Queer Revolutionary: The Trials of Robert Newburgh-Online

Queer Revolutionary: The Trials of Robert Newburgh Online On the eve of the American Revolution, the British army court-martialed a chaplain, Robert Newburgh, who had been accused of having intimate relations with a man. Newburgh’s enemies cited his flamboyant appearance, defiance of military authority, and seduction of soldiers as proof of his low character. Consumed by fears that the British Empire would soon be torn asunder, they claimed that crimes against nature were crimes against the king. In this talk, historian John Gilbert McCurdy (Eastern Michigan University) uses the case of Robert Newburgh to glimpse inside eighteenth-century perceptions of queerness. By demanding to have his case heard, Newburgh invoked Enlightenment ideals of equality, arguing passionately that his style of dress and manner should not affect his place in the army or society. Newburgh thus made the case for sexual liberalism, an idea that was wholly consistent with the highest ideals of the American Revolution, and that anticipated a greater freedom for LBGTQ+ individuals in the nation that followed. Register here.