Slavery in America: Part 5

In 1712 there was an uprising in New York City of 23 enslaved African Americans in which nine whites were shot, stabbed, or beaten to death and six other whites were injured.

In those days enslaved blacks lived in close proximity of each other, and worked among free blacks, a situation that would not happen in the south.

There was a great resentment among poor whites in that slaves were used in the jobs they might have gotten.

On April 6th, 1712 a building on Maiden Lane, near Broadway was set alight to lure the white colonists to put out the fire.

Conditions in New York were ripe for rebellion. It was easier for slaves there to plan a conspiracy than it was for those on plantations.

Seventy blacks were arrested and put in jail. Six were reported to have committed suicide. (Shades of South Africa under Apartheid) Twenty-seven were put on trial, twenty-one of whom were convicted and sentenced to death. Twenty were burned to death and one was executed on a breaking wheel, a form of punishment no longer used on whites at the time.

After the revolt, laws governing the lives of blacks in New York were made more restrictive. African Americans were not permitted to gather in groups of more than three, they were not permitted to carry firearms, and gambling was outlawed.

Other crimes, such as property damage, rape, and conspiracy to kill, were made punishable by death.

Free blacks were no longer allowed to own land. Slave owners who decided to free their slaves were required to pay a tax much higher than the price of a slave.

This over reaction to a slave insurrection in New York City laid the foundation for another overreaction in 1741.

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 to revolt and level New York City with a series of fires.

In March and April of 1741, a series of fires erupted in Lower Manhattan, the most significant one within the walls of Fort George, the home of the governor at the time. After another fire, this time at a warehouse, a slave was arrested after having been seen running from the building.

Two others were also arrested at this time, one of whom was a sixteen year old white indentured servant, Mary Burton. In exchange for her freedom, she 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, and just before their deaths they confessed to burning the fort. They also named fifty others as co-conspirators.

News of the “conspiracy” set off a stampede of arrests. At the height of the hysteria, nearly half the city’s male slaves over sixteen were in jail. The number of arrests totaled 152 blacks and 20 whites. They were tried and convicted in a show trial.

A supposed Catholic priest, John Ury, was suspected of instigating it.

Most of the convicted were hanged or burnt – how many is uncertain. The bodies of two supposed ringleaders, one black and one white, were gibbeted. Their corpses were left to rot in public. Seventy-two were deported from New York, sent to Newfoundland and to various islands in the West Indies and the Madeiras.