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

by Jill Lepore

Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner

In New York Burning , Bancroft Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore recounts these dramatic events of 1741, when ten fires blazed across Manhattan and panicked whites suspecting it to be the work a slave uprising went on a rampage. In the end, thirteen black men were burned at the stake, seventeen were hanged and more than one hundred black men and women were thrown into a dungeon beneath City Hall. 
   Even back in the seventeenth century, the city was a rich mosaic of cultures, communities and colors, with slaves making up a full one-fifth of the population. Exploring the political and social climate of the times, Lepore dramatically shows how, in a city rife with state intrigue and terror, the threat of black rebellion united the white political pluralities in a frenzy of racial fear and violence. 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, New York, 18th Century, True Crime, Historical

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard College Professor, and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award for the best non-fiction book on race, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; The Name of War (Knopf, 1998), winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, and the Berkshire Prize and a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Award.

A co-founder of the magazine Common-place, Lepore’s essays and reviews have also appeared in the New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, American Scholar, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, the Journal of American History and American Quarterly. Her research has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Pew Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Charles Warren Center, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. She has served as a consultant for the National Park Service and currently serves on the boards of the National Portrait Gallery and the Society of American Historians.
Jill lives in Cambridge,Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a superb book, but make no mistake, it is serious historical research and not easy reading.(The basis for my 4 star rating is the quality and depth of the research and not necessarily readability.) For the uninformed (as I was), the book focuses on the aftermath of a series of fires that occurred in the mid-1700's in New York City that sparked a much greater emotional fire of fear, suspicion, and racism that ultimately resulted in the torturous execution of dozens of people, most of whom were black. (Not one person died in the original fires, which may or may not have been arson.)

Reading this book was difficult given the subject matter but also interesting. My mental picture of colonial era New York is now considerably more detailed and my understanding of pre-Revolutionary justice (or injustice?) more complete for having read this book. I believe any person with a serious interest in history and/or the psychology of mass hysteria (of the organized, "witch-hunting" kind) would benefit from reading this book, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

[Faith · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should have been really good- a history of a forgotten event revolving around politics and race in colonial New York City and it was a Pulitzer Prize finalist (according to the sticker on the front). However, the narrative was really hard to follow. The author skipped around in time a lot both within chapters and between them. Combined with a lot of names to keep track of, it made the story really hard to follow. She also ends the book on a downer with the politically charged arguments over the remains from the African Burial Ground in New York City.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lepore offers a well-researched reconstruction of the alleged conspiracy of the 1741 arsons in New York. Is this an important book? I imagine so. Is it a “good read”? Not necessarily. Her narrative and style of writing is commendable – having to sift through, quote from, and reinterpret the Ye Olde cruddy English syntax of the day. Necessarily relying on the printed Journal produced by Daniel Horsmanden – a lawyer in charge of the trials – she, and thus we, get exposure to such run-on gems as, ”lopping off from them, what, in print, he thought would be a superflouous Formality, such as The Deponent further saith, and such like, which he thought would have been a needless Incumbrance to the Book.” Wow. At least Lepore’s writing is much more lucid and some of the non-lawyerly quotes are translatable. Perhaps if you’re English it’s less bothersome? I read this in The Independent just the other day: “ The Prince of Wales, accused of similar interference over the Chelsea Barracks development, must be dunking his Duchy Highland All Butter Shortbread into the steaming Assam with unusual pleasure.” Makes a little more sense I suppose, especially if one knows what any of the food references are.

The two areas of the book I found most interesting were the appendicies and the reconstruction of New York’s mid-eighteenth century environment The former documents how she and her assistants approached the research of this era and the process of reconstructing the “city” circa 1741 using scarce census records, maps, and other data. This reconstruction evidenced just how small and provincial New York was at that time. Other than a fairly diverse populace and fledgling port this was something like the 37th largest town in Arkansas today. As the fires were still smoldering, the leaders called forth the emergency action of inspecting every individual house and place of business to round up any potential strangers or non-residents that needed accounting for…to no avail. Yeah, nobody happened to be visiting “The City” that day. Trippy. Seems more like an episode of The Smurfs than a piece of New York’s history. It’s an evocative aspect of the book but unfortunately most of the text revolves around the trials (obviously the intent), which gets quite cumbersome for those not specifically interested in that era’s contorted legal machinations.

