New York Slave Insurrection of 1741
Encyclopedia
The Conspiracy of 1741, also known as the Negro Plot of 1741 or the Slave Insurrection of 1741, was a supposed plot by slaves and poor whites in the British colony of New York
in 1741 to revolt and level New York City
with a series of fires. Historians disagree as to the existence of such a plot.
Rumors of a conspiracy arose against a background of economic competition between poor whites and slaves; a severe winter; war between Britain
and Spain
, with heightened anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feelings; and recent slave revolts in South Carolina
and the Caribbean
. In March and April of 1741, a series of 13 fires erupted in Lower Manhattan
, the most significant one within the walls of Fort George
, then the home of the governor. After another fire at a warehouse, a slave was arrested after having been seen fleeing it. A 16-year old Irish indentured servant
, Mary Burton, arrested in a case of stolen goods, testified against the others as participants in a supposedly growing conspiracy of poor whites and blacks to burn the city, kill the white men, take the white women for themselves, and elect a new king and governor.
Two slaves were burned at the stake. Before their executions, they confessed to burning the fort and named dozens of others as co-conspirators. News of the "conspiracy" set off a stampede of arrests, although the fires ended. Trials and executions followed through the summer. At the height of the hysteria, nearly half the city's male slaves over the age of 16 were in jail. The number of arrests totaled 152 blacks and 20 whites. They were tried and convicted in a show trial
. John Ury
, a teacher and suspected Catholic
priest, was charged with instigating the plot.
Most of the convicted people were hanged or burnt – how many is uncertain. The bodies of two supposed ringleaders, Caesar, a slave, and John Hughson, a white cobbler and tavern keeper, were gibbeted. Their corpses were left to rot in public. Seventy-two men were deported from New York, sent to Newfoundland, various islands in the West Indies, and the Madeira
s.
Residents remembered the New York Slave Revolt of 1712, when more than 20 slaves met to destroy property and abusers in retaliation for the injustices they had suffered. One of the slaves, Kofi, (called Cuffee by whites), set fire to his master’s outhouse. When townspeople gathered to put it out, the slaves attacked the crowd, killing nine whites and injuring six. The governor tried and executed 21 slaves.
With the increase of slaves in New York, poor whites were pressed in economic competition. Some slaveholders were artisans who taught their slaves their trade. They could subcontract their work and underbid other white artisans. This created racial and economic tension between the slaves and competing white craftsmen. The governor of New York in 1737 told the legislature, “the artificers complain and with too much reason of the pernicious custom of breeding slaves to trades whereby the honest industrious tradesmen are reduced to poverty for want of employ, and many of them forced to leave us to seek their living in other countries.” Some whites went out of business because of this.
The winter of 1740–1741 was a miserable period for the poor in the city. An economic depression contributed to declining food and fuel supply, aggravated by record low temperatures and snowfall. Many people were in danger of starving and freezing to death. These conditions caused many denizens, especially the poor whites and slaves, to grow resentful of the government. The tension between the whites and the blacks was great. “A mere hint of restiveness among black New Yorkers could throw whites into a near panic”. In 1741, the fear of a slave revolt was high following slave revolts in South Carolina
(1739) and in the Caribbean
(1734 on St. John
.)
In addition, Britain had recently gone to war with Spain (War of Jenkins' Ear
), which added to the tensions in the seaport and increased anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feelings by the authorities. At the time, Spain was frequently viewed by slaves in Anglophone colonies as a liberator due to the fact the Spanish had offered freedom to any slave who joined their cause. To attack Cuba, the British recruited soldiers from New York, and reduced the number of troops normally kept there. The upper classes were nervous and tensions during the winter reminded them of the times of the Slave Revolt of 1712. The government banned slave meetings on street corners. They limited slaves in groups to three, but allowed twelve at funerals. The government reduced other rights of assembly and movement.
in the mid-1730s with his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. Unable to find work, he opened a tavern. His neighbors were offended because he sold to unsavory clients. In 1738, Hughson opened a new tavern when he moved to the Hudson River
waterfront, near the Trinity Churchyard. It soon became a rendezvous point for slaves, poor whites, free blacks
, and soldiers. The elite were nervous about such lower class-types' socializing together. Hughson’s place also was a center of trade in stolen property. “City slaves laughingly referred to his place as 'Oswego', after the Indian trading post on Lake Ontario.” Though the constables watched his place constantly, they failed to catch Hughson for thievery.
