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PA L G R AV E STUDIES IN LANGUAGE, GENDER AND SEXUALITY

LANGUAGE
BEFORE
S T O N E WA L L
LANGUAGE · SEXUALITY · HISTORY

WILLIAM L. LEAP
Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender
and Sexuality

Series Editors
Helen Sauntson
York St John University
York, UK

Allyson Jule
School of Education
Trinity Western University
Langley, BC, Canada
Language, Gender and Sexuality is a new series which highlights the
role of language in understanding issues, identities and relationships in
relation to genders and sexualities. The series will comprise innovative,
high quality research and provides a platform for the best contempo-
rary scholarship in the field of language, gender and sexuality. The series
is interdisciplinary but takes language as it central focus. Contributions
will be inclusive of both leading and emerging scholars in the field. The
series is international in its scope, authorship and readership and aims to
draw together theoretical and empirical work from a range of countries
and contexts.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15402
 William L. Leap

Language Before
Stonewall
Language, Sexuality, History
William L. Leap
Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies
Program
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL, USA
Department of Anthropology
American University
Washington, D.C., USA

Palgrave Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality

ISBN 978-3-030-33515-1 ISBN 978-3-030-33516-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33516-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Peterson, Heiko Motschenbacher, Lucy Jones. Denis

Provencher, Mie Hiramoto, Brian Adams-Thies, Tommaso Milani,
Ashvin Kini, José de la Garza Valenzuela, Nicole Morse, Michael
Horswell, Sharif Mowlabocus, E. Patrick Johnson, Helen Sauntson,
Crispin Thurlow, Vivian Vasquez, Eileen Findlay, and Rodrigo Borba—
all of whom have offered ideas, advice, and critical commentary as this
project has taken shape. Thanks also to my former students and now my
colleagues in queer inquiry, whose research and critical practice set high
standards for their former professor to meet: Nikki Lane, Nell Haynes,
Joeva Rock, Elijah Edelman, Audrey Cooper, Maria Amelia Viteri,
Michelle Marzullo, Anoosh Khan, and Taimur Khan.
I thank Alice Green and Cathy Scott, the editorial team at Palgrave
Macmillan, for their guidance, encouragement, and patience. I cannot
offer enough praise for the efficiency and high standards maintained by
the production team assigned to this project, especially to the project
manager Mrs. Jidda Zobariya.
William S. Willis introduced me to critical thinking about history
(and more!) while I was in graduate school, and his training haunts the
discussion throughout this book. Esther Newton has taught me much

v
vi      Acknowledgements

about the study of queer history while modeling queer research prac-
tices of caution, persistence, and patience. This book is dedicated, with
love, to Willis’s memory and to Esther’s enduring vitality.
The research presented here benefitted from awards of sabbatical
leave from the American University, (Washington, D.C.) in fall 2008
and fall 2014; from in-residence faculty appointments in the American
Studies program at University of Osnabrück (Germany) and in the
Department of Linguistics, University of Bielefeld (Germany); and,
indirectly, from the European Union Horizon 2020/Marie Cure grant
agreement enabling Heiko Motschenbacher (University of Bergen,
Norway) to hold an in-residence research appointment at Florida
Atlantic University (Boca Raton, FL) during 2017–2019. I acknowl-
edge, with sincere appreciation, the support received from these sources.
The Interlibrary Loan Services staff at American University’s Bender
Library (Washington, D.C.) provided invaluable assistance through-
out the multiyear research and writing period. Drew Ambrogi pro-
vided archival research during the study of language and sexuality in
the US military during World War II. Paul Fasana, chief archivist at the
Stonewall Library and Archives (Fort Lauderdale, FL), kindly arranged
access to materials in the Stonewall Archives. Joeva Rock and Nell
Haynes located and copied documents from archives in San Francisco
and in Chicago. Michael Murphy generously shared his copies of the
language-related field notes prepared by researchers from the University
of Chicago’s Urban Sociology research projects. My thanks to you all.
Friends outside of academe have stood with me as this project came
together, including: Christian Ernst, Mike Murphy and Dan Sackler,
Joel Cuffman and Leo Settler, Kent Royal and Rafi Rivera, Don
Sanders—and especially, my partner-in-everything, Angui Madera.
Angui has lived with every twist and turn of this project for the past ten
years, offering minimal complaint and constant affection. For Angui’s
enduring support, I am most grateful.

Wilton Manors, FL, USA William L. Leap

September 2019
 Contents

1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code” 1

2 Discretion 81

3 Surveillance 153

4 Learning a Language of Sexuality 215

5 Circulations, Accumulations, and Superdiversity 301

6 Conclusions 409

Index 417

vii
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Selected Polari words and phrases 83

Table 5.1 Harlemese vocabulary—selections (Part 1) 344
Table 5.2 Harlemese vocabulary—selections (Part 2) 352

ix
 1
Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”

1.1 Studying Language, Sexuality, History

Studies of language history and the studies exploring the histories of
particular languages assume many forms in today’s linguistics research.
Studies adding sexuality to those discussions, and then exploring (or
theorizing) the connections between language and sexuality in history
occur much less frequently, however. Notable exceptions include: Julia
Penelope’s Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues
(1990), Jeffrey Masten’s Queer Philologies: Sex, Language and Affect in
Shakespeare’s Time (2016), Madhavi Menon’s Unhistorical Shakespeare
(2008), and Paul Baker’s Polari—The Lost Language of Gay Men (2002).
These works use linguistic data to recover a language-based sexual past,
and then to trace developments from that past to more recent times.
Studies like Horswell (2005), Blackwood (2010), Msibi (2013), and
Rudwick (2005) consider how connections between language and sex-
uality may reorient under the disruptions of colonial rule and other
sharply potent historical moments.

© The Author(s) 2020 1

W. L. Leap, Language Before Stonewall, Palgrave Studies in Language,
Gender and Sexuality, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33516-8_1
2    
W. L. Leap

The analysis of language which guides these studies is not limited to

descriptions of syntactic and phonological structures or semantic and prag-
matic processes. “Linguistic” analysis here draws on interests in language
developed in cultural studies, literary studies, language and culture studies,
as well as in sociolinguistics, socio-pragmatics, and other multidisciplinary
fields; the same is often true of historical inquiry, whatever the topic of
concern.
This book recognizes the importance of multidisciplinary anal-
yses of language and sexuality in history. But this book explores vari-
ous moments of connection between language, sexuality, and history
before the events at Stonewall In (Late June 1969), and this book pro-
poses that a Queer Historical Linguistics serves as the framework for that
exploration.

1.2 Stonewall, “… the Emblematic Event

in Modern Lesbian and Gay History”
To begin by clarifying the focus for this discussion: Why assign such
importance to the events at Stonewall in 1969, and to the impact of those
events on connections between language and sexuality before?
On the evening of June 26, 1969, there was an altercation between
police officers and patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a bar on Christopher
Street in Manhattan’s West Village. The Stonewall Inn was popular
among straight-acting homosexual women and men, by butch men and
queens, by dykes and femmes, and by people who might be called trans
or gender-queer in today’s parlance. The altercation began in response
to a familiar routine of police harassment: The police officers entered
the bar looking for so-called suspicious activities. They checked some
patrons’ i.d.’s, pushed some patrons into the street and arrested other
patrons for “disturbing the peace”. When police officers tried to take
the arrested bar patrons away for arraignment, others from the bar
fought back in protest: Police harassment at gay bars had happened
once too often, and enough was enough! A crowd of same-sex identi-
fied, trans and straight allies gathered outside the bar to lend support, as
the bar patrons forced the police to retreat into the interior of the bar.
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
3

While some in the crowd watched, others joined the bar patrons as they
took over the street in front of the bar, disrupting traffic and voicing
their anger through other means. That night’s activities finally calmed,
but the next three nights saw more public demonstrations by queers and
allies, and more confrontations with the police.
Stonewall was not the first instance that same-sex and trans subjects
had taken public stands against homophobic harassment, discrimination,
oppression, and violence. Trans and other homeless youth confronted
management and the police at San Francisco’s (CA) Compton Street
Café in 1965 on these very issues (Stryker 2008a: 63–66; b), and patrons
of the Black Cat, a gay bar in Silver Lake (Los Angeles, CA), joined by
members of PRIDE, a newly formed personal-rights advocacy group,
used verbal and physical resistance to respond to a police raid on the bar
in January 1967 (Faderman and Timmons 2006: 155–158). There had
also been other moments of protest, like the picket lines calling for job
security and other equal rights for homosexuals in front of the White
House (Washington, D.C.) in the mid-1960s (Loughrey 1998: photo
insert pg. 9) and protesting the US policy of excluding known homosex-
uals from active duty in the military (Loughrey 1998: 269).
These are urban examples: Examples of push back in various forms
from beyond the metropolis are not so fully documented. Even so, what
happened at the Stonewall Inn in late June 1969 has come to be been
identified as

… the emblematic event in modern lesbian and gay history. [That event]
occupies a central place in the iconography of lesbian and gay awareness
[because] it marks the birth of the modern-day gay and lesbian political
movement. (Duberman 1993: xvii)

In José Muñoz’s phrasing, besides being “… of course the birth of the

modern lesbian and gay movement”, … Stonewall represents “… the
initial eruption that led to the formalizing and formatting of gay iden-
tities” (2009: 115, reordered). Author and social critic Edmund White,
who witnessed the events at Stonewall at firsthand, suggests that lan-
guage change was part of this emergent “lesbian gay movement” and the
“initial eruption of … identities” that it inspired. He explains:
4    
W. L. Leap

Before 1969 only a small (though courageous and articulate) num-

ber of gays had much pride in their homosexuality or a conviction that
their predilections were legitimate. The rest of us defined our homosex-
uality in negative terms and those terms isolated us from one another.
(1980: 236)

So when someone in the crowd tried to mobilize those around him by

shouting out the phrase “gay power”, everyone laughed.