One thing I found a bit problematic was the sub-theme about political parties. Early on she broaches the subject by mentioning the emergence of the Country Party as a potential rival to the established political leadership of the Court Party – perhaps the first such threat in the Colonies. Much later she exhumes the speculation by considering the purported plotting of slaves might be seen – or was by Horsemanden – as the equivalent of another rival party (in addition to, I suppose, a force hell-bent on total extirpation of white New Yorkers in general). Then this theory reemerges with one or two paragraphs at the book’s conclusion; the institution of slavery is an equivalent to the suppression of “Party Flames,” therefore slave conspiracies and later abolitionist sentiment had a correlation with political opposition. Perhaps this is a great insight? I can certainly buy it. Nonetheless it’s a mostly dormant thesis throughout the text and seems tacked on out of fear that the main story needed some additional academic juice. Overall I would rate this as a sophisticated construct resulting from important research that is not going to hold the interest of most.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a balanced view of a possible, perhaps probable, conspiracy for revolt amongst enslaved Black folks.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't like this as well as Lepore's The Name of War, but it's a worthwhile read. Lepore addresses two huge issues that don't get taught about American history. First, slavery as an institution thrived in all of the American colonies (later states), not just the Southern US. In the 1700s, New York City had more slaves per capita (20%) than any other eastern seaboard colony except Charleston. Second, when we talk about the revolutionary heritage of the US, we ignore the fact that slaves played in active part in that heritage. It's not clear from the evidence how widespread or organized the conspiracy in New York was (certainly not as large as feared by whites). But it does seem like something was going on. The Stono Rebellion, Vesey's Rebellion, Gabriel Prosser's Rebellion and other slave conspiracies and revolts should be acknowledged as steps on the road to revolution and liberty for all Americans.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This didn't come together for me, which is a shame because I still think Lepore's These Truths is one of the great works of historical writing in recent times. But this was too diffuse, running down narrative rabbit holes with a large group of historical figures it was very hard to keep track of

[JC · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but I still got some interesting things out of it. Granted, I don’t really share Lepore’s politics. I listened to an interview she did on a New Yorker podcast episode about socialism and it was hard to listen to. I rarely enjoy reading politics covered in the New Yorker though so that is maybe to be expected. All this being said, Lepore is still a good writer and historian so this was still a decent read. My favourite parts of the book remain its opening and closing. The middle section is full of the nitty-gritty details that more studied historians might find of interest. I prefer the sweeping literary prose that bookends those less exciting (to me) middle portions.

So to start with, I love reading about water. I hope to one day write a series of essays on water. I spent a couple years in school studying the water-energy ‘nexus’ as academics call it and wrote a thesis on water-powered electrification in rural Nepal, and how Indian bank-rolled dam construction was a central issue in the Maoist uprising; so it’s a subject I’m greatly interested in. Lepore spends some time also discussing the politics of water in 18th century Manhattan, starting with the difficulty of getting good quality water. Much of the ground water on the island was brackish and had a reputation for tasting terrible. Lepore mentions one of the 18th century residents of Manhattan striking a clean patch of ground water, and their well becoming the place wealthy white people sent their slaves to pick up water to brew tea. The well then became a meeting place for various discontented slaves and a suspected site of plotting a slave revolt.

One thing I tangentially contemplated a lot while reading this book was Lepore’s mentioning Wall Street’s grain market, which also served as its slave market. The New York economy was very well-integrated to the global European trade of people as property. Lepore writes:

“The Dutch began importing Africans to New York in the 1620s, mostly men and women from West and Central Africa they called “Angolans,” or sometimes “Congos,” farmers from the Kikongo-speaking Kingdom of Kongo and the Kimbundu-speaking Ndongo. Many of these people had first been taken captive during civil wars, both on the coast and in the African interior. After capture, they were sold to coastal Portuguese traders and seized by the Dutch when they pirated Portuguese trading vessels. In 1638, the Dutch began buying Africans directly; by the mid-seventeenth century, under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company, they conducted an extensive coastal slave trade, having captured several principal Portuguese trading forts. Still, the men and women they brought to New Amsterdam, many of whom spoke Portuguese as well as one or more African languages, bore names that bespoke their origins: Simon Congo, Paulo d’Angola, Anthony Portuguese.

