The New York Conspiracy Trials: Race and Class

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Recommended: Slaves in the 18th century

The New York Conspiracy Trials happened in New York during the year 1741. Before this year, countless other slave revolts occurred that made the New Yorkers anxious and nervous for an uprising. During the particularly cold winter of 1741, many whites were afraid that slave revolts would happen again. On top of that, New York had helped Britain against Spain. Countless of these worried folks thought that the slaves (along with some poor whites) and the Spanish were going to work together to overthrow New York. The conspiracy trials proved that all New Yorkers understood the hierarchies of status, race, and gender, even when they imagined overturning some of them.
Originally, there were no conspiracy allegations. At first, it began as a simple robbery. Three slaves (Prince, Cuffee, and Caesar) robbed Rebecca Hogg`s tiny shop near the East River docks in New York City. A little more than two weeks after the theft; however, Fort George, the garrison that contained the governor`s mansion, caught fire. Fires were a common occurrence back in the eighteenth-century, and many thought there was little cause for alarm. However, the pace of the fires soon accelerated. According to Sabrina Zabin, “The rumor, moreover, that a slave had been seen sprinting away from a burning building made some wonder if these fires were due to arson rather than accident.”
Daniel Horsmanden, a Supreme Court justice who was to hear of the trials of the Hogg robbery, surmised that there was a connection between the fires and the theft. Horsmanden was a very racist man and he and other white New Yorkers suspected a citywide conspiracy. The destruction of the city`s fort made the New Yorkers think a foreign attack was to happen. The citizens asked, was this an ...

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...mporarily. As an indentured servant, Mary Burton was not a person of standing. She was sixteen, poor, dependent, without a family, and female. Why would anyone have believed her testimony? Some people did mistrust what she said because she was a servant, but others did trust her because they knew she was a witness. No one ever questioned what she said because she was a woman. She told the people exactly what they wanted to hear. Burton probably felt dissatisfied with her current position, and wanted to “get back” at the people in power. At first, she accused only slaves and poor whites, the people the rest of society hated. However, she soon started accusing prominent New Yorkers. This made people stop believing her, but by this time, the government had already given her so much money that she paid off her debt and became a free woman, never to be heard from again.

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