The notion that gays might become militant after the manner of blacks
seemed amusing – first because we gay men were used to thinking of our-
selves as too effeminate to protest anything and secondly because most of
us did not consider ourselves to be a legitimate minority. (1980: 236)

According, as political and individual impacts of Stonewall begun to

unfold, White saw those participating and observing the events

… cast[ing] about for political and linguistic models. Black power, femi-
nism, resistance to the War in Viet Nam and the New Left were all avail-
able, and each contributed to the emerging gay style and vocabulary….
(1980: 236)

With that “emerging gay style and vocabulary”, new forms of lesbian/gay
related public presence and public assertiveness—gay liberation—began to
“spring up across the country”, all of which quickly “transformed attitudes
among homosexuals and modified the ways in which they speak” (White
1980: 235, emphasis WL).
Like White, Journalist Steve Thrasher (2012) traces these modifica-
tions of language specifically to the changes in visibility—being out of
the closet—which the Stonewall moment inspired.

Were it not for a poor, chaotic band who bravely defended the Frist
Amendment at Stonewall 43 years ago next week … there would have
been no gay rights movement as we know it. The whole premise of being
out has been predicated on free expression of once-taboo matters. (Thrasher
2012, emphasis WL)
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
5

Gay historian and political activist Eric Marcus agrees:

Before Stonewall, there was no such thing as coming out or being out.
The very idea of out, it was ludicrous. People talk about being in and out
now, there was no out, there was just in. (Marcus 2009)

Linguist Rusty Barrett argues that there was a sense of coming out
preceding the Stonewall moment (2017: 7) and that it was similar
to the self-declarations that orient coming out practices in the post-
Stonewall era. Barrett’s evidence for this assertion of continuity is the
entry for come out in Gershon Legman’s (1941) glossary of homosex-
ual slang, published almost thirty years before Stonewall. But a close
reading of that entry shows Legman describing a process whereby the
subject “…become[s] more and more exclusively homosexual with
experience” (1941: 1161), not a process of increasingly flamboyant dec-
larations to the outside world, as Barrett’s argument assumes. In fact,
Legman’s glossary entry noted the overlap between come out and (being)
brought out, acknowledging the mentoring that more experienced sub-
jects often gave to those just becoming familiar with the social terrain
of sexual transgression. Mentoring continued after Stonewall, but it
has been increasingly enhanced (and possibly upstaged) by circula-
tions of information by peers and through electronic and other media.
But the point remains, coming out after Stonewall involves forms of
self-declarations made outside of the homosexual terrain, rather declara-
tions made to other homosexuals (or by them) as subjects gained greater
familiarity within homosexual settings.

1.2.1 “The Right Way to Tell the [Stonewall] Story”...

So how prominent was the Stonewall moment in US lesbian and gay

history? Duberman, Muñoz, White, Thrasher, and Marcus treat the
Stonewall moment as the point where new practices and new forms of
social and personal awareness entered the history of modern sexuality—
with new relationships between language and sexuality and new connec-
tions between language, sexuality, and history figuring prominently in
the entering materials.
6    
W. L. Leap

But to say (with Duberman) that Stonewall was the emblematic

event in modern lesbian and gay history implies that the Stonewall
moment was more than a marker or place-holder within lesbian/gay
centered a historical narrative. Emblematic suggests that the events at
Stonewall anchor narratives about sexuality and history in at least two
ways. First, other events claim place within that narrative in terms of
their occurrence either before vs. after Stonewall. Second, the narrative
displays events before as a prelude for what happened at Stonewall and
displays events afterward as consequence of the Stonewall moment and
its (other) outcomes. Following Scott (1991: 775–780), Stonewall’s
emblematic status prompts “the right way to tell the [Stonewall]
story”, that is, any narrative about the events at Stonewall most affirm
Stonewall’s emblematic status in history, whatever else that narrative
displays.
The before/after contrast is especially important for discussions of
language before Stonewall, as well. As White, Thrasher, and Marcus
suggest, once a narrative places Stonewall in the pivotal moment in the
narrative, the narrative describes conditions before Stonewall in terms of
secrecy, concealment, and taboo and then describes conditions afterward
in terms of openly explicit and expressive forms of message display. That
is, Stonewall is an emblematic event in lesbian/gay history because of
the changes that Stonewall inspired in linguistic practice as well as sex-
ual visibility.
Gay journalist and political activist Mark Segal addressed this point
in his description of the significance of the Stonewall moment.

Stonewall represented, absolutely, the first time that the LGBT commu-
nity successfully fought back and forged an organized movement and
community. All of us at Stonewall had one thing in common: the oppres-
sion of growing up in a world which demanded our silence about who
we were and insisted that we simply accept the punishment that society
levied for our choices. That silence ended with Stonewall ….. (cited in
Baumann 2019: 125)

Similar to White (1980), Segal associated life before Stonewall with

silence and with uncontested oppression. Those conditions “absolutely”
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
7

ended with the Stonewall moment: LGBT subjects fought back, their
actions created organized movement and community, forms of visibility
that displaced the less centralized expressions of secrecy and conceal-
ment found before.
The current (2019) managers of the Stonewall Inn used the same
before/after binary when announcing (Late December 2018) that
pop icon Madonna had agreed to promote the bar’s plans to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall moment in June 2019. Besides
naming Madonna as the bar’s “Stonewall Ambassador”, the announce-
ment specified that the anniversary celebration “… mark[ed] the
riots that kicked off the modern LGBTQ rights movement” (cited
in Towle 2018).
In this advertising as in Segal’s statement, Stonewall marked the
moment when a coherent (modern) message about sexuality and poli-
tics emerged out of a riot, disorganized, unfocused expressions related to
sexuality that were in circulation when the emblematic moment began.1
But here, perhaps more explicitly than in other remarks reviewed in this
section, these comments show that before and after were no longer just
a binary pairing. Instead, they indexed distant points on a single, lin-
ear historical sequence moving to, through, and beyond Duberman’s
“emblematic moment in modern LGBT history”. That sequence, and
the goal-oriented movement that it commands, now outlines very
clearly what “the right way to tell the Stonewall story” should entail.
Now, descriptions of conditions before Stonewall anticipate or prelude
the changes in linguistic, sexual, and social practice that would eventu-
ally occur in the Stonewall moment, just as descriptions of conditions
after Stonewall display forms of linguistic, sexual, and social practice
that depart noticeably from the non-modernist practices associated with
before. In this way, each time the narrative describes movement along
the goal-oriented sequence linking before and after, the narrative recon-
firms the emblematic status of the Stonewall moment and increases the
authority of the linear-based Stonewall-centered narrative.
Attention to language before Stonewall, when examined in terms of
a before-to-after linear chronology, enhances the emblematic status of
the Stonewall moment.
8    
W. L. Leap

1.2.2 …Has Ideological Power

“The right way to tell the Stonewall story” has circulated widely in US
academic popular culture, especially so during the months surrounding
the Stonewall’s fiftieth anniversary. Repeatedly, Stonewall emerges as the
single triumphant moment in the USA and often global lesbian/gay his-
tory, with no attention paid to any other event that might have been
connected to that triumph: Here, as in all such ideologically sanctioned
narratives, the political appropriate “meaning” simply “… succeeds as
revealing itself as itself over time”, as Edelman observes (2004: 4).
Bravmann (1997), Bronski (2009), Stryker (2008a) and many others
have been critical of this presentation of the Stonewall story. Some argue
that the narrative ignores political struggles around gender transgression
and sexual sameness that preceded the Stonewall moment and thereby
celebrates the pervasiveness of the closet. Others argue that the narrative
ignores the contributions of persons of color to Stonewall story, thereby
ensuring that Stonewall itself was an experience of whiteness.
Such criticism has not damaged the privileged status that the
Stonewall story retains in print media, television and cinema, on-line
information resources, and popular discourse, or in the commentary
that LGBTQ people in the USA share with each other and with out-
siders when reflecting on their history. In fact, repeated circulations of
this story have increased its authority, even with its shortcomings. This
may be because the Stonewall story has long emphasized white partici-
pation (only recently has the presence of persons of color been acknowl-
edge in this story-telling) and spontaneity (e.g., Stonewall was a riot,
not an organized rebellion). By doing so, the Stonewall story places the
Stonewall moment within the political domain that Duggan and others
term homonormativity, that is,

