1649: Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were charged with lewd behavior on July 4 in Plymouth Colony.
On July 4, 1649, the Plymouth Colony documented its earliest known case concerning same-sex relations between women when Sarah White Norman and Mary Vincent Hammon were charged with "lewd behavior...upon a bed." This momentous event, recorded in court proceedings, reflects the rigid societal conditions and legal scrutiny of personal behavior in colonial America. It marks one of the first formal recognitions of such relations in court, underlining the prevailing gender and moral expectations of the era.