In February, two weeks before the first fire, Hughson was arrested for receiving stolen goods from slaves Caesar and Prince, who were also jailed. Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee were considered part of the "Geneva Club", named after an incident in which they stole some "Geneva", or Dutch gin. They were black Freemasons. (The slaves were punished by whipping.)
Horsmanden, one of three justices on the court and leader of an investigation, pressured 16-year-old indentured servant, Mary Burton, to testify against her master Hughson on theft charges. While a grand jury heard that case, the first of 13 suspicious fires broke out.
On March 18, a fire broke out at the governor's complex at Fort George
. Horsmanden put a lot of pressure on Burton to talk about the fires. Finally, Burton said the fires were a conspiracy between blacks and poor whites to burn down the town. Horsmanden was pleased with her testimony but was convinced that Burton knew more about the conspiracy than she had told him. He threatened to throw her in jail if she did not tell him more, so she testified further. There was rising fear about slaves and poor whites' combining for insurrection.
Burton declared that the three members of the Geneva Club met frequently at Hughson’s, that they had talked about burning the fort and town, and the Hughsons had agreed to help them. Another person suspected in the fires was “Margaret Sorubiero, alias Salingburgh, alias Kerry, commonly called Peggy", or the "Newfoundland Irish" beauty. She was a prostitute to blacks. The room she lived in was paid for by Caesar, with whom she had a child.
Though Burton's testimony did not prove that any crime had been committed, the grand jury was so afraid that more fires would occur that they decided to believe her. The city council also decided to pay a high reward to anybody who provided useful information about the conspiracy: £100 to a white person, £45 to a free black or Indian, and £20 and freedom to a slave. Such prices brought more testimony.
On May 2, the court found Caesar and Prince guilty of burglary and condemned them to death. The next day seven barns caught fire. Two blacks were caught and immediately burned at stake. On May 6, the Hughsons and Peggy were found guilty of burglary charges. Peggy, “in fear of her life, decided to talk.” Some of the blacks who had been imprisoned in the dungeons also decided to talk. Two who did not talk were Caesar and Prince, who were hanged on May 11.
As the number of fires grew, so did the suspicion among whites that the fires were not accidents but planned arson. When on April 6, a round of four fires broke out, and a black man was spotted running away, a white man yelled out, “A negro, a negro.” The man’s cry was taken up quickly by a crowd and soon turned to, “The negroes are rising!” They captured the running slave, Cuffee. He was jailed. Within a few days, 100 slaves were jailed. Many people believed the fires were due to a conspiracy.
Initially tackling the problem of stolen goods and Hughson's tavern, the city council decided to launch an investigation. They turned it over to Daniel Horsmanden
, the city recorder
and one of three justices on the provincial supreme court
. Horsmanden set up a grand jury that he “directed to investigate whites who sold liquor to blacks- men like John Hughson.” Given legal practice then and his own inclinations, he exercised great influence in interrogations and directing the grand jury's investigations.
More trials followed quickly. The trials and testimony in courtrooms were filled with conflicting evidence. Both the Hughsons and Peggy Kerry were tried on June 4. They were sentenced to hang eight days later. At the height of the hysteria, half of the city’s male slaves over the age of 16 were implicated in the plot and jailed. Arrests, trials and executions continued through the summer. "The 'epidemic of mutual incrimination' reached such proportions that officials were forced to suspend circuit courts for the rest of 1741. The jails simply could hold no more people." An anonymous letter was sent to the city of New York, cautioning them against the epidemic of suspicion and executions, as the writer claimed to have seen in the Salem witch trials
.