… a politics that does not contest dominant heteronormative assump-

tions and institutions but upholds and sustains them, while promis-
ing the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized,
depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption.
­
(Duggan 2003: 50)
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
9

Indeed, while the years after Stonewall were filled with lesbian/
gay groups pressing demands for economic and social justice, those
demands gradually became upstaged by more limited perspectives on
inequality and difference. Meanwhile, Stonewall celebrations have
become commercially sponsored events that conform closely to the
demands of local regulations. The disruptiveness of the Stonewall
moment resurfaced in the deliberate disruptions of business-as-usual
by ACT UP and QUEER NATION during the first years of the AIDS
pandemic, but those disruptions, too, remain a haunting memory.
The size of the demonstration—the estimates of the numbers of peo-
ple who attend—is now the criterion that measures the effectiveness of
a Stonewall-related project, not the extent of its political disturbance.
And using estimates of size as proof of potency, is a very heteronorma-
tive (and very presidential) practice.
Far from being a historical report, “the right way to tell the Stonewall
story” has become deeply embedded in “… an obviousness which [lis-
teners] cannot fail to recognize” which then invites listeners to recog-
nize and endorse the narrative’s authority, with responses like “that’s
obvious, that’s right, that’s true” (Althusser 1971: 172). Althusser refers
to these stances of obviousness as ideology. And as he explains, when
listeners respond to ideology’s invitations, listeners have been “hailed”
(Althusser’s term, 1971: 174): That is, they are transformed into enthu-
siastic supporters of the Stonewall narrative who are now willing to
discuss LGBTQ history in terms of the Stonewall-centered frame-
work and the homonormative references that this historical framework
displays.
No wonder that discussions of language and sexuality before
Stonewall (like those reviewed in Sect. 1.12) so often anticipated the
coming emergence of public political fluency by linking language use
before to the margins and the shadows, or otherwise describing it in
terms of taboo’d speech, silence, or secret code. And as some descrip-
tions suggest, this was a language use with negative potency, confining
speakers to restricted spaces, limiting their senses of potential, of out-
reach and community, until the emblematic movement moved before
along the orderly pathway toward afterward.
10    
W. L. Leap

1.3 Other Descriptions of Language

Before Stonewall
But alongside these ideologically obedient narratives, there are descrip-
tions of language and sexuality before Stonewall (and of other aspects
of life before the Stonewall moment) that do not fully conform to “the
right way to tell the Stonewall story”. Some of these descriptions were
written before Stonewall and before the obligations of the Stonewall
narrative were imposed. These descriptions discuss linguistic practices in
terms of other than taboo, silence, and secrecy. They also do not dis-
cuss linguistic practices related to same-sex attractions and practices and
identities in terms of neatly defined, sharply bounded categories.
Other descriptions were created after Stonewall but were based on
the speaker’s recollection of language use and other experiences before.
These recollections are often oriented in terms of “the right way to tell
the Stonewall story”, although some recollections also hint at linguis-
tic practices that displace the Stonewall narrative’s assumptions about
secrecy and concealment. Those hints suggest what language before
Stonewall might have contained, if before were viewed as more than a
prelude to the Stonewall moment.

1.4 Endorsing, Then Displacing

the “Secret”-ness of Code
Here are some descriptions of language before Stonewall that acknowl-
edge assumptions of linguistic disguise and concealment, but still do
not fully conform to the “right way to tell the Stonewall story”. The
first example (Rosanoff 1927) is pre-Stonewall in origin. The remaining
examples (Davis 1973; Dynes 2007) are based on recollections.

1.4.1 Rosanoff’s (1927) “Special Slang Expressions”

The discussion of homosexual language use which Dr. Aaron Rosanoff3

included in the sixth edition of the Manual of Psychiatry (1927) appears
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
11

at first reading to be a description of language and sexuality before

Stonewall whose details are consistent with the Stonewall story’s narrow
image of life—and language—before.
Rosanoff observed that the “dread of detection, social ostracism, black-
mail, economic ruin, and legal prosecution” led homosexuals to create
“an attitude of reserve, aloofness and mistrust” as well as “… a clannish-
ness among themselves…”. As a result, “a heterosexual person cannot
really break into their inner circles…” (1927: 203). As Rosanoff explains,
“the clannishness of homosexuals has led to the development of special
slang expressions among them”, including terms like temperamental or
queer (a homosexual person), turk, wolf, jocker (an active sodomist), punk,
lamb, queen, bitch or prushun (a passive sodomist), and trade (an active
homosexual preferring irrumation) (Rosanoff 1927: 204).
Before focusing on these “special slang expressions” associated with
homosexual “clannishness”, Rosanoff noted that homosexual “speech”
often shows

an effeminacy of intonation and construction, … stagey and affected

gestures, pronunciation, choice of words and general style [as well as] a
formalism, reserve, and labored refinement in their conversation ….
(Rosanoff 1927: 202)

“Intimate acquaintanceship” begins with “ambiguous, suggestive

remarks” which eventually “reveal a fondness for most obscene expres-
sions, salacious stories and the like” (Rosanoff 1927: 202). So besides
the linguistic barriers separating insiders from outsiders, there are lin-
guistic markers distinguishing the social practices of the group from the
social practices of interpersonal intimacy.
But the group itself was not a homogeneous formation, Rosanoff
reports. These users of “special slang” show “considerable social discrim-
ination …[w]ithin their own group, too” including:

those who do no “cruising”, i.e. picking up “friends” at random in the

parks or streets, … those who habitually solicit strangers in the manner
of prostitutes, …[and] … all those of various degrees of “easy virtue” …
[b]etween these extreme classes. (Rosanoff 1927: 203, reordered-WL)
12    
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Occupational choices are another marker of social diversity and discrim-

ination, and so is marital status. Clannishness and special slang expres-
sions may have been shared across the group, but Rosanoff’s comments
suggest that clannishness and special slang expressions were not neces-
sarily shared identically. The clannishness of “those who do no cruising”
was not the clannishness of those who “habitually solicit strangers in the
manner of prostitutes”, for example.
However, when sources reviewed Rosanoff’s remarks after Stonewall,
Rosanoff’s comments connecting language to social inflections are
ignored. Historian Jonathan Katz included Rosanoff’s statement in the
Gay/Lesbian Almanac (Katz 1983: 438–440) but said nothing about
Rosanoff’s comments on linguistic/social diversity. By Katz’s report,
Rosanoff presented “… a special vocabulary suggesting a sub-culture
with a fairly developed system of private communication” (Katz 1983:
438), even though privacy was not one of the important descriptors in
Rosanoff’s analysis.
Similarly, in their monograph on Language and Sexuality, Cameron
and Kulick (2003) use Rosanoff’s remarks about clannishness and spe-
cial slang expressions (1927: 204), to support their claim that “the
idea of a secret homosexual language appears to have been established
in the first decades of the twentieth century” (2003: 79). Rosanoff did
not refer to a secret language. He referred to the “special slang expres-
sions” associated with the diverse expressions of “reserve, aloofness, and
mistrust” …” and “clannishness” in homosexual life. Submerging these
practices within a single language oriented around secrecy (or a single
subculture, as Katz proposed), flattens Rosanoff’s discussions of social
diversity and inequality even if it endorses “the right way to tell the
story” about language before Stonewall.

1.4.2 Dr. Alice Hamilton Remembers “Unimportant”

Issues at Hull House

These differing assumptions about language before Stonewall could also

occur at the same time, as shown in the following discussion exploring
language use at Hull House, the settlement house run by Jane Adams in
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
13

Chicago during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Fifty
years later, Historian Allan Davis was writing a book about Jane Adams
and her pioneering work in refugee resettlement and social reform
(Davis 1973). Davis arranged to interview Dr. Alice Hamilton, now (in
the 1960s) the last living member of the Hull House staff, hoping that
Dr. Hamilton could provide information about the specifics of the Hull
House program.
At one point in the interview, Davis asked Dr. Hamilton to talk
about the women who worked with Ms. Adams at Hull House and
then asked Dr. Hamilton to address the rumors of a lesbian presence
among the Hull House staff. Davis’s question reflected the Stonewall
story’s assumptions that women’s sexual desires and identities before
Stonewall were ambiguous formations and often concealed, and he
could gain access to this information only from someone who had
in-group access to secret knowledge.
But Dr. Hamilton did not respond to this question in terms of the
Stonewall story’s assumptions about concealment and in-group bound-
aries. She first told Davis that he had raised an issue that was not worth
discussing. If women at Hull House had had female-centered attrac-
tions, those attractions have been (in her words) “unconscious” and
therefore “unimportant” to the Hull House community. Moreover,
the fact that Davis would ask such a question indicated the separation
between Davis’ generation (post-Stonewall) and her own (cited in Davis
1973: 306 fn 345).
Initial refusal, followed by references to female-centered desire as
“unconscious” and therefore “unimportant” to the group as a whole, fol-
lowed by a comment about the distance between their generations were
not the responses to his question that Davis expected to receive. But Dr.
Hamilton’s comments addressed the issue that Davis’s question raised,
if her comments were read on face-value: Women at Hull House shared
emotional, affective, ties but considered the details to be relevant to per-
sonal, intimate settings, but not relevant to the interests of public dis-
course—not even relevant to the public discourse at Hull House, This
stance left room for women who wanted to explore female intimacy to
14    
W. L. Leap

do so, knowing that their actions would not become a focus for public
discussion. Davis, oriented around the Stonewall story’s assumptions of
precisely concealed identities, expected a yes/no answer to his question
and was dissatisfied by the seemingly evasive reply that he received. Still,
this exchange confirms, that reply successfully deferred public specula-
tion about Hull House staff women’s sexual agency.

