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admitted that he was pickpocketed by Jones as well. The owner of the wallet claimed he didn't want to report the crime to police out of fear of "exposing himself". Haslem reported the crime to the police the next day. Jones was found by police on midnight of the same day. A police officer found
Sewally and pretended to be interested in her sexual services, arresting her on Greene Street. When the officer searched her, he realized that Jones had male genitalia. When the officer searched her room, he found several more men's wallets.
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302:. According to Katz, contrast and scandal made Sewally so interesting for the press: during the day Peter Sewally reportedly dressed as a man (except in New Orleans) and at night changed into feminine clothes and the role of Mary (who also went under the names of Miss Ophelia, Miss June, Eliza Smith and Julia Johnson). The
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I have been in the practice of waiting upon Girls of ill fame and made up their Beds and received the
Company at the door and received the money for Rooms and they induced me to dress in Women's Clothes, saying I looked so much better in them and I have always attended parties among the people of my
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were legal in New York at the time.) When Haslem returned home, he realized that his wallet containing 99 dollars was stolen and replaced with an empty wallet belonging to another man. When he found and confronted the owner of the replaced wallet, the man at first denied ownership but eventually
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The trial was the focus of much sensational media attention, as media tended to report more on her attire than the crime she committed. A lithograph of
Sewally was drawn by H. R. Robinson, calling her "The Man-Monster".
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While heavily mocked at the time, Sewally has been celebrated by modern historians for sharing her experience as a gender-variant black person to the prominently white audience of the court. In his book
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states that
Sewally "transformed shame and stigma not by transcending them or repressing them but by employing them as resources in the production of new modes of meaning and being". The
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after being imprisoned for six months for "playing up his old game sailing along the street in the full rig of a female." Sewally was arrested a final time in May 1853.
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at night to solicit sexual services for men and steal their money. She is most well known for being the subject of a trial in 1836 where she was charged with
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On June 11, 1836, a white mason worker named Robert Haslem solicited sexual services from
Sewally, who was working under the name Mary Jones. (Both
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is unknown. Contemporaneous sources exclusively refer to her by masculine pronouns. A minority of more recent sources characterize
Sewally as a
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published a report about
Sewally, referred to as "Beefsteak Pete", being arrested again. Sewally got the nickname from the fact that she wore a
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focusing on the life of
Sewally. The short was screened at the museum from May 3 to December 9, 2019. The short is currently screened by the
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was used by the press to indicate that customers of various races were served, which was not the norm, less than ten years after
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for stealing the wallets of men she engaged in sexual acts with. She is considered to be one of the first recorded openly
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has considered
Sewally to be "one of the first known gender variant / transgender people in New York history".
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465:"'Salacia' Filmmaker Tourmaline on Spotlighting Black Trans Lives and the LGBT Journey to Mainstream Recognition"
402:"The "Man-Monster" by Jonathan Ned Katz · Peter Sewally/Mary Jones, June 11, 1836 · OutHistory: It's About Time"
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Sewally pled not guilty to the charge of grand larceny. She was sentenced to five years of imprisonment at
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Sewally's other names included Miss
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reported that Sewally, also referring to her as "Beefsteak Pete", had been freed from
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How America Became Capitalist: Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West
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featured a re-imagining of what Sewally would have looked like in a
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Sewally was tried on June 16, 1836 and appeared in court wearing a
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pronouns, but most—including discussions in historical books by
677:"Announcing the Release of "Salacia," a New Film by Tourmaline"
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When asked why she was dressed in feminine attire, she stated:
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Historical figures with ambiguous or disputed gender identity
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A Series of Utterly Improbable, Yet Extraordinary Renditions
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American gender-variant prostitute also known as Mary Jones
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499:Sivels, Xavier (March 19, 2022).
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296:illiterate
272:short film
268:Tourmaline
199:prosthetic
103:prosthetic
93:Mary Jones
66:Prostitute
62:Occupation
57:Mary Jones
38:Lithograph
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355:they/them
177:Sing Sing
691:July 14,
685:Archived
661:July 13,
655:Archived
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479:July 14,
473:Archived
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416:July 13,
410:Archived
253:La Scala
469:Variety
276:Salacia
243:Artist
152:The Sun
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49:Unknown
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221:Legacy
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