried to bugger him, he was unsuccessful, and so settled for intercrural intercourse. It was only during later attempts that the man was able to enter his anus. Jay concluded his testimony with the information that Cruz had also buggered an unnamed boy whose hammock was near to Jay’s (ADM 1/2427, November 2, 1815; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard examination, December 15, 1815).
Another boy, Rainbow Archer, claimed Treake once tried to get him to masturbate him and had tried to bugger him on at least three occasions. Because the lad’s orifice was too small to accept Treake’s member and because the attempt put Archer in considerable pain, no penetration occurred (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 51). Instead the older man satisfied himself by putting his “yard between his (Archer’s) thighs, and in that position effected an emission … between the second and third gun from forward on the larboard side of the main deck” (ADM 1/2427, October 11, 1815, p. 4). As the boy explained it when he later testified at one of Treake’s three courts martial, “he heaved his dirt between my thighs” (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 12). The attempted buggery of Archer was confirmed by the testimony of Emanuel Cruz, who also claimed that he saw Treake bugger Westerman on April 4, 1815. There was even more to Treake’s sexual exploits on board the Africaine. James Cooper admitted playing both active and passive roles while engaging in sodomy with him in the spring of 1815, and William Johnson, a seaman, alleged Treake stood before him in early May 1815 with his “trousers unbuttoned and his yard exposed and in a state of erection” (ADM 1/2427, undated, p. 15) and importuned him to sodomy. Treake was momentarily distracted by a sailor “going forward to make water in the staiyer [sic],” and Johnson escaped by crawling under the bowsprit (ADM 1/2427, undated, p. 15). One later witness, a “Morisco” from Madeira named Francisco (Frank) Jean, put it directly and succinctly: All the scandalous behavior in the Africaine has been owing to Treake and Seraco. They are the origin of the whole of it” (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 7-8).
George Parsons, one of the Africaine’s boys provided additional information about the elaborate and overlapping constellation of sexual relationships on board the ship. He told of how Seaman Francisco Jean had twice tried to engage in sex with him in the early months of 1815. Jean had already been accused of groping a marine in the galley, and when he appeared before investigators on November 3, he made his own series of denunciations, hoping perhaps earn leniency if ever brought to trial. He claimed to have seen two midshipmen, Christopher Beauchamp and James Bruce engaging in sodomy, the pair exchanging positions as necessary. The act of mutual buggery, he said, took place about seven weeks after the homeward-bound Africaine arrived at Simon’s Bay, near Capetown, in May 1815. His accusation carried a good measure of believability because William Dean had previously testified to Beauchamp’s homoerotic proclivities, confessing that he had at least once allowed the midshipman to indulge in intercrural intercourse with him (ADM 1/2427, October 11, 13, November 3, 1815).
Another feature of the sex life on the Africaine that distinguished it sharply from revelations at other sodomy and indecency trials held throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth was the nature of interactions between men and boys. Commissioned and warrant officers earlier prosecuted for engaging in sexual relations with shipboard boys in all cases held sway over the boys not only by virtue of their higher rank, greater size and superior strength but because in almost every instance they exercised direct authority over them. Most often when officers engaged with boys, the boys were their servants or in some other ways directly beholden to them through the naval hierarchy. Officers also had their own cabins on board their ships, where nothing would be considered amiss if one of their youthful servants was present. The degree of privacy obtained allowed them to engage in kissing, fondling, groping, mutual masturbation, and buggery without fear of discovery. On board the Africaine, no officers faced charges for sodomy. All of those accused, with the exception of four midshipmen, belonged to the lower levels of shipboard society, boys, ratings, and private marines. When crewmen employed boys as sexual partners they had no such luxury as private quarters. They simply used public areas of the ship where they were easily observed or made do to with whatever darkened or semi-isolated corner or bay they could locate in a vessel where hundreds of men inhabited a space no longer than 154 feet, a mere 40 feet at the widest point, and with only a few habitable levels between the keel and the quarter deck (Colledge, 1987, p. 4).