1.4.3 Wayne Dynes Discusses a Secret Language

in a Sealed Book

In some examples, a speaker (often a researcher) reconstructed memo-

ries of language use before under the guidance of “the right way to tell
the story”. Alongside the reference to concealment and implied antici-
pations of Stonewall-centered transformation, traces of additional mem-
ories remain, some of which raise questions about the properties which
the comments have foregrounded.
Hence in 2007, linguist Wayne Dynes described “…[t]he argot used
by homosexuals fifty years ago”, (e.g. in the 1950s) as pretty much a
“secret language”. He continued:

As I well recall, those of us in the know could even use the word “gay”
without outsiders catching on. If by chance they did suspect, one could
always cover oneself by simply saying that they misunderstood. A “gay
person” was light-hearted and fun-loving–that was all there was to it ….
(Dynes 2007: n.p.)

But there was more at stake here than lexical or stylistic differences,
Dynes suggested. “To outsiders, ‘our’ language was a sealed book”
(2007: n.p.) providing the in-group (“those of us in the know”) protec-
tion and safety while keeping outsiders at safe distance.
Dynes’ references to secret language and sealed book duplicated the
Stonewall story’s argument that the Stonewall moment replaced silence
and concealment with visibility, open discussion, and liberation. But
Dynes, much more precisely than Rosanoff, connected secret language
and sealed book to those of us in the know, underscoring the idea that
this linguistic usage was a form of esoteric knowledge, withdrawn from
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
15

general circulation, concealed from the public gaze, part of the building
blocks of homosexual clannishness.
Rosanoff (1927) had also recognized homosexual clannishness
but had implied that clannishness assumed differing forms as further
inflected by social diversity. Dynes makes no such references to diversity.
The clannishness he cited is the clannishness he “well recall[s]” from his
own experience, which leaves without comment the texture of language
use within other domains of same-sex-related social diversity.
Descriptions of language use outside of domains of privilege (some of
which will be reviewed in the following sections of this chapter) show that
connections between language and sexuality circulated widely and openly
before Stonewall, not just in the margins and shadows of the public gaze.
Those domains of circulation included: radio and television broadcast, cin-
ema, musical theater and other stage performances, vinyl recordings, mag-
azines, novels and other print media—including publications that were
written especially for a same-sex interested readership. Same-sex desiring
(and intrigued) subjects learned how to use this language by being atten-
tive to these sources, as examples in Chapter 4 will explain. And because
these sources were public, some outsiders became proficient listeners and
sometimes speakers, as well. That group included members of the local
police force, especially the men who served as decoys when bars and cruis-
ing sites were placed under police surveillance. That group also included
heterosexual friends of homosexual women and men, the actors and
actresses who played homosexuals on the stage or in the cinema, and the
writers who told stories about homosexual life in the public media.
The evidence from external documentation does not matter, if Dynes’
description of language before is to coincide with the “right way to tell
the Stonewall story”. But Dynes admits that outsiders might react
to (“suspect”) the details of the secret language when they heard it, so
the “sealed book” was not entirely “sealed” on every occasion, and clan-
nishness was not always a reliable disguise. When reading Dynes closely,
what first appears to be an example supporting the Stonewall narrative
becomes a statement proclaiming the opposite stance: the public circula-
tions of linguistic practice, not concealment, anchored many elements of
language use before Stonewall, with language use also connected to site of
social diversity, and linguistic practices expressed through visible messag-
ing, not (just) as secret languages or sealed books.
16    
W. L. Leap

1.5 Rejecting References to “Secret Code”

Here are some additional descriptions of language use before Stonewall
where details reject references to secret code, offering instead entirely
different images of connections between language and sexuality.

1.5.1 Joan Nestle Describes a Meaningful

“Woman-Made Mist ”

Even though references to private language and silence often invoke

gendered stereotypes about the language use of women (Lakoff
1975), descriptions of same-sex desiring women’s language use before
Stonewall often discussed forms of linguistic practice that unfolded
outside of the domain of spoken language. Included here were
instances of “not talking about it ” (e.g., women’s sexual sameness)
directly while affirming “it ” through metaphor, analogy and other ver-
bal imagery, or indirectly, through references to marital status, hous-
ing arrangements, wardrobe choices, other bodily adornment, and
vocational commitments (Baker 1939; Bullough and Bullough 1977;
Kennedy 1996; Vicinus 1994).
Similarly, Joan Nestle recognized the importance of the spoken word
and the intimate verbal conversation at the Sea Colony, “a working-class
lesbian bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village” (Nestle 1987a:
26). But for Nestle, “the lesbian air” of the Sea Colony, along with the
“woman-made mist”, the “pressure of bodies” and its other affective-re-
lated features were more important features in her description than were
the verbal dynamics of the site.

We needed the lesbian air of the Sea Colony to breathe the life we could
not breathe anywhere else, those of us who wanted to see women dance,
make love, wear shirts and pants. Here and in other bars like this one we
found each other and the space to be a sexually powerful butch-femme
community. (Nestle 1987a: 26)
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
17

And Nestle remembers how she could

… peer into the smoke-filled room, feel the pressure of bodies, look for
the wanted face to float up out of the haze into the light, the tumult of
recognition. (1987a: 26)

Sometimes, Nestle admits, a bar patron might offer a verbal welcome

to a stranger: “I wondered how long it would take you to come here”.
But the spoken word and its speaker quickly “retreat[ed] into the wom-
an-made mist” (1987a: 26) leaving the verbally welcomed stranger to
experience the bar through its circulations of richly tactile, aromatic,
and visually fluid messaging.
Unspoken messages remained even in the context of the bathroom
line, which Nestle considered to be “the most searing reminder of our
colonized world”, but [later] realized that it “stands for all the pain and
glory of my time” (1987a: 27). As Nestle explains, “because we were
labeled deviants, our bathroom habits had to be watched”. In charge of
surveillance was “a short, square, handsome butch woman” who allowed
only one woman at a time into the stall and carefully allocated a few
sheets of toilet paper to each customer when she entered. “Thus the toi-
let line was born, a twisting horizon of lesbian women waiting for per-
mission to urinate, to shit” (1987a: 26).
The women at the Sea Colony resented the bathroom line and its regu-
lations, but they developed “a line act” in response to these demands and
the butch woman who embodied them. And during the “line act”, spoken
language replaced the women-made mist: “we joked, we cruised, we made
special please to allow hot-and-heavy lovers to go in together…”, Nestle
recalls. Still, even as their verbal pleas met the butch woman’s silence
resistance, Nestle “stood, a femme, loving the women on either side of
me… my comrades, for their style, the power of their stance” (1987a: 27).
Words did not preempt affect rather the need for words enhanced it:

Buried deep in our endurance was our fury. That line was practice and
theory fused into one… Every time I took the fistful of toilet paper,
I swore eventual liberation. It would be, however, liberation with a mem-
ory. (Nestle 1987a: 27)
18    
W. L. Leap

1.5.2 The Language Use of Queers and Fairies

The database for George Chauncey’s Gay New York (1994) included
same-sex interested men’s narratives from before and as well as recollec-
tions of life before which some men produced at later time. Both sets
of comment note that self-identified as queers developed a “variety of
strategies …for negotiating their ways on the streets during the first dec-
ades of the 20th century”, one of which was a secret code (Chauncey
1994: 167). These men recognized that there were “… risks involved
in asserting a visible presence in the streets [and] chose not to chal-
lenge the conventions of heterosexual society so directly”. With strate-
gies like the secret code, queers were able “… to recognize one another
without drawing the attention of the uninitiated, [thereby remain-
ing] …hidden from the dominant culture but not from each other”
(Chauncey 1994: 167).
The queers’ “secret code” resembles the “clannishness” associated with
the “special slang language” that depicted in Rosanoff’s (1927) descrip-
tion of language before Stonewall. But just as Rosanoff mentioned other
subjects and implied forms of practice, Chauncey describes the language
use of New York’s fairies, men