Five men known as the "Spanish Negroes" were among those arrested. Dark-skinned Spanish sailors who had been sold into slavery by a privateer, they contended they were full Spanish citizens and unfairly enslaved. Because Britain was at war with Spain, this did not earn them much sympathy; it even raised suspicions against them as infiltrators. The British colonists were worried about anyone with Spanish and Catholic ties. The five Spanish blacks were convicted and hanged.
As the investigation wore on, Horsmanden came to believe that a man named John Ury was responsible. Ury had just arrived in town and had been working as a school teacher and a private tutor. He was an expert in Latin
, which was enough to make him suspect as a Roman Catholic priest by less educated Protestants. Horsmanden arrested him on suspicion of being a priest and secret agent to the Spanish
. Burton suddenly "remembered" that Ury had been one of the plotters of the conspiracy and testified against him.
Ury was put on trial. His defense was that he was a dissenter from the Church of England
, but not a Catholic priest, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy. But at the time of the trial, Horsmanden had received a warning from the governor of Georgia
that Spanish agents were coming to burn all the considerable towns in New England
. This added to suspicions about Ury, and the teacher was convicted. He was hanged on the last day of August.
Gradually the fears died down. When Burton's accusations began to charge members of the upper class and family members of the judges as conspirators, the case became a major embarrassment to Horsmanden. In addition, the political leadership of the city was changing. The case was finally closed. Those slaves and whites still in jail were released.
By the end of the trials, 160 blacks and 21 whites had been arrested. From May 11 to August 29, 1741, seventeen blacks and four whites were convicted and hanged, 13 blacks were burned at stake, and 70 blacks were banished from New York. Seven whites were also deported. The following year, Mary Burton finally received her reward of ₤100 from the city, which she used to buy her freedom from indenture, and had money left over. The executions were conducted near the Poor House at the north end of the city and its boundary of Chambers Street. North of there was the African Burying Ground.
Historians remain divided about the events of 1741. Some historians, notably Edgar J. McManus and Jill Lepore, believe that wartime hysteria, together with Horsmanden's desire to advance his name, exaggerated the extent and basis of a slave plot. A majority of scholars, however, believe the evidence suggests some plot did exist (but not necessarily that all of those charged and executed were guilty). T.J. Davis, Graham Russell Hodges, Leslie Harris, Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh, and Peter C. Hoffer all regard the numerous fires as evidence of an actual slave conspiracy.
's novel Forever (2003).
In 2007, Mat Johnson
published The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York, a novel set amidst this event.
These events are used as part of a revenge plot in the novel On Maiden Lane (1981) by Bruce Nicolaysen, a 5-volume family saga encompassing the history of New York/Manhattan from 1613-1930.
Province of New York
The Province of New York was an English and later British crown territory that originally included all of the present U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Vermont, along with inland portions of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, as well as eastern Pennsylvania...
in 1741 to revolt and level New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with a series of fires. Historians disagree as to the existence of such a plot.
Rumors of a conspiracy arose against a background of economic competition between poor whites and slaves; a severe winter; war between Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, with heightened anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feelings; and recent slave revolts in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
. In March and April of 1741, a series of 13 fires erupted in Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...
, the most significant one within the walls of Fort George
Fort Amsterdam
For the historic fort on the island of Saint Martin, see Fort Amsterdam Fort Amsterdam was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan that was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then British rule of New York from...
, then the home of the governor. After another fire at a warehouse, a slave was arrested after having been seen fleeing it. A 16-year old Irish indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
, Mary Burton, arrested in a case of stolen goods, testified against the others as participants in a supposedly growing conspiracy of poor whites and blacks to burn the city, kill the white men, take the white women for themselves, and elect a new king and governor.
Two slaves were burned at the stake. Before their executions, they confessed to burning the fort and named dozens of others as co-conspirators. News of the "conspiracy" set off a stampede of arrests, although the fires ended. Trials and executions followed through the summer. At the height of the hysteria, nearly half the city's male slaves over the age of 16 were in jail. The number of arrests totaled 152 blacks and 20 whites. They were tried and convicted in a show trial
Show trial
The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as...
. John Ury
John Ury
John Ury was a white itinerant teacher who was suspected of being a Catholic priest and a Spanish spy during the New York Slave Insurrection of 1741. His ability to read Latin was cited as proof of this. Which denomination he actually belonged to is uncertain...
