36 pages • 1-hour read
New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan
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Prologue-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary: “The Plot”
In the Prologue, Lepore begins by describing a “Great Feast” that occurs at John Hughson’s tavern in January 1741. The winter in 1741 is particularly harsh and cold, with the snow so deep that many New Yorkers are stuck inside their homes. Likewise, famine afflicts many New Yorkers, who have not been able to eat any forms of meat for months. Slaves from throughout the city venture to John Hughson’s tavern to feast on “duck, mutton, pork, or goose” (7). However, before eating, the slaves are made to agree to take part in a plot, which calls for the slaves to revolt, kill their white owners, and take the white women as their wives. The plot is devised by Hughson, who tells the slaves that the revolt will begin with the burning down of New York’s Fort George, after which each of the slaves should kill their owners with knives, as well as any fellow slaves who refuse to join the rebellion. Hughson makes many of the slaves sign their name to a sheet of paper, asking them to swear to agree to participate in the plot.
Although prosecutors have many slaves confess to this description of events during a trial that takes place the following summer, Lepore suggests that this version of the 1741 New York slave rebellion may have been embellished. The story, in which a group of slaves band together and choose a white man as their “King” (10), is very similar to other stories of slave rebellions that are frequently published in novels, newspapers, and other forms of popular literature. The similarity to such popular tales suggests that the prosecutors manipulated the evidence to better match other stories of slave revolts that would have been familiar to the white jury trying the case. Likewise, Lepore describes how the events at Hughson’s tavern mimic the sorts of feasts that frequently occur at New York City’s numerous social clubs. At these clubs, such as the Freemason’s, white men would gather to drink, with conversation frequently including plots for governmental rebellions. Lepore suggests that the feasts at Hughson’s tavern may actually have been a parody of these white male social clubs, rather than a legitimate conspiracy to rebel.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Ice”
In “Ice,” Lepore introduces one of the key figures in New York Burning: Daniel Horsmanden, whose writings on the trial is one of the main sources through which Lepore has researched the history of the 1741 New York slave rebellion. Raised in England by his church rector father, Horsmanden pursues a career in law in London. He is close friends with his cousin, William Byrd, with whom he frequently visits prostitutes. Byrd eventually leaves Horsmanden for Virginia, where Byrd owns a large estate. In the 1720s, Horsmanden squanders his inheritance, and he decides to leave England and meet Byrd in Virginia, where he hopes to join the Virginia bar as a lawyer.
Failing to join Virginia’s bar, Horsmanden instead moves to New York, to work for the newly appointed governor William Cosby. New York is similar in style and appearance to London, yet it is a far smaller city, “only a mile long and half a mile wide” (21). New York also differs from London in its far larger slave population, with around 2,000 of New York’s 10,000 inhabitants being slaves. Many of New York’s slaves have originally been imported by the Dutch from West and Central Africa, while others had been brought by the English from the more northern Upper Guinea Coast. Other slaves come from the Caribbean sugar plantations. Some of New York’s slaves are born and raised in New York, but these are comparatively few, as slave women in New York bear few children. Although New York’s black population hails from many geographic locations, their shared oppression forces them to look past geographic and political divisions and forge a community.
In New York, Cosby hires Horsmanden to be one of his attorneys, and later appoints Horsmanden to his Royal Council. Cosby is a controversial governor, frequently dismissing his political opponents from their governmental positions. As a result, New York’s government divides into two political parties: the Court Party, which supports William Cosby, and the Country Party, which seeks to remove Cosby from the governorship and replace him with the merchant Rip Van Dam. Despite Horsmanden’s governmental appointments, he is unable to grow his wealth and rise in his social standing. Horsmanden frequently falls into debt to other New Yorkers, at one point relying on Cosby to pay for his debts and keep him out of debtor’s prison.
At the close of “Ice,” Lepore describes how the slave’s conspiracy begins “to unravel” (36). On February 26, 1741, the sailor Christopher Wilson visits Hogg’s shop and spies a large number of coins lying in a drawer. Wilson goes to Hughson’s tavern, where he makes plans to rob the shop with the slaves Caesar and Prince. Several days later, Wilson returns to the shop during the day and covertly unlocks a side door, allowing Caesar and prince to enter at night and steal the coins. The day after, Wilson visits Hogg’s shop and gossips about the crime, dropping hints that Caesar and Prince are the culprits. New York’s sheriff, James Mills, arrests Caesar and Prince as well as Hughson. Although Caesar, Prince, and Hughson deny everything, a tavern regular Mary Burton testifies to her knowledge of the robbery, showing Mills one of the silver coins. Mills arranges to bring the men to trial “for burglary” (39), allowing Prince and Hughson to be released on bail.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Fire”
On March 18, 1741, a fire breaks out at New York’s Fort George, located on the southern tip of the island. Fires could be deadly in “early modern cit[ies]” (42) such as New York, and cities such as London, Boston, and Rennes are often burned down throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. In response to the threat of fire, New York passes a “bucket law” (42), requiring house owners to own leather buckets and to volunteer their service in fighting any fires that occur. After the smoke is spotted from the Fort George fire, a bucket brigade of white men and their slaves forms to throw buckets of water on top of the flames. One slave, Cuffee, refuses to help, instead overturning any buckets to spill the water and then gleefully dance. In addition to the bucket brigade, New York sends its two fire engines, which are powered by 20 men and can “pump 60 gallons per minute through […] a canvas suction hose” (45). The bucket brigade and fire engines are unable to stem the flames, which claim both the fort and the nearby Secretary’s Office. However, the skies start to rain, preventing the rest of the city from burning.
