The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime and Colonial Law.

Hoffer, Peter Charles. The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime and Colonial Law. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2003. Bibliography, index. Pp. vii, 190. $14.95 (paper), $29.95 (cloth).

In the early eighteenth century, slaves organized two major conspiracies in New York City. The first began in April 1712, when roughly two dozen slaves set fire to wood buildings on the city's periphery and used guns, axes and swords to attack those who tried to put out the blaze. The conspirators killed or wounded twenty whites before the militia rounded up and jailed seventy slaves. Governor Robert Hunter convened a special court, and it tried twenty-seven slaves for murder and treason. The court meted out harsh penalties to the twenty-one slaves it found guilty. Most of the city's residents turned out to watch the executioner gibbet, hang, or burn the convicted. After this spectacle of terror, colonial officials enacted a number of new laws--a black code--which restricted the activities of slaves and eased the fears of whites. The fires, the bloodshed, the trials, and the executions created a legal and cultural context that noted legal historian Peter Charles Hoffer uses to examine the second slave conspiracy: the New York Conspiracy of 1741.

In the early months of 1741, New York City's atmosphere was thick with suspicion and fear. In February, a group of slaves committed a series of robberies, and in March and April, a series of fires destroyed homes, barns and the city's most visible symbol of the British Empire, Fort George. On 6 April, convinced that a slave rebellion was underway, the New York Supreme Court launched an investigation. Eventually, it arrested over 160 blacks and twenty-one whites for conspiring to burn and loot the city. Before the trials ended, the justices condemned four whites and seventeen blacks to hang, thirteen blacks to burn at the stake and seventy-two blacks transported out of the colony. Some historians, most notably Michael Kammen, are convinced that colonists were overcome by "popular hysteria, Negrophobia, and anti-Catholicism" (p. 3). For Hoffer, this is not an adequate explanation. He scrutinizes the evidence the courts gathered and the laws it used to convict men and women of capital crimes. As a result, Hoffer makes a number of valuable contributions to our understanding of the conspiracy. First, he argues there is ample evidence that some attempted to burn the city and shed slavery's yoke. Second, he places the institution of slavery, the trials and the executions in the historical context of the early eighteenth century. The resulting study reminds us how the city's residents have sometimes reacted to the challenges of living in a diverse society.

Hoffer divides his examination of the conspiracy into two parts. The work's first chapters place the events of 1741 in a historical context. Much like its predecessor, the "Negro Plot" was, in part, a product of the Atlantic World's lucrative slave trade. Although barred from participating in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, city merchants found smuggling and selling slaves imported from the Caribbean produced tidy profits. The city's slave population dramatically increased from seven hundred in 1700 to over two thousand in 1740--when slaves made up over 20 percent of the total population. This led many to wonder if profit-seeking merchants had unwittingly sown seeds for another rebellion. After 1739, three events added to this anxiety. First, reports of armed slaves murdering whites during South Carolina's bloody Stono Rebellion reached the city. Second, news that Britain was at war with Spain (King George's War, 1739-1748) made residents uneasy and more likely to believe rumors that Catholics were planning an attack on the city. Finally, a crime wave gripped the city; residents suspected that slaves were responsible. Hoffer concludes that, when combined with memories of the 1712 rebellion, these factors convinced many residents that the city was on the verge of social chaos.

In the work's second half, Hoffer examines the trials of several conspirators. In Daniel Horsmanden's A Journal of the Proceedings in the Detection of the Conspiracy ... for Burning the City of New-York (1744), Hoffer finds evidence that slaves, ignoring the black codes drank, danced, and cavorted at night and on Sundays. Contrary to law, tavern keeper John Hughson sold them food and alcohol; moreover he fenced goods stolen by gangs, like the Geneva Club and the Smith's Fly Boys. Similarly, there is evidence that some who gathered at Hughson's tavern discussed plans to burn the city. For Hoffer, this is crucial. By law any person who participated in or overheard such conversations was guilty of a capital crime. While it is clear a plot existed, Hoffer finds detailing its extent impossible. It was not until May, that Margaret "Peg" Kerry--a notorious prostitute--admitted that she had overheard slaves vow to "'burn the houses of them that have the most money, and kill them all'" (p. 85). However, at that moment the court received a troubling letter from Governor James Oglethorpe of Georgia. Oglethorpe warned that Catholic priests, disguised as physicians and dancing masters, were infiltrating coastal cities with orders to encourage slave rebellions and prepare the way for a Spanish invasion. Based on evidence obtained from Mary Burton, a sixteen-year-old indentured servant, the court charged that the white itinerant teacher John Ury was a Catholic priest and a Spanish spy--a capital offence. Throughout his trial, Ury expressed his innocence--a sentiment he later articulated in a gallows speech. Hoffer ably demonstrates that once suspicion fell on Hughson and Ury, men like Horsmanden were convinced that whites, slaves and Catholics had conspired to destroy the city.

With its emphasis on crime, culture, and the court, Hoffer's work will be a valuable addition to courses on legal history, but it does not surpass Thomas J. Davis's A Rumor of Revolt: The "Great Negro Plot" in Colonial New York (1985). Historians who wish to incorporate the Conspiracy of 1741 into their courses should consider Serena R. Zabin's The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741 (2004)--an annotated and abridged edition of Daniel Horsmanden's Journal. Hoffer presents a thoughtful rereading of the Journal, but, in general, he relies too heavily on secondary sources. Moreover, he includes a well organized bibliographical essay but not endnotes, which makes it difficult to determine the source of many of the ideas and direct quotes. It should be noted that, to his credit, Hoffer aligns himself with historians who argue that a plot existed and he presents the slaves as historical actors who attempt to wrestle control of their body away from their masters and white society. Moreover, he does demonstrate how Horsmanden's Journal, the black codes, and the rest of the legal system illustrate how colonists had divided their world into two parts: us and them, white and black, Protestant and Catholic. Therefore, he reminds readers the extent to which the legal system may be influenced by a cultural context. For Hoffer, the trials and the executions that in 1741 took place near Pot Baker's Hill (near present day City Hall Park) present an opportunity to confront the historically significant role that slavery played in early New York.

Thomas D. Beal

Assistant Professor of American History and Urban Studies

State University of New York, Oneonta