Rafaelo Treake was only one of those who indulged his taste for boys, several of whom were more than willing to be admitted to the ship’s sexual community. Seraco continued with his depositions, telling how on the passage from Penang to Madras in February of 1815, he saw Emanuel Cruz with his penis against the rear the boy, Christopher Jay, and Cruz in rapid motion as if he were committing sodomy. Hubbard also related how he had once seen Emanuel Cruz attempt to bugger Christopher Jay but be driven away when the latter “sang out ‘Go to Hell you black b——r’” (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard examination, December 15, 1815, p. 4).
The ship’s boys involved in the Africaine’s sexual activities were for the most part willing and in some cases enthusiastic partners in the ship’s homoerotic society. Unlike the eighteenth-century courts martial of several warrant officers where testimony affirmed that brute strength and threats of flogging were all employed to bring youngsters into compliance, there are no indications that physical force played any role in the seductions of Rainbow Archer, Joseph Hubbard, or Christopher Jay. Although young Hubbard once claimed Treake made a forcible attempt on him, he later went willingly to have sex with him; and while Cruz initially could not gain entry into a compliant Jay’s backside, he eventually managed to bugger him, achieving both of the legal prerequisites of penetration and emission. Christopher Beauchamp claimed at his trial that Francisco Jean offered ship’s boys “drink and other things such as dainties which as a cook he prepared for them to tempt them to consent to his having had practices with them” (ADM 1/5453, Beauchamp-Bruce court martial, p. 20), but the only man known for certain to have offered bribes was Rafaelo Treake. His job as gunroom cook not only kept him in the galley a good deal of the time, but also facilitated importuning. Treake offered cakes and other items to Thomas Bottomy, although it is not clear why since the boy was already a regular participant in the ship’s sexual subculture. Perhaps Bottomy simply did not care enough for Treake to engage in sex with him without some manner of reward for his participation (ADM 1/1259, Thornborough to Coker, January 3, 1816; ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, pp. 2, 5-6, 7, 9, 11-12; ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, p. 30). The reason for the generosity, according to the boy, was that the cook “wanted me to go with him to fuck me” (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 34).
Although Africaine seamen with proclivities for boys were in all likelihood larger and stronger than the lads of their choice, and they ranked above them in the Navy’s scheme of things, lads wishing to avoid sex with them could do so without too much difficulty. The experience of George Parsons illustrates the latitude available to one youngster intent on avoiding initiation into the shipboard revels. Parsons, who had previously rejected Francisco Jean’s groping, was sleeping on the main deck when he was awakened by him trying to insert his member into his anus. The boy fled immediately. Some months later Jean again attempted climb into the boy’s hammock to bugger him. The record does not explain exactly how Parsons “obliged him to desist and leave his hammock,” but it would have been easy enough to do by hallooing loudly across the closely tenanted deck (ADM 1/2427, October 13, 1815, p 2).
Another feature of sodomy on the Africaine, setting it apart from sodomy as it occurred on board other ships, was the semipublic nature and widespread knowledge of the practice, at least among the crewmen who were involved in the shipboard network. Commissioned and warrant officers summoned before courts marital in earlier years had confined their alleged “unnatural acts” to the privacy of their quarters. Ordinary mariners answering charges of violating the 2nd and 29th Articles of War had been discovered in darkened and secluded areas of their ships by men who happened to stumble upon them, quite literally in one case. The Africaine’s sodomites, too, sought out darkened and secluded locations on many occasions, but did not seem to trouble themselves unduly with wanting to be unobserved. There is no indication they ever posted lookouts to warn of approaching officers or unsympathetic crewmen. While some of their engagements took place late at night, in early morning, or in late evening when hammocks were piped down and lights put out, by far the greatest number occurred during the last dog watch, between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m., when many if not most of the crew were awake and about. Then, too, multiple witnesses told of seeing couples engaged in the same acts of sodomy. Some of the testimony may have been exaggerated or even false, induced by fear once the investigations got underway, but since much if it was confirmed by multiple observations it seems likely there was considerable truth in the information provided to the interrogators. The shipboard locations chosen by crewmen as well as the times of day in which they most often engaged one another indicate they did not consider privacy essential. While accused sailor-sodomites on board other ships often coupled prone, low down on the decks between guns, the Africaine’s men buggered their partners against the guns, surely making them more conspicuous. The places where sex occurred are often mentioned in the depositions. Of the acts connected with specific locations, a fourth of them took place in the galley, on guns in the galley, or on the flagstones of the galley (ADM 1/5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, pp. 5-7; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 2, 10; ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, pp. 2-4, 6, 10). John Clarke testified to the ordinariness of galley copulation: “It was known fore and aft the ship by everyone,” he claimed, “that those in the galley were guilty of it” (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 29). It was not only the galley that attracted sexually active crewmen, but the entire fore portion of the ship. The secluded recesses of the bow, the manger, and the spaces between forward guns were all popular places for assignations on board the Africaine. Over half of the engagements for which shipboard locations are mentioned took place on various decks, either on guns or between guns, near hatchways, by the bills, or three times behind the starboard round house on the main deck. At one of the courts martial convened after the series of investigations, Emanuel Cruz testified he had seen Westerman and Charles together wiggling about on the quarterdeck, although they had sufficient discretion to do their wiggling under a tarpaulin. William Dane also witnessed the barely shrouded engagement and later told of it in his testimony. Dominico Gadize and Dane once had the temerity to try buggery between the two guns on “the larboard side of the quarterdeck between six and eight o’clock in the evening,” (ADM 1/2427, November 6, 1815, p. 6), and there is no indication they were similarly shielded by an unbent sail or tarpaulin from the gaze of the officers and men regularly present on the quarterdeck. If they made any effort to escape notice it was not successful, at least not successful enough to avoid being seen by one of the ship’s company. In another case, the court martial of John Parsons in January of 1816, when a witness was asked if, at the time the defendant took indecent liberties with him, there were others present who might have witnessed what occurred, he replied affirmatively. “The sentry at the [illegible] was walking there,” he testified, “and there were people passing along the main deck at the time” (ADM 1/5453, Parsons second court martial, p. 3). Emanuel Cruz and Francisco Jean were once observers while Treake, whose proffered dainties must have been persuasive in the end, had his way with Hubbard. Jean first spotted the undulating pair and then pointed them out to Cruz. Cruz later reported that they were unperturbed by his watching. “They began and went on deliberately,” he said, “without being the least affected by my presence” (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, p. 10). Cruz had seen Treake engaged in sex with four or five others over the course of the voyage, and Jean told of watching Treake bugger Westerman on numerous occasions. Although he did not actually see penetration, he described them as copulating in plain view like dogs. Cruz also observed Seraco bugger Charles early one morning at 4:00 a.m. by the first gun near the manger, and two or possibly more crewmen watched late one afternoon as John Charles bent over, placed his hands on a bow port sill and allowed Seraco to bugger him. One of the witnesses, Rafaelo Treake, puffed on a cigar as he observed the dogwatch event. Cruz, the Santo Domingan, had once cautioned Italian Rafaelo Treake that he might be seen by Englishmen on the ship who might not approve, a clear admission that he and his partners saw themselves as a subculture within the ship’s crew. He suggested that dire consequences could result when the ship reached Portsmouth if the “English” were to turn on them. Despite the warning, there was little fear of dire consequences. The “English” may have constituted the dominant group on board, but they were not hostile enough so that buggering couples needed to fret about being observed by them, and in any case, English men and boys were active participants in shipboard sex. There was it seems little need for discretion. The master at arms, Andrew Johnson, once passed by a fornicating pair without comment or interference even though his lantern provided enough light to see them plainly (ADM 1/5354, Parsons 2nd court martial, p. 12; ADM 5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, pp. 2, 3, 5-6; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 2-3, 4,5, 7, 8-9, 10; ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, pp. 2-3, 6-7, 16; ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, pp. 2-3, 7-8, 17, 18, 22-26, 29, 38).
When efforts were made to secure a modicum of privacy for sexual activities, they were few and only half-hearted. Francisco Jean once accepted a bowl of soup and some other unnamed gift from gunroom cook Treake to absent himself at an inconvenient moment. Emanuel Cruz on another occasion discovered Treake and Hubbard engaged in sodomy on the billboard, immediately beneath the fore chains. They had gone outside the decks of the ship to secure a measure of privacy, Cruz speculated, because a goodly number of people were at the time smoking in the galley. When he peered out of a port and saw them, they also saw him, but did not desist. The master at arms testified at one of the courts martial that he had observed Rafaelo Treake “on the billboard outside under the fore chains waiting for [Thomas] Bottomy to go out to him” (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 11). The two, he claimed, intended to commit sodomy. Bottomy testified at one of Treake’s courts martial that Cruz had warned him about allowing himself to be buggered, and threatened to tell the master at arms about it, but on the basis of the master at arms’ previous actions it appears he had little cause to worry about what he might do (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, pp. 9, 16; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 4-6; ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, pp. 32, 34-35).