… boldly announced their sexual interests and created a visible gay pres-
ence by speaking, carrying themselves and dressing in styles that the dom-
inant culture associated with fairies. … [E]ven though [doing so] could
result in harassment from onlookers, … [f ]airies used codes that were
intelligible to straights as well as gays, such as flashy dress and an effemi-
nate demeanor …. (Chauncey 1994: 167, reordered)

Unlike the queers, fairies showed little interest in disguising their same-
sex identities, desires, or attractions. By Chauncey’s analysis, while
queers actively tried to remain “… hidden from the dominant culture”
though not hidden from each other, fairies declared themselves as them-
selves “to straights as well as gays” by drawing on forms of self-reference
that would be easily understood by spectators regardless of their sexual
interests.
 1 Studying a Not-so-Secret “Secret Code”    
19

But the connections between language and sexuality in gay New

York were not defined entirely by a queer vs. fairy binary, however.
Chauncey notes that sexually related social and linguistic practices cir-
culating freely throughout the commercial, residential, and public (the
parks, the subway,) spaces extending from the Village and the Bowery
to Harlem (the African American residential area located north of
Manhattan’s 125th street). Given their already-distinct locations within
the city’s sexual geography, queers and fairies were already familiar with
the demands of social and spatial boundary crossing. Traveling distances
to find queer/fairy-friendly sites was certainly familiar for queers and
fairies (e.g., Chauncey 1994: 36), and so were the diverse (class, racial,
ethnic, linguistic as well as gender and sexual/erotic) backgrounds of the
other customers who frequented those locations.
Chauncey’s discussion shows something else about the language use
of queers and fairies before Stonewall. The queers’ “secret code” and the
fairies’ linguistic flamboyance came to reflect the outcomes of the lan-
guage contact and linguistic accumulation that occurred at such loca-
tions, when queers and fairies were in conversation (or other intimate
exchange) with customers from other social and linguistic backgrounds.
Note that language contact in such instances produced linguistic
accumulations between languages and also between dialects or sociolects
of the same language. For example, Anderson (1921: 3–15) reports that
hobos often spent the winter in rooming houses in large US cities, tak-
ing work where ever they could find it. These neighborhoods were also
the sites for bars and taverns frequented by (male and female) sex work-
ers and same-sex desiring men, a component of US urban sexual his-
tory that will benefit from closer scrutiny (Johnson 2008: 314–316).
For the moment, glossaries prepared, by Rosanoff (1927), Legman
(1941), and Swasarnt-Nerf (1949) include terminology used by homo-
sexuals that also appear in glossaries of hobo and tramp vocabulary
(Irwin 1931) and other publications describing of underground slang.4
Apparently, wintertime created opportunities for mutual language learn-
ing between hobos and other sexual subjects, and those opportunities
need to be included in the scrutiny that Johnson proposes.
20    
W. L. Leap

1.5.3 The Language Dynamics of Camp

In some discussions, a prominent form of language use, and of homo-

sexual-related expressive culture in general before Stonewall, is identi-
fied with the generic term camp. This term identifies messages about
transgressive sexuality and other unconventional topics, when given
bold expression, exaggeration, provocative imagery, and unrestrained
creativity—so much so that the details of presentation assume more
significance within the speech event than does the message itself.
More than exaggerated, flamboyant, or excessive content, camp identi-
fies a process of exaggeration, flamboyance, and excess which, in most
instances has a performative effect on speakers and spectators: Camp, a
form of doing, creates forms of being.
Here, Meyer explains, lies the close connection between camp and
various expressions of queer identity.

In the sense that queer identity is performative, it is by the deployment

of specific signifying codes that social visibility is produced. Because the
function of Camp … is the production of queer social visibility, the rela-
tionship between Camp and queer identity can be posited. (2004: 5)

Legman’s (1941) homosexual glossary also contains an entry for camp,

and the wording of the entry suggests that something similar to Meyer’s
understanding of camp may have been in circulation before Stonewall:

*camp. To speak, act or in any way attract or attempt to attract attention,

especially if noisily, flamboyantly, bizarrely, or in any other way calculated
to announce, express or burlesque one’s own homosexuality or that of
any other person. As a noun, camp refers to such flamboyance or bizarre-
rie [sic] of speech or action or to a person displaying it. The verbal noun
camping is very common; it should be noticed that camping is largely
a practice of male homosexuals and not very common among Lesbians.
Adjective: campy. (Legman 1941: 1159–1160)

