[Hi I previously answered a similar question here] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5p6sj6/how_was_homosexuality_viewed_in_colonial_and/dcpg43o/) and as such I will reuse some of the information from that answer and expand upon it as well as add some new information to better answer your question.

The first thing to remember is that it can be incredibly difficult to follow the lives of what we know would think of as gay men and women because these people would often burn their letters or hide evidence of same sex behavior because it could carry serious legal and social consequences as would other abnormal sexual behavior. The second thing to remember is that homosexuality (as well as heterosexuality) did not exist as a concept until the latter half of the 19th century. Prior to this justifications for the taboo of same sex behavior came from either religious beliefs that abnormal sexual behaviors were sinful or from the belief that same sex behavior had the potential to disrupt society. With this in mind we can begin to look at same sex sexual behavior at the United States' inception. Similar to this is that it can be incredibly easy to read homosexual relationships from many historical documents when no such thing because they don't conform to our understanding of what is appropriate for heterosexual people such as sharing beds, or two men writing letters about how they long for each others' company.

The beginning of this should probably deal with same sex behavior among the indigenous population of what would become the United States. There were several indigenous populations of North America that had more same sex sexual behavior such as the two-spirit or at the time what the Europeans named the "berdache" which were anatomical males and women who lived and dressed as members of the opposite sex and had sex with people of their biological sex. Recently some historians have argued that their role was as "sexual servicers to a community's male elite... [because] they had violated social norms or had been captured in war," but among some indigenous groups, such as the Crows the "berdache" enjoyed an elevated position in society.

The main reason that we do know same sex sexual behavior was happening in the early colonial period is that some people were brought to trial for doing so, infrequently resulting in a death sentence. An interesting aspect of punishments for homosexual activity, and one that continued for a couple of centuries, was that men were much more likely to be punished for sex with someone of the same gender. English colonists generally thought of sex between two women as being the result of "hermaphroditism" or in modern terms being intersex. Only New Haven specifically made sex between women against the law. This means that even though Puritan religious leaders viewed same sex sexual behavior between women was equally sinful as same sex sexual behavior between men that it was likely that women could engage in same sex sexual behavior comparatively freer than men could. However, very few men were punished by the courts for engaging among same sex sexual behavior which means that many men and women who had engaged in same sex sexual behavior were not reported to the authorities by their neighbors. This is especially probable when taking into account the gender imbalances in some of the colonies such as in the Chesapeake where there were only one woman for every four men. Another fact that suggests many men and women were able to engage in same sex sexual behavior without being reported the authorities is the case of Nicholas Sension of Windsor, Connecticut. This man had a well known history of propositioning men for sex, and sexually assaulting male servants for over three decades before he was brought to trial.

One really interesting thing about the eighteenth century is the emergence of the "heroic friend." During the enlightenment there was an increased respect for extremely close, affectionate male friendships. These were well educated, upper class men who felt strong bonds with another man. Often these would result in romantic or even erotic letters and thoughts and words and actions, but to say they were gay would be difficult, nonetheless there were probably some heroic friendships that resulted in same sex sexual behavior.

My sources for the bulk of this information comes from Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites by Susan Ferentinos as well as A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski. Some of the information in the opening paragraph comes from Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hanne Blank

If you have any follow up questions I will answer to the best of my ability, unfortunately this is an extremely complex topic that one could easily write an entire book about so there will be a lot of unanswered aspects of your question.