After the English took possession and renamed New York in 1664, they continued the Dutch policy of importing Africans as a source of cheap labor, but they turned, generally, to the Upper Guinea Coast, where the Royal African Company traded. ”

The name "Royal African Company" struck me as curious and I looked it up to find that it was setup by a British royal family and interestingly John Locke was one of their investors. I mentioned this to one of my friends and sent this Jacobin article to him. We had discussed Locke a few times in the past; he had leant me a book about death and consciousness that works through some of Locke’s philosophy. We’ve also discussed the degree to which Marx drew on the work of Locke; the ‘enclosure’ of land into property (which Marx scorned), but all that rhetoric about workers getting the fruits of their own labour came directly from Locke. Oh the irony of speaking about fruits of one's own labour; we did not know how entangled Locke was with the slave trade; although I must admit it’s not actually that surprising.

Another interesting aspect was the illegality of Catholic priests working in New York at the time. A central part of the alleged slave revolt plotting was that it was suspected to have been instigated by a covert Catholic priest working for other European powers set on undermining British power in the so-called ‘New World’. Trinity Wall Street Church also came up a few times in the book; I love their choir there, but it’s rather sad to read about some of the reactionary history that is associated with the church, including its banning of Black bodies being buried within its cemetery grounds.

Lepore finishes by discussing the African Burial Ground in New York City. I actually visited that National Landmark while I visited NYC back in 2013. I still remember the details of that day quite vividly. It was a family vacation, and my mom had been offered a free meal (for her and her family) at the Trump hotel in Soho, because her job sometimes involves event-planning and this is an industry rampant in rent-seeking. Anyway, I protested and refused to go, not so much because of the rent-seeking (which I think is justifiable, especially when expenses are imposed on corporations or companies owned by billionaires), but because my purity politics at the time had special disdain for billionaires and I didn’t want to have anything to do with Trump. One of my better intuitions. Anyway that day, I wandered around Soho myself, had the most amazing falafel at a place called Ba’al Café (yes it’s named after the Canaanite god, haha), visited Walter De Maria’s New York Earth Room which is literally a large room filled with soil (I had such terrible taste in art), and then eventually made my way to the African Burial Grounds. It was a very sobering experience working through the small museum exhibit there.

Finally, I wanted to mention one other interesting thing that Lepore brings up, which I will have to read more about for my next batch of Advent writings. Lepore writes:

“Christmastime had long been celebrated in New York as a pagan carnival of turning the world upside down, of men dressing like women, and of wassailing, in which the rich gave gifts of money to the poor who wandered the streets and knocked at their doors. By the turn of the century, New Yorkers’ wassailing Christmases would become so notoriously riotous and, finally, so threatening to public order and to the sensibilities of an emerging white middle class that the whole holiday would be domesticated and moved indoors, along with the evergreen. New Yorkers like Clement Moore, who wrote “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” in 1823, invented a fireside tradition of family gift-gifting, under the grandfatherly eye of Santa Claus, to put an end to the street carnival of poor and working-class whites and blacks. Whitsuntide, meanwhile, moved to the streets.

… The black men who met at Hughson’s tavern called on Dutch and English holiday traditions; even more, they called on the tradition of Caribbean Christmas, or black saturnalia. In the British West Indies, the source of 65 percent of New York’s slave population, the holiday between Christmas and New Year’s when slaves were spared hard labor—the time of Hughson’s “Great Feast”—was celebrated by revels in which slaves were allowed into white men’s houses for feasts and entertainment and gifts. The carousing easily turned violent. And easily slipped into rebellion. Thirty-five percent of all slave rebellions in the British Caribbean took place at Christmastime.”

I loved hearing about this revolutionary history of Christmas. It does make you think how central the Magnificat is to Christmas. The bible literally says God will pull rulers of their thrones, fill the poor with good things and send the rich away empty. This is one thing about revolutionary politics that I share with Lepore, as she writes:

“...as New Yorkers understood very well, Scripture can counsel obedience, and it can counsel rebellion. In 1730, the New York Gazette reported news of “an Insurrection of the Negroes” in Virginia, occasioned by a report that the new governor “had Direction from his Majesty to free all baptized Negroes.” This inspired baptized slaves to claim their freedom, which, since their owners denied it, meant staging a rebellion.”

