New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan.

NEW YORK BURNING: liberty, slavery and conspiracy in eighteenth-century Manhattan. Jill Lepore. 2005. Read by Beth McDonald. 6 cds. 7.5 hrs. Abridged. HighBridge. 1-56511-968-1. $29.95. Cardboard; content notes. A*

In 1741, 34 individuals, mostly African Americans, were either hanged or burned at the stake for an alleged plot to overthrow white masters and politicians and seize the city of New York. Lepore recreates the horrible drama and attempts to unearth fact from fiction using the journal of Daniel Horsmanden as a source, though a highly suspect one. Horsmanden had many reasons to edit his account, political ambition and racial prejudice among them. Life for slaves in Northern cities was different than on Southern plantations as the scope of daily chores granted a greater freedom of movement and contact with one another. Lepore offers multiple possibilities about how events, which snowballed into a terrifying witch-hunt, may have unfolded. Once the fear of whites in authority was unleashed, terror reigned in a "justice system" that was anything but. To be spared the most painful death, victims had to implicate other victims. Lepore does not spare the listener any detail of the forced "confessions," torture, and terrible death.

McDonald gives a clear, precise, and forceful reading. This is a detailed and excellent account by an award-winning historian. Nancy Chaplin, Libn., VCCW, Goochland, VA