When an asterisk preceding an entry in Legman’s glossary, the aster-

isk indicated (1941: 1155) that the term—in this case, *camp—was
Another random document with
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keep the Bahama shore aboard, Shoals of a great Extent, sprinkled
with rocky Islands so low, there is very little Safety to those unhappy
Men who are cast away upon them; yet at several, there are
anchoring Places, and fresh Water found.
They meet the Wind in Summer, for the greatest part of the
Channel, Easterly; which with a counter Current in shore, pushes
them through easily; much the better way for any sudden Attack
upon the Havana (a glorious Attempt in time of War) because they
cannot discover you, like as in the other Path from Jamaica, where
by Beacons, they can gain an Intelligence of 150 Leagues in a very
short Space of time, and so be the better prepared.
In order to the laying down my Sentiment on the Florida Current, I
shall premise the Facts and Observations of our Pilots in relation to
this Gulph, and that of Mexico, which have a Dependency as to the
Cause of it, with each other.
1. This Stream goes constantly out to the Northward in mid
Channel, its Force having some respect (like Tides in other
Channels) to the Moon and to the Winds; with a counter Current, or
at least a Stillness of the Water in shore, that will enable a Ship to
turn through, be the middle Stream never so strong; the same as in
the Strait of Gibraltar, where tho’ the Current is continually into the
Mediterranean, Ships may work through, keeping the Shore aboard.
2. The Current which goes out here, sets for the most part into the
Gulph of Mexico, between the two Capes of Corientes and Catoche,
with counter Currents in shore; tho’ not always so, the Pilots having
observed them strong to the East, new, and full Moons.
3. As to the Bay of Mexico it self, there are every where Currents
round it various and uncertain, as to the Point they run on, or time of
Continuance, especially on the Apalachian Side where it is safest
stopping in the Night, and up Anchor only, in the Day. That these
Currents are less discernible the farther from shore, and for the most
part, bend to the Trend of the Lands; that is, when you have rounded
Cape Catoche, it sets Westward, open with Campechy Bay to the
Southward: From Vera Cruz in 19°° to the Latitude of 28°° it runs to
the Northward, and thence round the Bay to the Eastward; more
perceptible, I say, the nearer shore, because bounded, and makes
the Tides in the Rivers.
4. The Rivers of Georgia, and Carolina (next Coast to Florida
Northward) have as regular Tides as the Thames. So again, in the
Bay of Honduras Southward, whose Reflux, it must be taken notice,
makes a Northern Current.
Now to sum up all, in order to account for the Current of Florida,
which seems to me only this, that more of the Flood is propagated
into the Bay of Mexico, by that Passage made from the West End of
Cuba, and Shore of Yucatan; and more of the Ebb by the Chanel of
Florida, and for these Reasons.
The Gulph of Mexico receives many and large Rivers, whose
Mouths together carry some proportion with the Chanel of Florida;
and consider’d as a little Mediterranean Sea, the Flood in it must
have a more remarkable and strong Ebb: which shews it self rather
here, first, because the Make of the Lands gives a freer Opening and
Tendency of the Waters that way. Second, The Length and
Contraction of the Channel, makes it more visible and constant, and
is the Continuance of those River-Streams (that disembogue in the
Bay) even till it meets with the Tide to the Northward, which checks,
like as at them, and produces a counter Current along shore: for we
may observe, that altho’ the Current goes constantly out in the
Channel, yet at the Isle of Providence contiguous to it almost, the
Tides are alternate and regular. Third, The Winds at East are more
favourable to the Exit than the Trade, which sets in directly at the
other Passage, and while it helps the Flood there, is at the same
time an Obstacle to its Return; to which assists also that Northern
Current from the Bay of Honduras; nor will it be so perceptible there,
because what Reflux is, opens to a wider Sea immediately, and
probably had been the same at Florida, if the Gulph of Mexico had
open’d without such Restraint to the main Ocean directly.
On this Supposition, the Variety and Uncertainty of Currents in the
Bay, and the greater or less Rapidity in the Chanel, will depend
much on the Winds without; and as they are dry or wet Seasons at
Land, new and full Moons should influence the Strength of the
Stream; and hard Gales concurring at N. or N E. among the
Bahamas, should slacken it there, and promote an Eastern Current
at the other Passage.
 JAMAICA.
Jamaica, called St. Jago by Columbus, and was altered by King
James II. it being a Compound of his Name, and Ca an Island. The
chief Town is called St. Jago de la Vega (by the English, Spanish-
Town.) Here the Governor resides; Courts are held, and the
Assembly (chose as at Barbados) meet to enact Laws for the civil
Government of the Island; which consequently draws the greatest
Resort of People, on account either of Business or Pleasure.
It was built about 1590, plunder’d by some English Privateers
under one Jackson, in 1638, and in 1657 the whole Island was
reduced by Pen and Venables: The favourite Families of those Days,
(Bradshaws, Iretons, Axtells,) I believe, sharing the Estates; so warm
a Climate with Hurricanes, Earthquakes, and dry Belly-achs, was a
due Preparation. This Town of St. Jago is irregular, and low built, to
secure it against Storms; even the Governor’s, or what they call the
King’s House, is but a Ground Floor, and makes one side of a
Quadrangle, with a Parade, where all Gentlemen meet to transact
their Business; the Merchants and Factors for distant Planters, and
the Officers civil and military, do together make a considerable
Number, dividing in the Evenings to Parties of Dancing, Gaming, or
Drinking, and generally to a publick House, to avoid the Obligation of
Returns and Treats, very costly in this Country.
Kingston, at the upper End of Port-Royal Harbour, the Place of
lading and unlading almost all Ships to and from the Island; is in my
eye, preferable to the former. The Streets are wide, and more
regular, to face the Sea-Breezes, and the cross Streets at right
Angles, that the Air may have as little Interruption as possible; a
Convenience that cannot be too much meditated in so hot a Climate:
for the Land-Breezes failing betimes in the Morning, you have it
excessively hot; all Creatures languish and faint till the Sea one
succeeds, which will not be till ten a clock, sometimes eleven, or
later, and may be esteemed the Life of the Island, dispelling those
impure Vapors, continually exhaled from the Mountains, and
refreshing and rowsing the animal Nature, from Backgammon or
Loitering, to Business.
The Harbour is spacious here, and the Ships lie Land-locked; but
the Peninsula that covers them from the Sea being low and narrow,
they are not so safe against Storms as one would imagine.
From hence to Spanish-Town, when called on any Law-suit or
Business, they take Boat to Passage-Fort on the other side, a small
River at the Bottom of the Harbour, where are three or four Houses
that furnish Passengers for the Journey (6 Miles) at 20s. a Coach, or
5s. a Horse, and are rarely without Customers; the Calls in Traffick
are so frequent.
Port-Royal, which makes up with the former two, all the Towns of
Note on the whole Island, is on the Starboard Entrance of the
Harbour. The Road before it is reckoned good holding Ground, and
fenced from Southerly Winds, by sandy Kays without. The Town it
self stands on such a sandy Kay, not much above the Surface of the
Water, and contains no more Ground than holds the Buildings, and
the Fort contiguous with it on the outer Point; which, with a Line, or
Rampart of Guns to the Sea, (together about 100) is their chief
Defence. Under the Fort is a little Nook, or Bay, called Chocolato
Hole, where we have a Hulk lies for cleaning Ships.
Port-Royal has suffered remarkably every ten years, for thirty past.
In 1692, an Earthquake sunk above half the Town; the Rubbish of
those Buildings being still seen under Water, in the shallow Channel
that now continues to divide it from the Main. In 1702, it was burnt
down. In 1712, August 28th, happened a dreadful Hurricane. And
now, August 28th, 1722, a more dreadful one, that besides the
Damage it spread over most parts of the Island, did here in particular
split the Castle, lay the Church and two thirds of the Town flat,
burying three or four hundred People in the Ruins; but the Terror and
Desolation may deserve a more particular Description.
Forsan hæc olim meminisse juvabit.
 HURRICANES:
The West-Indians agree, that August and September is the Season
to expect them. They are incredible Tempests of Wind, whose Fury,
neither Ships, Masts, Trees, or Buildings can resist. They come a
Day or two before the full or new Moon next the Autumnal Equinox,
and give Warning by a preceding unusual Swell of Water. They are
of no great Extent, but blow within a Chanel as it were, one Island
feeling it, when the next (within 20 Leagues perhaps) has no Share;
and are, if not peculiar, rarely met with out of the West-Indies.
The Cause, as guessed at, is Plenty of elastic Vapors on the Terra
Firma (whence they all blow) with which conspire at this time of year,
the united Force of the Sun and Moon, to give their Explosion a
greater Force; to this also may contribute, subterraneous Heats and
Mountains: and if such different Effluvias as constitute the Matter of a
Hurricane, can be supplied to the Chanel it blows in, crescit eundo.
This Opinion seems confirmed, first, from the Points of the
Compass they blow on (S E. and S S E.) and never without side the
Continent at Cape Roque; for that Length the uninterrupted Trade-
Wind is a Barrier, and from which these Storms, by the Position of
Lands and Mountains, are necessarily a Deflection. Second,
Æquinoctial Gales, we know, are every where observed to happen,
and ascribed to the greater Agitation of Air, by Heat in a greater Orb;
when therefore the Northern Suns have so long together been
attracting, and at the same time chopping, and opening the Earth for
a freer Emission of nitrous, sulphurous, and elastic Particles, no
wonder the conjoined Forces of the Planets there, should now and
then put them in execution.
The present Hurricane was a Week after our Arrival; began at
eight in the Morning, two Days before the Change of the Moon, gave
at least 48 Hours notice, by a noisy breaking of the Waves upon the
Kays, very disproportioned to the Breeze, a continued Swell, without
Reflux of the Water; and the two Nights preceding, prodigious
Lightnings and Thunder; which all the old experienced Men foretold
would be a Hurricane; or that one already had happened at no great
distance.
I was ashore at Port-Royal, and found all the Pilots returned from
the Windward part of the Island, (where they customarily attend the
coming down of Ships,) and observing upon the unusual
Intumescence of the Water, so great the Day before, and beat so
high, that our Boats could not possibly put on shore at Gun Kay to
take the Men off that were set there, to the Number of twenty, for
trimming up our Cask; themselves making Signals not to attempt it.
Betimes next Morning, the Wind began in Flurrys at N E. and flew
quickly round to S E. and S S E. where it continued the Stress of the
Storm, bringing such Quantities of Water, that our little Island was
overflowed 4 foot at least; so that what with the fierce driving of
Shingles (wooden Staves used instead of Tiling upon their Houses)
about our Ears, and the Water floating their Boats, empty
Hogsheads, and Lumber about the Streets, those without doors were
every Moment in danger of being knocked on the Head, or carried
away by the Stream. Within it was worse, for the Waters sapping the
Foundations, gave continual and just Apprehensions of the Houses
falling, as in effect half of them did, and buried their Inhabitants: Nor
indeed after the Storm had began, was it safe to open a Door,
especially such as faced the Wind, lest it should carry the Roofs off;
and escaping thence, there was no place of Retreat, we remaining in
a very melancholly Scituation both from Wind and Water. The Perils
of false Brethren was nothing to it.
It may be worth notice, what became of the Purser in this common
Danger; I was regardless at first, as suspecting more of Timidity in
the People, till finding my self left alone Proprietor of a shaking old
House, the Streets full of Water and Drift, with Shingles flying about
like Arrows; I began to meditate a little more seriously upon my
Safety, and would have compounded all my Credit in the Victualling,
my Hoops, and Bags, for one Acre (as Gonzalo says in the Tempest)
of barren Ground, long Heath, or brown Furze, to have trod dry
upon.
Our Neighbours had retreated towards the Church, as the
strongest Building, and highest Ground, which I was luckily too late
to recover; but endeavouring to stem upwards for a safer Station,
was taken into a House in the lower Street, with an old Woman
wading in the same manner from her ruined Habitation.
We were no sooner in, but new Fears of this also falling, thrust us
into the Yard (the Water then at eleven a clock, breast high) where
we helped one another upon a low Brick-built Out-house, that being
more out of the Wind, and surrounded with others, kept the Waters
still. The unhappiness of those who suffered in stronger, was their
facing the Wind, which brought the Sea upon them with violence. A
Platform of one and twenty Guns and Mortars were drove some of
them to the Market-place; the two Lines of Houses next the Sea, with
the Church, were undermined and levelled with the Torrent, and in
their ruin was our Safety; for altho’ we had a greater Depth, they
were by such a Bank made motionless. The whole Rise of the Water
was computed at 16 or 18 foot, very admirable at a Place where it is
not ordinarily observed to flow above one or two.
At 5 in the Evening the Waters abated, and with so quick a Retreat
as to leave the Streets dry before 6; when every one was
congratulating his own Safety in Condolancies upon the Loss of their
Friends. Of 50 Sail in this Harbour, only 4 Men-of-War and 2
Merchant-Ships rid it out, but with all their Masts and Booms blown
away. All the Men we left at Gun Kay were washed off and perished,
except one Indian that drove into Harbour upon a broken Gallows
that had been there erected. Wrecks, and drowned Men were every
where seen along shore; general Complaints of Loss at Land (least
at St. Jago) which made it a melancholy Scene, and to finish the
Misfortune, the Slackness of the Sea-Breezes, Calms, and Lightning,
stagnating Waters, Broods of Insects thence, and a Shock or two of
Earthquake that succeeded to the Hurricane, combined to spread a
baneful Influence, and brought on a contagious Distemper, fatal for
some Months through the Island. There being no Volcanos, the
Earthquakes felt here are always after great Rains, on a parched
Earth that admits their Penetration; and possibly nigher the Coast, as
at Port-Royal, may be from the Sea in a long Process of time
undermining in some manner a loose Earth, or finding in its deep
Recesses new Caverns; or subterranean Heats working towards
them, the dreadful Contest shocks.
In December following, for we were detained some Months in the
Repair of Damages received, another or two Shocks were felt; and
at the End of the Month, as their proper Season, came on what they
call fiery Breezes, strong Gales from Sea, that hold out often against
the Land-Breezes, six or seven Days together; they are pre-signified
by a hazy Horizon, and portentous of a wholesome Season.
Norths, are counter to these; they blow at uncertain Periods,
strong and cool from the Mountains; the People shut their Doors,
and button up close against it, and the Impurities the Air has been
experienced to be loaded with from that Quarter. We had one of
these Gales the latter End of September, and two Days after, quick
Shocks of Thunder and Lightning, which split a Sloop’s Mast, and
the Flag-Staff at the Castle in pieces.
On Christmas-Day we had a Meteor in this Horizon, that appeared
to be a Ball of Fire, trailed along to a quarter of the Compass, from N
N E. dropping Balls in the Track, that were suddenly extinguished.
The same I believe we call Falling-Stars, unless larger, and a more
transverse Descent. Astronomers suppose them sulphurous Bodies,
set on fire by the Sun, tho’ eclipsed till he is set.
To Return to the Island: The English Gentlemen are preferable to
the Women; for the most part, of a genteel Education, and emulous
in a Magnificence of Living, but true Republicans in the Disposition; a
Stranger unconcerned in Business, very difficultly tasting any other
Hospitality than his Landlady’s.