, a teacher and suspected Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
priest, was charged with instigating the plot.
Most of the convicted people were hanged or burnt – how many is uncertain. The bodies of two supposed ringleaders, Caesar, a slave, and John Hughson, a white cobbler and tavern keeper, were gibbeted. Their corpses were left to rot in public. Seventy-two men were deported from New York, sent to Newfoundland, various islands in the West Indies, and the Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
s.
Background
With the increase of enslaved Africans in New York during the early decades of the 18th century, there were both real revolts and periodic fears in the white community about revolts. Fears about slavery were used by different political factions to fan other tensions, as well. By 1741 slaves comprised one in five of New York's total population of 10,000. Between 1687 and 1741, a slave plot was "discovered" on average every two and one half years.Residents remembered the New York Slave Revolt of 1712, when more than 20 slaves met to destroy property and abusers in retaliation for the injustices they had suffered. One of the slaves, Kofi, (called Cuffee by whites), set fire to his master’s outhouse. When townspeople gathered to put it out, the slaves attacked the crowd, killing nine whites and injuring six. The governor tried and executed 21 slaves.
With the increase of slaves in New York, poor whites were pressed in economic competition. Some slaveholders were artisans who taught their slaves their trade. They could subcontract their work and underbid other white artisans. This created racial and economic tension between the slaves and competing white craftsmen. The governor of New York in 1737 told the legislature, “the artificers complain and with too much reason of the pernicious custom of breeding slaves to trades whereby the honest industrious tradesmen are reduced to poverty for want of employ, and many of them forced to leave us to seek their living in other countries.” Some whites went out of business because of this.
The winter of 1740–1741 was a miserable period for the poor in the city. An economic depression contributed to declining food and fuel supply, aggravated by record low temperatures and snowfall. Many people were in danger of starving and freezing to death. These conditions caused many denizens, especially the poor whites and slaves, to grow resentful of the government. The tension between the whites and the blacks was great. “A mere hint of restiveness among black New Yorkers could throw whites into a near panic”. In 1741, the fear of a slave revolt was high following slave revolts in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
(1739) and in the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
(1734 on St. John
Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands
Saint John is an island in the Caribbean Sea and a constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. St...
.)
In addition, Britain had recently gone to war with Spain (War of Jenkins' Ear
War of Jenkins' Ear
The War of Jenkins' Ear was a conflict between Great Britain and Spain that lasted from 1739 to 1748, with major operations largely ended by 1742. Its unusual name, coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1858, relates to Robert Jenkins, captain of a British merchant ship, who exhibited his severed ear in...
), which added to the tensions in the seaport and increased anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish feelings by the authorities. At the time, Spain was frequently viewed by slaves in Anglophone colonies as a liberator due to the fact the Spanish had offered freedom to any slave who joined their cause. To attack Cuba, the British recruited soldiers from New York, and reduced the number of troops normally kept there. The upper classes were nervous and tensions during the winter reminded them of the times of the Slave Revolt of 1712. The government banned slave meetings on street corners. They limited slaves in groups to three, but allowed twelve at funerals. The government reduced other rights of assembly and movement.
Working-class conspiracy
John Hughson was a poor, illiterate cobbler who came to New York from YonkersYonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...
in the mid-1730s with his wife, daughter, and mother-in-law. Unable to find work, he opened a tavern. His neighbors were offended because he sold to unsavory clients. In 1738, Hughson opened a new tavern when he moved to the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
waterfront, near the Trinity Churchyard. It soon became a rendezvous point for slaves, poor whites, free blacks
Free Negro
A free Negro or free black is the term used prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States to describe African Americans who were not slaves. Almost all African Americans came to the United States as slaves, but from the earliest days of American slavery, slaveholders set men and women free...
, and soldiers. The elite were nervous about such lower class-types' socializing together. Hughson’s place also was a center of trade in stolen property. “City slaves laughingly referred to his place as 'Oswego', after the Indian trading post on Lake Ontario.” Though the constables watched his place constantly, they failed to catch Hughson for thievery.