In the days after, government officials blame the fire on an accident caused by a plumber. However, in the following weeks, fires continue to break out at various homes throughout New York. While fire accidents are common in New York, the frequency of the fires begins to elicit suspicions that they are actually acts of arsons caused by individuals plotting against the government. Rumors of political conspiracy run rampant through 18th-centry New York, and newspapers frequently carry stories of slave rebellions throughout the colonies. Some of these stories are real, such as those of the rebellions led successfully in Jamaica by the slave Cudjoe. However, many more tales of slave rebellions are unsubstantiated rumors, often leading to an atmosphere of panic after fires break out. In response to these fears of slave rebellions, the New York government passes numerous laws that seek to curtail the ability of slaves to meet with each other. For instance, one law forbids slaves from walking in the streets “an hour after sunset without a Candle and Lanthorn” (57).
The fires continue to break out in New York into April 1741, with four fires sometimes occurring in a single day. These later fires show clear signs of arson, leading the New York government to suspect that slaves must be the arsonists. One of the fires is traced back to Juan de la Silva, a “dark-skinned” (49) Spanish sailor who had been captured during Britain’s ongoing naval war with Spain. De la Silva is one of several captured Spanish sailors who are sold into slavery in New York, despite having been free men in Spain. The government begins to suspect that these Spanish slaves had committed all the acts of arson and arrests all five of them.
Shortly after the arrest of the Spanish sailors, another fire breaks out, which is linked to the slave Cuffee. In the ensuing panic, Cuffee and numerous other slaves are rounded up and placed in jail to await questioning. The Mayor suspects that the earlier robbery at Hogg’s shop is connected to the fires, and he orders Prince, John Hughson, and his wife Sara Hughson to be placed back in jail with Caesar. The Common Council, which includes Horsmanden as City Recorder, convenes to interrogate the suspected slaves. Horsmanden also urges the Council to advertise a reward of £100 for any information about the arson, as well as the offer of freedom to any slaves who reveal the identity of the arsonists.
Prologue-Chapter 2 Analysis
In New York Burning, Lepore’s goal is to research and describe a little-known event in New York City’s history: the 1741 slave rebellion and subsequent burning of 13 slaves at the stake, as well as the hanging of numerous others involved in the plot. For Lepore, the story of New York’s slave rebellion is important not only for its forgotten brutality, but also for how it helps to better understand the role that slavery plays in America’s history. In her preface, Lepore argues that the “central paradox of American history” (xii) is America’s ties to both the ideals of freedom and the horrors of the slave trade. Colonial America’s distance from the British King allows Colonial Americans to critique the monarchy, and develop a new, democratic form of government. However, the educated individuals who argued for the importance of liberty (such as Thomas Jefferson) are also typically slaveowners, engaging in a brutal practice based upon the belief that black individuals are less than human beings. In Lepore’s argument, one cannot separate America’s ideals of freedom from its foundations of slavery, and she writes that “New York Burning tells the story of how one kind of slavery made another kind of liberty possible in eighteenth-century New York” (xii).
Throughout New York Burning, Lepore is attuned to the hypocrisies of 18th-century American society—particularly within the beliefs of New York’s wealthy, educated white men. In Chapter 1, Lepore describes an estate auction of the recently deceased governor, John Montgomerie. Horsmanden, newly living in New York, attends the auction with the goal of buying luxurious clothing cheaply. The estate auction is also attended by a number of other prominent members of New York high society, including James Alexander, one of the principle opponents to New York’s Court Party. Many of these men opt to purchase books from Montgomerie’s extensive library, which includes Shakespeare, John Milton, Homer, and numerous other canonical writers and philosophers. Yet, at the very same auction, these men compete to purchase Montgomerie’s slaves—with Cosby, the current governor, buying several of them. For Lepore, this simultaneous auctioning of books of political theory and human slaves is a deeply hypocritical act, one that can be hardly understood by contemporary standards. At the same time that New York’s most educated men are reading books arguing for the importance “of political liberty in the face of tyranny’s slavery,” they are also engaging in the brutal “reality of human bondage” (29). Throughout the book, Lepore contrasts the quarrels of New York’s political class with the harsh conditions this class imposes upon their slaves—a paradox that ultimately leads to a violent insurrection in the winter of 1741.
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