Bitts of 7½d
Dinner 5
A Bottle of Small-Beer 1
A Bottle of Ale 4
Coffee per Dish 1
 A Quart of Rum Punch 4
Lodging per Night 8
Ordinaries are filled with a Mixture of Land and Seafaring People,
who have three or four sorts of Cookery at Dinner, and each a Pint of
Madeira, with a Desart of Guavas, and other insipid or ill-tasted Fruit.
One of our Dishes is frequently Turtle, much esteemed in this part of
the World, and are supplied to the Market here by Sloops, and sold
at a Bitt a Pound, like other Flesh; now also increased to a tolerable
Plenty, by the Planters having set apart Servants, Pens, and
Pasture-Grounds, for rearing up all kinds of Domestick Animals, in
which of late Years they have found their account; our Ships
Companies being victualled here twice a Week with fresh Beef,
during a stay of 6 Months; and an Hospital on shore provided with
lighter Food.
Bartering is the easiest way of Living on shore; or rather, no Man
can live long without it: Madeira Wines, refined Sugars, Linnens, and
Necessaries of almost all kinds, selling from 100l. to 150 per Cent.
Advance. Their Rum to you, 3 Bitts per Gallon; Sugars, from 4 to 7
Dollars a hundred, both superior to Barbados. Other Commodities
are Ginger, Piemento, Cocoa, Indigo, Cotton, Tortoise-shell, Dyers
Wood, Cedar, Mohogany, and Manchineel-woods, and allow 35 per
Cent. Advance on Money.
The Cræoles (those born here) which are properly the Natives of
the Island, the ancient ones being all extirpated, or fled the Cruelty of
the Spaniard, before our Possession, are a spurious Race; the first
Change by a Black and White, they call Mulatto; the second a
Mustee, and the third a Castee; the Faces, like a Coat of Arms,
discovering their Distinction. They are half Negrish in their Manners,
proceeding from the promiscuous and confined Conversation with
their Relations, the Servants at the Plantations, and have a
Language equally pleasant, a kind of Gypsy Gibberish, that runs
smoothest in Swearing.
The English Subjects are computed at 7 or 8000, the Negroes at
80000; a Disproportion, that together with the Severity of their
Patrons, renders the whole Colony unsafe; many hundreds of them
have at different times run to the Mountains, where they associate
and commit little Robberies upon the defenceless and nearest
Plantations; and which I imagine they would not have done, but for
the Cruelty of their Usage, because they subsist very hard and with
Danger, by reason of Parties continually sending out by the
Government against them, who have 5l. a Head for every one killed,
and their Ears are a sufficient Warrant, for the next Justice to pay it;
if the Negro be brought in a Prisoner, he is tormented and burnt
alive. Our latest Advices from Jamaica concerning them is, that they
have chose a King, daily increase, have some inaccessible Places of
Retreat, and are suspected of being encouraged and supplied with
Powder and Arms from Cuba.
The natural Remedy against this Evil, is an Increase of Hands.
They have large Savannahs both on the North and South Sides,
supposed formerly to have been Fields of Indian Wheat, that afford
good Pasturage, and breed up a great number of Cattle with a great
Waste of Land, still left capable of large Improvements into Sugar
Plantations or Tillage; but here lies the Objection to any further
Encouragement. If the present Proprietors can export 11000
Hogsheads of Sugar annually, and the Price with that number is kept
low at Market, whoever contributes towards making 11000 more, is
depreciating his own Estate, lending a Hand to ruin himself. Tillage
and Grazing, tho’ not employing the Land to 1/10 Part its Value in
such Colonies, would yet interfere with the present Interest also, by
lowering the Price of Provisions; wherefore the Security from such
Augmentation of People (the Merchants being Judges) give place to
Profit, a Neglect that must be reaped in the End, by Undertakers of
more generous Sentiments. This convinces me, that altho’ Trade be
Wealth and Power to a Nation, yet if it cannot be put under
Restrictions, controlled by a superior and disinterested Power, that
Excess and Irregularity will be an Oppression to many, and counter-
balance the publick Advantages by increasing the Difficulties of
Subsistence, and with it, Men’s Dissaffection.
Here is a distant Evil; the Cure of which lies in an Expence that no
body likes; nor for such Dislike will ever blame himself in time of
Danger. The Merchant and Planter think, if less Sugars were made,
it would be better, provided (every one means) the bad Crop do not
happen upon their own Plantations, and this for the same Reason,
the Dutch and other Companies burn their Spice, India Goods,
Tobacco, &c. viz. to keep up a Price; for rendering things common or
cheap, or assisting towards the same Liberty, would border too much
on the christian Precepts.
The Sloop-Trade hence to the Spanish West-Indies, under the
Protection of our Men-of-War, has been reckoned at 200000l. per
Ann. In 1702, Orders came to the Governor to hinder it, on account
of a Treaty between us and the Dutch for that purpose, who have
since gone into it themselves from Curisao; and in 1716, a yet
greater Obstruction was put, by the peculiar Privileges of the
Assiento Factors; however, they continue on, and complain of no
other Illegalities, than the Spanish Seizures, of late years very
frequent, and together with the Decay of this Branch of Trade, their
Want of Spanish Wrecks, Privateering, and Fall of Sugars, makes
the Island not so flourishing as in times past.
Sir Nicholas Laws a Cræole, gives way as Governor, to the Duke
of Portland, who arrived in that Quality (with his Dutchess and
Family) about the middle of January this Year. He had put in to
Barbadoes in the Passage, and met a generous Reception.
Here they have doubled the Salary, a Compliment to his Nobility,
and that too little, it’s said, for his splendid and magnificent way of
Living. His Table singly, has already rise the Price of Fowls, from 4 to
6 Bitts.

The Jamaica Chronology.