In February, two weeks before the first fire, Hughson was arrested for receiving stolen goods from slaves Caesar and Prince, who were also jailed. Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee were considered part of the "Geneva Club", named after an incident in which they stole some "Geneva", or Dutch gin. They were black Freemasons. (The slaves were punished by whipping.)
Horsmanden, one of three justices on the court and leader of an investigation, pressured 16-year-old indentured servant, Mary Burton, to testify against her master Hughson on theft charges. While a grand jury heard that case, the first of 13 suspicious fires broke out.
On March 18, a fire broke out at the governor's complex at Fort George
Fort Amsterdam
For the historic fort on the island of Saint Martin, see Fort Amsterdam Fort Amsterdam was a fort on the southern tip of Manhattan that was the administrative headquarters for the Dutch and then British rule of New York from...
. Horsmanden put a lot of pressure on Burton to talk about the fires. Finally, Burton said the fires were a conspiracy between blacks and poor whites to burn down the town. Horsmanden was pleased with her testimony but was convinced that Burton knew more about the conspiracy than she had told him. He threatened to throw her in jail if she did not tell him more, so she testified further. There was rising fear about slaves and poor whites' combining for insurrection.
Burton declared that the three members of the Geneva Club met frequently at Hughson’s, that they had talked about burning the fort and town, and the Hughsons had agreed to help them. Another person suspected in the fires was “Margaret Sorubiero, alias Salingburgh, alias Kerry, commonly called Peggy", or the "Newfoundland Irish" beauty. She was a prostitute to blacks. The room she lived in was paid for by Caesar, with whom she had a child.
Though Burton's testimony did not prove that any crime had been committed, the grand jury was so afraid that more fires would occur that they decided to believe her. The city council also decided to pay a high reward to anybody who provided useful information about the conspiracy: £100 to a white person, £45 to a free black or Indian, and £20 and freedom to a slave. Such prices brought more testimony.
On May 2, the court found Caesar and Prince guilty of burglary and condemned them to death. The next day seven barns caught fire. Two blacks were caught and immediately burned at stake. On May 6, the Hughsons and Peggy were found guilty of burglary charges. Peggy, “in fear of her life, decided to talk.” Some of the blacks who had been imprisoned in the dungeons also decided to talk. Two who did not talk were Caesar and Prince, who were hanged on May 11.
The Fires
With frame buildings and wood-burning fireplaces and stoves, fire was always a risk in the city. Chimney fires were frequent. On March 18, 1741, the governor’s house caught on fire, and soon the church connected to his house was ablaze too. People tried to save it, but the fire soon grew beyond control. The fire threatened to spread to another building, where all the city documents were kept. The governor ordered the windows smashed and documents thrown out to save them. Later the practice was to keep them in the City Hall. Later, the fort at the Battery also burned down. A week later another fire broke out, but was put out quickly. The same thing happened the next week at a warehouse. Three days later a fire broke out in a cow stable. On the next day a person walking past a wealthy neighborhood saw coals by the hay in a stable and put them out, saving the neighborhood.As the number of fires grew, so did the suspicion among whites that the fires were not accidents but planned arson. When on April 6, a round of four fires broke out, and a black man was spotted running away, a white man yelled out, “A negro, a negro.” The man’s cry was taken up quickly by a crowd and soon turned to, “The negroes are rising!” They captured the running slave, Cuffee. He was jailed. Within a few days, 100 slaves were jailed. Many people believed the fires were due to a conspiracy.
Initially tackling the problem of stolen goods and Hughson's tavern, the city council decided to launch an investigation. They turned it over to Daniel Horsmanden
Daniel Horsmanden
Daniel Horsmanden was a chief justice of the supreme court in the Province of New York and member of the governor's executive council....
, the city recorder
Recorder
The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...
and one of three justices on the provincial supreme court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
. Horsmanden set up a grand jury that he “directed to investigate whites who sold liquor to blacks- men like John Hughson.” Given legal practice then and his own inclinations, he exercised great influence in interrogations and directing the grand jury's investigations.