Further evidence of fraternal bonding among those involved in homoerotic activities on board the ship is evident in their reluctance to inform officers of such activities. Knowledge of widespread sexual activity did not receive official cognizance until Captain Rodney’s investigation on October 9, 1815, and it is unlikely any would have volunteered the information they did without the pressure of a shipboard inquiry and after being told that all would eventually be found out. When crewmen responded to questions about their failure to report sodomy and indecency, the answers given by the accused men indicate they shared some sense of communal solidarity with their sex partners and held no desire to inform on them. In his testimony, William Dane explained unconvincingly why he allowed three years to pass before he reported an incident involving John Parsons to the commander of the Africaine’s marine detachment. That was all there was, he said, nothing else occurred, “and I took no more notice of it” (ADM 1/5453, Parsons 2nd court martial, pp. 12-14). Emanuel Cruz at one court martial admitted it was an error to have kept silent and then maintained implausibly that he did not know who to tell. At another court martial, Black Caribbean native Cruz justified keeping silent because there were “plenty of English that should take notice of it before me” (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 23). At a third trial, he exhibited a similar reticence when questioned about why he had not reported an act of sodomy he had witnessed until years later. He said only “I did not like to do it [report it]” (ADM 1/5453, Beauchamp-Bruce court martial, p. 23). A boy, William Johnson failed to report Treake’s importuning because he “did not like to disgrace the ship’s company, as no such thing had happened at that time to my knowledge” (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, p. 38). Only the boy, Thomas Bottomy, a willing sex partner for several crewmen, stated flatly in an obviously self-serving ploy, that he was afraid of the consequences if he reported Rafaelo Treake.
In December 1815, when the Africaine sailed into Portsmouth carrying almost two dozen men accused of sodomy and indecency, the Admiralty launched its own investigation to supplement what Captain Rodney and his officers had discovered in October and November. Such a procedure seemed necessary, given the magnitude of the situation. Captain George Jones directed the inquiry, which met on board the Queen Charlotte, a huge, new first rate carrying 104 guns and a crew of 900 men. When the Admiralty investigation concluded in mid-December, it was unclear if anything more had been discovered than what Rodney had found in the questioning on board the Africaine over the previous two months. Midshipman William L. Crutchley confirmed again the semipublic nature of some homoerotic encounters on board the ship when he told of five of the crew observing him engaged in “unclean practices” under the half deck with John Westerman, but this information and a few other newly uncovered transgressions of the 2nd Article of War had little effect since the Navy was primarily concerned with punishing buggery, not persecuting pairs of masturbators (ADM 1/5453, Crutchley examination, December 16, 1815). Even though the Jones inquiry heard more testimony and provided additional depositions, the basic question for the Navy remained not who did what, but what to do next? Hanging almost two dozen men and boys for sodomy would be impossible to justify. In the aftermath of the great Nore mutiny in 1797, an event far more destructive to naval discipline than an assortment of buggery cases on board an obscure fifth rate, only 24 of the ringleaders were executed. Some winnowing had to be done. How it would be done had yet to be determined.
In late December, the courts martial began, with the same officers serving for the most part in every trial. Once the proceedings were underway, it became clear how the Navy would confer mercy on some and exact retribution from others. The first group whose members were spared official wrath in varying degrees were the boys of the Africaine. This had to be an easy decision. Those under age 14 could not be charged with sodomy. The ages of most of the lads accused during the preliminary investigations do not appear in the records, but even if each of them were over the age that afforded statutory protection, it is unlikely they all would have been convicted of buggery. Throughout the entire course of prosecutions ranging from those in earliest eighteenth century to the accession of Victoria, officers were reluctant to court-martial, convict, or hang youngsters for violating the 29th Article of War. It must have been a relief when testimony revealed that young Rainbow Archer could not under any circumstances be accused of violating the 29th Article because his small-diameter anus prevented Rafaelo Treake from penetrating him. He also proved his worth to the prosecution by providing a mass of evidence against his partners in indecency, and no charges were ever filed against him. Another boy, Christopher Jay, also escaped trial although he had been buggered by Emanuel Cruz. It is unclear whether he avoided prosecution because of his age or because he denounced Cruz to the investigators, but going forward with his case would have created difficulty for the Navy. Although Jay admitted to having been buggered by Emanuel Cruz, and Seraco confirmed it, Cruz was a premier witness against several of the most notorious sodomites and would himself escape court martial. Thus, it appears Cruz’s testimony might have conferred immunity on young Jay. It would have been unseemly at the very least to ignore the crime of a man who sodomized a boy and then try the boy for sodomy (ADM 1/2427, October 13, 1815).