A. D.
Columbus discovered the Island May
1494
3d.
Sir Anth. Shirley routed the Spaniard 1596
Pen and Venables did the same 1655
Geo. Fortescue Sedwick Doyley 1660
Ld. Windsor, Governor 1662
Sir Charles Littleton 1663
 Sir Thomas Muddiford 1664
Col. Thomas Linch, President 1671
Lord Vaughan, Governor 1675
E. of Carlisle 1679
Sir Henry Morgan 1680
Sir Thomas Linch 1682
Hender Molesworth 1684
D. of Albemarle 1687
Sir Francis Watson, President 1688
E. of Inchiquin, Governor 1690
Earthquake June 7th 1692
John White, President 1692
Col. John Bowden 1692
Sir William Beeston, Governor 1693
French landed at Withy-Wood 1694
William Selwin, Governor 1702
Col. Peter Beckford, President 1703
Col. Tho. Handaside, Governor 1704
Ld. Archibald Hamilton 1711
A Hurricane, August 28th 1712
Peter Haywood, Governor 1716
Sir Nicholas Laws 1718
A Hurricane August 28th 1722
D. of Portland, Governor 1722

The Pelican is a great Curiosity among their Birds, as the Alligator

in their watry Tribe; it is a common Water-Fowl, that is all day picking
up his Living at Sea, and roosts at Night on high Rocks and Clifts,
sitting with his Head to the Wind; his Body when skinned, is as large
as an ordinary Goose, the Wings will extend to 7 or 8 feet, a short
Tail, the Bill 14 Inches long, very hard, and increasing broader
towards the End, where it crooks like a Parrot’s; their Necks are a
foot and half, with a bay-colour’d Hair instead of Feathers on the
back side of them, and from about half way there are membranous
Bags or Pouches, which stretch thence to the Extremities of their
under Bills, capable, when separated, of holding a couple of Pounds
of Tobacco: in these they reserve their Prey when gorged with
eating, and in these they are said to transport their young ones,
when Danger or Instinct prompts them to change Places. They
appear slow and heavy Birds flying, but have a piercing Sight to
discern their Prey (the little fishy Fry below) from a considerable
Height in Air, whence they fall like a Stone, and catch, or dive after
them.
We killed three or four, and in opening their Bodies, met the same
Observations, viz.
1. They had double Ventricles, that together reached the length of
their Bodies; to the Bottom of which, were connected the Small-Guts,
about twice as thick as a Goose-quill.
2. In the first Ventricle or Craw, the Fish they had swallowed (70,
80, or 100) the Bigness of smaller Sprats, lay whole and unaltered.
3. In the lower Ventricle, those little Fish changing to a paler
Colour, were nigh the Fund of it mashed and macerated, and (what
was principally meant by reciting any Observations) here also the
Mass or Pulp had an intimate Mixture of numbers of slender, lively
Worms in it; which to me, was a Matter of Speculation, for finding no
such Insects in the small Fish above, which I suspected at first might
have been their Prey, I concluded it here to be the common Accident
of Concoction, a certain Consequence of Heat and Putrefaction,
which are conquered by farther Digestion, and pass into insensibility
again; for the Small-guts, after a little Distance from the Stomach,
had none, or rather made part of a yellow, chylous Substance.
Quære? whether other, or all Creatures have not such a Principle
of Concoction, more or less discernible in some, than others, there;
tho’ imperceptible, and differently shaped and coloured, as is the
Nature of the Food swallowed, and the Strength and Heat of the
Animal swallowing. Vercellonius supposes the Thyroide Gland in
Man, to be a little Nidus of verminous Eggs, generated there, and
transmitted through subtle Ducts to the Oesophagus and Stomach,
to impart a vital Character to the Chyle.
 I should have proceeded here to some other natural Curiosities,
but omit it, as being already more accurately done by Sir Hans
Sloan, in 2 Vol. 4to.
The Weymouth and Swallow having now fixed their Jury-masts,
and finished their Repairs, weighed from Port-Royal on New-year’s
Day, anchoring out at the Kays, where we stayed till the 7th of
February, and then left the Island.
There are two Passages used for returning hence to Europe;
heavy Sailers, and Fleets, use the Gulph of Florida, because
assisted by a constant Current to the Northward, (already spoke to;)
lighter, and well-manned Ships, that called the Windward Passage;
First, as the safest and shortest Navigation, all the Difficulty being,
plying to the East End of Jamaica; for which, Secondly, there
succeeds generally a Windward Current, on new or full Moons; or a
Course of fiery Breezes, bringing in a fuller Sea, and therefore the
Reflux more perceptible. Thirdly, keeping nigh shore, the Land-
breezes sometimes favour the Design.
We chose this way in our Return home, and with half Masts
worked to Windward of Port Morant, in six or seven Days, a Distance
of 12 Leagues, where the Passage is in a manner gained, because
the Lee of Hispaniola makes a smooth Water, and deflects the
Trade-Wind often, in Flaws to advantage. We indeed met Calms for
three or four Days, but on the 17th, got sight of the little Island
Navasia, which the Jamaicans use in Boats, to kill Guanas, an
amphibious Creature that breed in abundance at the Roots of old
Trees, some of them 3 foot long, a Lizard Shape, with sharp, black,
and green Scales; the Flesh firm, white, and as Sailors say, makes
good Broth.
The same Evening we anchored in Donna Maria Bay, at the West
End of Hispaniola, the usual Stop, especially of the King’s Ships in
those Parts, for Wood and Water: We filled our Cask at a Valley, a
Mile Southward of the two brown Clifts, very good Water, but on
some Winds the Sea gets over the Bar. There are two other Places
used, nigher those Clifts, and not so easily overflown. Here we
bought some jerked Hog’s Flesh from two or three French Hunters,
belonging to Petit Guavas.
At leaving the Bay, a strong S W. Wind soon set us between the
Capes St. Nicholas and Maize; when we came into small Winds, and
a Current in our favour, the old Bahama Strait, and Islands dispers’d
here, showing this wherever they contract the Waters, and lessens
again, as we open to a larger Sea.
The 26th, nigh the Island of Heneago, recovered the true Trade-
Wind, E. half N. The 28th, saw the Rocks called Hogstys by our
Observations in 21°° 38 something farther to the Northward than
they are set down in the Charts. At Noon, came round Aclin’s Kays
(pretty high out of the Water) and before Night, made Crooked or
Well-Island. The last, and from which we took our Departure, was
Watlin’s Kay, 24°° N. where we may farther remark, that the Trade-
Wind continued with us to the Latitude of 32°° but faint and weak,
from 27°°; caused, I presume, from the Contest between the Variable
and that, as I have already guessed the N E. and S E. Trade does in
other Places.
From 26 to 37°° Degrees of Latitude, (as far N. as Virginia) we
found every Day large Quantities of what they call Gulph-weed,
floating about the Ship, and lessening in proportion to the Distance; it
is so called, from a Conviction of its being thrown from the Shoals of
Florida; and by being found three or four hundred Leagues N E. a-
trend with the Continent, argues I think, a Continuance (tho’
insensible) of some Current, or that it is longer, or more to the
Northward than Southward in those Latitudes; and contrarily, in
higher North Latitudes the Seas nigh the Continent have a Tendency
Southward, demonstrated in those Islands of Ice, that drive all
Summer from the North West, along the Coast of Newfoundland,
even as far as New-England.
To the Northward of Bermudas, the Winds grew variable, and as
we advanced, stronger; A never-failing Gale (N W. to S W.) blowing
from the American Coast at this Length and onward, to 60°° of
Latitude, and tho’ not invariable like the Trade, yet a Constancy of ¾
or 4/5 of the year, shews it on the same Principle with them; Ours was
a very hard Gale at N W. which put us to a reefed Fore-sail for a
Fortnight, so great a Sea following, that we could not help dipping it
up by Tuns sometimes at our Stern. We arrived in England, April,
1723.

F I N I S .
 AN

ABSTRACT
Of the foregoing

V O YA G E .
A. Anchored, or arrived at.

W. Weighed, or went from.

W. F rom Spithead, about the same time with

1720/1

Commadore Matthews, who commanded a Squadron Feb.

5th.
of 4 Sail to India, on the like Service; the Suppression
of Pyrates.
A. At Madeira. In our Approach to the Island (for 30 or Mar.
40 Leagues) met abundance of Sea-weed floating; 10.
here also we overtook Commadore Matthews; two of
his Squadron by hard Gales of Wind, had damaged
their Masts, and left him at Sea.
W. Thence; and presently at Sea, found the Trade-Wind Mar.
fresh. 18.

We made the Cape De Verd Islands, and on the 30th, 27.

parted with the Weymouth, bound in with the
 Governor and Factors for Gambia River. Meeting after
this, Calms, or small Breezes, (common near this
Land) we took up several Turtle, who love sleeping on
a smooth Surface.
A. At Sierraleon, the next noted River and Factory from 1721.
Gambia; and on the 18th, visited Seignior Joseph, a April 7.
generous and good-natur’d christian Negro, who had
lately removed his People some Miles up the River.
With his old Buildings wooded our Ship.
W. Sierraleon. The Winds 2 or 3 Points within the Land, 28.
always favourable for sailing to the Westward, which
is therefore called down the Coast.
A. Off the Mouth of Sesthos River; a Bar before it, but May
commodious enough for watering. Here may be 10.
purchased considerable Quantities of Rice; the River
abounds with Fish; and you are tolerably supplied with
Goats and Fowls, or you imagine so from the great
Scarcity that appears at most other Places, from
Sierraleon to Whydah.
W. Thence, and sailed several Days along the Coast, May
low like Holland, anchoring now and then. The 30th, 18.
came before Bassam or Bassau. The 31st, before
Assinee, passing by that unfathomable Place called
the Bottomless Pit[38]; the Natives every where
appearing shy of Correspondence, until we came upon
the Gold Coast.
A. Cape Appollonia, the Land grows higher here, and June 2.
the Natives more alert and prompt at Trade.
A. Axim, the first European Factory, belonging to the 6.
Dutch.
A. Cape Tres Puntas; the Fort formerly was the 7.
Brandenburghers, who deserting it, it’s now in the