Trials
Having gathered witnesses, Horsmanden started the trials. Kofi (Cuffee) and another slave Quaco (Quack) were the first to be tried. They were convicted, although each of their masters defended them. Respectable white men whose testimony normally would have been given considerable weight, they stated that each of the slaves had been at home the evening in question. The slaves were convicted anyway. Each of the slaves was hanged. Immediately before being hanged on May 30, they confessed and identified dozens of other so-called conspirators. Moore asked to save them as future witnesses, but the officers of the court decided against it because of the rage of the crowd.More trials followed quickly. The trials and testimony in courtrooms were filled with conflicting evidence. Both the Hughsons and Peggy Kerry were tried on June 4. They were sentenced to hang eight days later. At the height of the hysteria, half of the city’s male slaves over the age of 16 were implicated in the plot and jailed. Arrests, trials and executions continued through the summer. "The 'epidemic of mutual incrimination' reached such proportions that officials were forced to suspend circuit courts for the rest of 1741. The jails simply could hold no more people." An anonymous letter was sent to the city of New York, cautioning them against the epidemic of suspicion and executions, as the writer claimed to have seen in the Salem witch trials
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
.
Five men known as the "Spanish Negroes" were among those arrested. Dark-skinned Spanish sailors who had been sold into slavery by a privateer, they contended they were full Spanish citizens and unfairly enslaved. Because Britain was at war with Spain, this did not earn them much sympathy; it even raised suspicions against them as infiltrators. The British colonists were worried about anyone with Spanish and Catholic ties. The five Spanish blacks were convicted and hanged.
As the investigation wore on, Horsmanden came to believe that a man named John Ury was responsible. Ury had just arrived in town and had been working as a school teacher and a private tutor. He was an expert in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, which was enough to make him suspect as a Roman Catholic priest by less educated Protestants. Horsmanden arrested him on suspicion of being a priest and secret agent to the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. Burton suddenly "remembered" that Ury had been one of the plotters of the conspiracy and testified against him.
Ury was put on trial. His defense was that he was a dissenter from the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, but not a Catholic priest, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy. But at the time of the trial, Horsmanden had received a warning from the governor of Georgia
Province of Georgia
The Province of Georgia was one of the Southern colonies in British America. It was the last of the thirteen original colonies established by Great Britain in what later became the United States...
that Spanish agents were coming to burn all the considerable towns in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
. This added to suspicions about Ury, and the teacher was convicted. He was hanged on the last day of August.
Gradually the fears died down. When Burton's accusations began to charge members of the upper class and family members of the judges as conspirators, the case became a major embarrassment to Horsmanden. In addition, the political leadership of the city was changing. The case was finally closed. Those slaves and whites still in jail were released.
By the end of the trials, 160 blacks and 21 whites had been arrested. From May 11 to August 29, 1741, seventeen blacks and four whites were convicted and hanged, 13 blacks were burned at stake, and 70 blacks were banished from New York. Seven whites were also deported. The following year, Mary Burton finally received her reward of ₤100 from the city, which she used to buy her freedom from indenture, and had money left over. The executions were conducted near the Poor House at the north end of the city and its boundary of Chambers Street. North of there was the African Burying Ground.
Historians remain divided about the events of 1741. Some historians, notably Edgar J. McManus and Jill Lepore, believe that wartime hysteria, together with Horsmanden's desire to advance his name, exaggerated the extent and basis of a slave plot. A majority of scholars, however, believe the evidence suggests some plot did exist (but not necessarily that all of those charged and executed were guilty). T.J. Davis, Graham Russell Hodges, Leslie Harris, Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh, and Peter C. Hoffer all regard the numerous fires as evidence of an actual slave conspiracy.
In fiction
These events figure in the plot of Pete HamillPete Hamill
Pete Hamill is an American journalist, novelist, essayist, editor and educator. Widely traveled and having written on a broad range of topics, he is perhaps best known for his career as a New York City journalist, as "the author of columns that sought to capture the particular flavors of New York...
's novel Forever (2003).