Joseph Hubbard was one of the Africaine’s boys who actually faced a court martial. He had served as the “woman” multiple times for Rafaelo Treake, as did Joseph Tall with whom Treake was also tried for sodomy (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, p. 5; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, p. 2). After one of Treake’s connections with the notorious Hubbard, Emanuel Cruz explained that the boy showed no shame and deliberately buttoned up his trousers while he looked on (ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 8-9). As a 17-year-old, Hubbard could have been convicted of sodomy and hanged, but it seems likely his age and willingness to denounce Treake persuaded a court to save his life. Although he escaped a trial for sodomy, the youth did not escape naval justice. He stood trial with William Crutchley, the midshipman who had earlier admitted engaging in “unclean practices” with John Westerman under the half-deck. Both were convicted of indecency. Hubbard received his punishment with the cat o’ nine tails, while Crutchley was ejected from the Navy and sentenced to two years in the Marshalsea Prison (ADM 1/5453, Crutchley examination, December 16, 1815; ADM 51/2086, Africaine log, February 1, 1816). George Parsons, who had rejected several sodomitic attempts by Francisco Jean, willingly masturbated Crutchley. He also received punishment. A court martial found the boy guilty of uncleanness. Parsons received six months in prison. The light sentence handed down to Parsons, only one fourth as long as that given previously to his partner, might have been due to his youth (ADM 1/5453, Crutchley examination, December 16, 1815; Gilbert, 1974, p. 119).
Of the three boys actually brought to trial, only one escaped punishment entirely. Thomas Bottomy, who faced a court martial for sodomy with Rafaelo Treake, went free. Again, his age might have been a consideration. He also testified against Treake, explaining that the man had penetrated him and emitted “spendings” into his anus on multiple occasions, and described how he had seen him buggering John Westerman as well (ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, pp. 30-32, 35-36; ADM 1/5453, Parsons 2nd court martial, pp. 15-16).
John Westerman was the only one of the six boy crewmembers involved in sexual encounters on board the Africaine who was convicted of sodomy, and there seemed little alternative to returning a guilty verdict against him. Despite his youth, he was almost as notorious and flagrant as Seracko and Treake. Neither did he testify against any of his compatriots, although the records contain no hint of why he failed to so. A host of witnesses told how he willingly allowed half-a-dozen adult shipmates to sodomize him and how he regularly engaged in mutual masturbation with several others (ADM 1/2427, October 13, 1815).
Another group that avoided the full force of naval law, in addition to the boys, comprised some of the adults who denounced their shipmates and testified against them at length and in detail. William Dane, who had been one of the first to bear witness against his fellows, provided a store of testimony at the initial inquiries and later at courts martial. Dane not only implicated marine John Parsons in acts of indecency, but denounced, Beauchamp, Charles, Seraco, Westerman, and Treake. Another reason why the prosecutors might have spared Dane in addition to his willingness to implicate others, might have been his age. Although he was 19 or 20 years old when the Africaine courts martial took place, he had been one of the ship’s marines for over three years. Some or perhaps all of the acts of buggery in which he engaged might have been committed earlier, when he could have been considered a misguided youth. William Cooper, who along with Dane, provided the first confessions in depositions before Captain Rodney and his officers in the autumn of 1815 also escaped court martial. He, too, proved himself an able witness, ultimately helping to condemn four men to death (Gilbert, 1974, p. 115; ADM 1/5453, Bruce Beauchamp court martial, pp. 12-20, 25-26; ADM 1/5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, p. 20).
