Great Negro Plot of 1741

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The Great Negro Plot of 1741 is the name given to a supposed plot by Blacks and poor Whites in New York City to level it with fire and install one of their own as king. It is also known as The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741.

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. They 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 that the windows be smashed and the documents thrown out, to save them; they were later kept in the City Hall. (Lepore, New York Burning)

After another fire, this time at a warehouse, a slave was arrested after having been seen fleeing it. Two others were also arrested at this time, one of whom was a 16-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.

The two slaves were burned at the stake, and with "fire licking at their feet", 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 twenty Whites. They were tried and convicted in a show trial. A supposed Catholic priest, John Ury, was suspected of instigating it. [1]

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.

[edit] References

Daniel Horsmanden, The New York conspiracy trials of 1741 : Daniel Horsmanden's Journal of the proceedings with related documents ISBN 0-312-40216-3
Daniel Horsmanden, 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
Thomas J. Davis, A Rumor of Revolt: The “Great Negro Plot” in Colonial New York ISBN 0-02-907740-0
Peter Charles Hoffer - The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime and Colonial Law ISBN 0-7006-1246-7
Edwin G. Burrows, Mike Wallace - Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 ISBN 0-19-514049-4
Jill Lepore - New York Burning; Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan ISBN 1-4000-4029-9
George W. Williams - History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1. Project Gutenberg EBook