In 2007, Mat Johnson
Mat Johnson
Mat Johnson is an American writer of literary fiction.-Biography:Born and raised in the Germantown and Mount Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Johnson writes primarily about the lives of African-Americans, using fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels as mediums...
published The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York, a novel set amidst this event.
These events are used as part of a revenge plot in the novel On Maiden Lane (1981) by Bruce Nicolaysen, a 5-volume family saga encompassing the history of New York/Manhattan from 1613-1930.
External links
- “Fire, Fire, Scorch, Scorch!”: Testimony from the Negro Plot Trials in New York, 1741, History Matters, George Mason University
- "'Great Negro Plot' Tells of Manhattan on the Edge", News and Notes, National Public Radio, February 7, 2007. (Links to RealPlayerRealPlayerRealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
or Windows MediaWindows MediaWindows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK...
audio) - "Rumors of a Slave Revolt", Leonard Lopate Show, WNYCWNYCWNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...
, February 28, 2007. (Links to MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
audio) - "A Forgotten 'Witch Trial' of Colonial Slaves", Nathan Newman blog
- "The Power of Fear", The Nation
Further reading
- “African Americans.” World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book Inc, 2001.
- Bond, Richard E. "Shaping a Conspiracy: Black Testimony in the 1741 New York", Early American Studies, vol. 5, n. 1 (Spring 2007). University of Pennsylvania Press: ISSN 1543-4273
- Berrol, Selma Cantor. The Empire City: New York and Its People, 1624–1996. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1997 ISBN 0275957950
- Burrows, Edwin G.Edwin G. BurrowsEdwin G. "Ted" Burrows is a Distinguished Professor of History at Brooklyn College. He is the co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 and author of 2008's Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War. Burrows...
and Wallace, MikeMike Wallace (historian)Mike Wallace is an American historian, Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, where he has taught since 1971, and the director of the Gotham Center for New York City History....
, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 is a non-fiction book by historians Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Based on over twenty years of research by Burrows and Wallace, it was published in 1998 by Oxford University Press and won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for History...
ISBN 0—19-514049-4 - Christensen, Gardello DanoGardello Dano ChristensenGardello Dano Christensen A native of Fremont County, Wyoming, Christensen lived in Dubois, Wyoming, with his wife, author Eugenia Burney.-Bibliography:...
http://wiki.wyomingauthors.org/Gardell%20Dano%20Christensen. Colonial New York. New York: Thomas Nelson Press Inc., 1969. - Davis, Thomas J., "A Rumor of Revolt: The “Great Negro Plot", Colonial New York ISBN 0-02-907740-0
- Hoffer, Peter Charles, The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime and Colonial Law ISBN 0-7006-1246-7
- Horsmanden, DanielDaniel HorsmandenDaniel Horsmanden was a chief justice of the supreme court in the Province of New York and member of the governor's executive council....
. The New York conspiracy trials of 1741 : Daniel Horsmanden's Journal of the proceedings with related documents ISBN 0-312-40216-3 - Horsmanden, Daniel. The trial of John Ury for being an ecclesiastical person, made by authority pretended from the See of Rome, and coming into and abiding in the province of New York, and with being one of the conspirators in the Negro plot to burn the city of New York, 1741
- Kammen, MichaelMichael KammenMichael Kammen is a professor of American cultural history in the Department of History at Cornell University. He was born in 1936 in Rochester, New York, grew up in the Washington, DC area, and was educated at the George Washington University and Harvard University . He has taught at Cornell...
. Colonial New York: A History. Millwood, NJ: K+O Press, 1975. ISBN 0195107799 - Linebaugh, PeterPeter LinebaughPeter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective.-Education:...
and Marcus Rediker. "'The Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth,'" in The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000. ISBN 0-8070-5006-7 - “New York City”, World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book Inc, 2001.
- Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006. ISBN 0-313-33271-1
- Williams, George W.George Washington WilliamsGeorge Washington Williams was an American Civil War veteran, minister, politician and historian. Shortly before his death he travelled to King Leopold II's Congo Free State and his open letter to Leopold about the suffering of the region's inhabitants at the hands of Leopold's agents, helped to...
, History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1., 1882 Project Gutenberg EBook, digitized 2005