In like manner, Emmanuel Cruz, a leading witness against several of the accused, stoutly proclaimed his innocence in the face of multiple accusations by Rafaelo Seraco, Joseph Hubbard, and Christopher Jay. It is unlikely the court believed his claims of innocence, but his enthusiastic efforts on behalf of the prosecutors surely protected him.
At least two of those accused by Cruz, Midshipmen Christopher Beauchamp and James Bruce, claimed Cruz provided evidence against them in exchange for a pardon, and other defendants in the courts martial regularly charged that those testifying against them had been promised leniency. The courts martial boards were deeply sensitive to the charge and regularly throughout the series of trials asked witnesses of they had received promises of pardons or other favors. The answers, not surprisingly, were negative in every case, but the allegations of the defendants remained troubling. Cruz and Jean very likely expected some manner of reciprocity for their assistance in testifying against as many as a dozen of their shipmates, and they received it. Although both men could easily have been convicted of sodomy and hanged, the damning testimony they provided meant they would not be tried.
Courts martial records never reveal the reasoning used by members to reach their decisions. They contain only verdicts and sentences when defendants are found guilty. The board of officers acquitted the two midshipmen, Beauchamp and Bruce, of sodomy. They might have found the testimony provided by Cruz and Jean unpersuasive, they may have had doubts about their reliability as witnesses, or they could have been opposed to convicting midshipmen of a capital crime on the basis of testimony by foreign sailors. On the second charge, uncleanness and scandalous actions, William Dane and Emanuel Cruz reported only that they had seen them enter the roundhouse together. Neither witness observed any crimes that might have been committed, but the thirteen captains who heard the case decided that despite a lack of firm evidence, the two midshipmen undoubtedly engaged in some of the acts for which they now stood trial. They were found guilty of violations of the second article of war, and were:
to be dismissed from His Majesty’s Service, to be rendered incapable and unworthy of ever serving His Majesty, his Heirs or successors in any capacity again, to have their uniform coats publicly stript from their backs on the quarter deck of His Majesty’s said ship, Africaine, and to be imprisoned in His Majesty’s prison called the Marshalsea in solitary confinement for the term of two years (ADM 1/5354, Beauchamp-Bruce court martial, p. 36).
The prison sentence was the same as that handed out to their messmate, Midshipman William Crutchley.
While cooperation with prosecutors surely contributed to saving Jean and Cruz from the noose, it did not help Rafaelo Seraco avoid a death sentence even though he accused almost two dozen men of sodomy. His regular participation in shipboard buggery made it difficult to grant him immunity from prosecution despite his enthusiastic denunciations of others, and the fact that he was an Italian, a Neapolitan, and most certainly a Catholic assured he would be hanged, since sodomy, Popery, and Italy were inseparably linked in the minds of eighteenth-century Englishmen. He was twice court martialed, once in December of 1815 for sodomy with John Westerman, and again in January, 1816 for sodomy and indecency with John Charles. Seraco received death sentences in both trials, along with his two partners. Westerman, Charles, and Seraco, along with Joseph Tall and the other Italian, Rafaelo Treake (who received multiple death sentences from several courts martial) were the only men condemned to death (Gilbert, 1974, pp. 111-113, 115-117, 119; ADM 1/5453, Charles-Seraco court martial, pp. 3, 14; ADM 1/5453, Hubbard-Treake court martial, pp. 11-12; ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, pp. 1, 17 [misnumbered as 7]; ADM 1/5453, Bottomy-Seraco-Treake court martial, passim).
In the case of Joseph Tall, unspecified “circumstances” caused the court martial to ask that he be given clemency, and the request was granted. His death sentence was commuted, and he was instead ordered to spend three years in the Winchester county jail (ADM 1/5453, Tall-Treake court martial, unnumbered fourth preliminary page to court martial record).
On February 1, 1816 crewmen of the Africaine witnessed the sentences carried out. The laconic prose of the officer who penned the ship’s log entry for that day preserved the events:
A. M. Fresh breezes and cloudy … employed getting ready for punishment. At 9 made signal [with] a gun. At ll executed [Rafaelo] Seraco, [John] Westerman, [John] Charles, and [Rafaelo] Treake [for] a breach of the 29th article of war, and punished alongside [John] Parsons … with 200 lashes and [Joseph] Hubbard with 170 lashes for a breach of the 2nd article of war as sentenced by a court martial. P. M … sent the bodies of the executed to the hospital. Read articles of war to the ship’s company, etc. etc. (ADM 51/2086, Africaine log)
The executions did not end the matter of the Africaine, as Captain Edward Rodney had to answer for what transpired on board. Admiral Sir Edward Thornborough, the commander at Portsmouth, moved quickly to investigate the state of discipline on the ship. On February 1, the same day of the executions, he appointed three captains to head the inquiry. They questioned the Africaine’s four lieutenants, the commander of her marine detachment, and her master. The inquisitors were very much interested in how often the Articles of War were read and how often divine services were conducted. The Navy lieutenants were in general agreement that neither took place very often. Once or twice a year was the consensus. The lieutenant of the marine detachment, agreed with them, but added disingenuously that the reason for the persistent neglect was the good conduct of the crew. The officers exhibited a level of fraternal bonding with their testimony at least as strong as that which for a time kept members of the Africaine’s sexual confraternity from reporting violations of the Articles of War to their superiors. None of the lieutenants or the master condemned their captain. All were adamant that discipline on the ship compared favorably with discipline on the many other ships with which they were familiar (ADM 1/1259 Report on Africaine Discipline, pp. 1-2, 6-8, 11-12, 14-19). Hearing no dissent, the investigators cleared the captain of all culpability, and in their report they implicitly recognized the communal aspect of homoeroticism on board the Africaine. They laid blame for the debacle on “the unfortunate introduction of men of these depraved habits into the ship” (ADM 1/1259, Thornborough to Coker, February 3, 1816, p. 3).
The existence of mollie or homosexual communities in England was widely known and well-documented from the beginnings of the Georgian era onward. The exposure of the stigmatized Vere Street Coterie in1805 provides ample indication that they were in no danger of dying out 100 years later. Despite conspicuous evidence of the presence of such communities in London and elsewhere in England, there is no suggestion of anything similar in the Royal Navy until Rodney launched his investigations in the autumn of 1815. To be sure, homosexual communities may have existed on board warships. There is sufficient reason why they may have escaped official notice and their existence gone unrecorded. But that seems unlikely. Although prosecutions for sodomy or indecency occurred in waves over the years before the Africaine’s cruise, in not one of the courts martial did the defendants engage in relationships any more involved or complex than buggering several of their ship’s boys at separate times and in private. In such situations, boys talked among themselves of rapacious boatswains or masters, and sometimes warned other boys against them or teased boys who had been victimized by them, but nothing in any earlier trial testimony even hints at a situation as extensive, complex and interwoven as that uncovered by Rodney and his officers as they sailed home to England on the final leg of their cruise.
The large number of active participants in sodomy on board the Africaine, the continuity in some of their relationships, the network that existed among them, the male bonding fostered by the flagrant, collective, and semipublic nature of some of their engagements, the stability of the group over an extended period of time, the existence of recognized meeting places where sexual acts took place, and the general awareness among the ship’s crewmen, whether or not involved in sodomy and indecency, that there existed on board a covey of men bound together by erotic practice indicates the existence of a genuine sexual fraternity rather than just an aggregation of discrete sodomites and mutual masturbators. Although Arthur Gilbert did not deal with the question of a homosexual community per se, his characterization of the Africaine as a “man-fucking” ship obliquely supports the communal nature of sexual activity among a portion of the crew. The multiplicity of depositions and testimony in Admiralty archives shows his characterization to be accurate.
After the investigations, courts martial, and the executions, the Africaine sailed from Portsmouth to the Thames to prepare for decommissioning. In mid-February, stores and ballast were brought ashore and rigging and masts came down. On the 27th of the month the log noted the pendant was lowered. Then followed the final item in the book: Captain Edward Rodney’s signature. Later in the year, the infamous ship was broken up, ending the saga of the “man fucking” Africaine (Colledge, 1987, p. 24).
B. R. Burg thanks Thomas Camfield, Clifford L. Egan, Benjamin D. Rhodes, and Richard A. Yasko for commentary on an earlier version of this article. Portions of the research for the article have also appeared in B. R. Burg’s book, Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson’s Navy (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).