[Doris · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I listened to the narrative, a couple of points kept hitting me, some regarding the writing and the history itself, and some regarding the reader.

The reader on several occasions mispronounced words, or pronounced them in such a way that the audio reader has no idea what they are. Another issue I had with the reader is the occasional lapse into pretentiousness, where she added a bit of a snobbery with huh-white instead of white. I also never determined if a certain name was Newsome or Newshum, and couldn't find it in my historical research, which I admit was sketchy, but not being able to find the name of this important person made me wonder how in-depth the research was.

I http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York...


Although the narrative itself appeared to be well researched, I had doubts about its accuracy as far as there actually having been a plot by slaves to burn New York City in 1741. Although I do feel there was a plot, it appears to me to have been by the 3rd Justice, Horsmanden, who from the information given was a wastrel and a scoundrel, being admitted to the bar more as an only choice rather than an informed choice, and whose true role was recorder, although he acted as Chief Judge, sentencing obviously innocent men and women to a horrible death simply because he could.

The supposed proof of guilt lay on the tales told by a 16-year-old, who at first only 'confessed' to protect herself, then like the children of Salem, used the notoriety to enhance herself and build her fame. At some point even she must have realized that it had gone too far, but that point was never covered, and she disappeared after the trials were over.

History says that, as had happened many times before, the city's primary fort and several prominent homes were indeed burnt down, but there was never any real proof of a plot. One man talking to another is not proof, nor is the 'evidence' of a teenager who kept changing her story, even perjuring herself to make sure the court heard what it wanted. Other 'evidence' came from convicted or accused people whose efforts to save their lives are forgivable, even though others died instead.

Interestingly, this tale does give a good description of the New York area of the time, including the boroughs, why they were built as they were, and the fact that 20 percent of the population was black, most of those slaves. It also discusses the slavery of the Native peoples, and the indentured whites from Europe,

Overall – I doubt there was a slave conspiracy. I doubt that most of the fires were set. Of those that were, many if not all could just as easily have been set by someone who envied the rich, in this instance any landholder, and yes an angry slave.

As many writings of the day reveal, evidence hinged not on truth but on torture, not on witnesses but on hearsay, not on fact but on fiction created to satisfy the court.

In the end, the true conspiracy was against the blacks, and at least on the part of Horsmanden, against the whites of property and consequence. I do not believe this tale to be all fiction, but neither do I believe it to be all true. Well written presentation of an excellent work of covering the evidence and hiding guilt on the part of the magistrate.

[Sean Munger · Rating 4 out of 5]

In New York Burning, Jill Lepore traces the history of the slave rebellion in New York City in 1741 and argues that New Yorkers’ fears of slave conspiracies functioned as a sort of shadow political party, checking the actions and power of legitimate politicians and courts. This is not so much about the conspiracy itself (which may not have existed, or may have been greatly exaggerated), but the investigation and legal consequences, which resulted in a number of black men and women being executed, some by burning at the stake. Lepore expressly links the issues behind the 1741 rebellion to the case, six years earlier, of printer Peter Zenger, which is recognized as a landmark legal case establishing freedom of the press in the Colonies. Lepore makes the link through the personnel involved in the cases, many of which were the same, and the reasons for the Zenger controversy, which was involved with the creation of a political party in opposition to the tyrannical governor.

Lepore also examines the institution of slavery in New York in this period, what life was like for slaves there, and what their communities were like. The crackdown on the rebellion even further restricted slaves’ freedom, but also in a way bound them closer together. Their community echoed (in secret) the sentiments in favor of liberty and rights that were nascent in white society and which eventually came out in the American Revolution.

This is a terrific book, very well-researched, extremely well-written and engaging. Jill Lepore is an excellent historian and writer. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in Colonial history or urban history in this period.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives an incredibly detailed account of an incident in American history that most people are unaware of - the trials and subsequent executions of many black slaves and several whites alleged to be involved in a slave uprising in 1740s Manhattan. The account conjures up images of the Salem Witch Trial just fifty years earlier. Fear is aroused by several incidents - in this case, fires at the governor's house and other locations - and in the ensuing panic, accusations are made based on the testimony of one seriously questionable witness. But once started, there seems to be no end in sight as the initial testimony eventually leads to accusations of a massive slave uprising threatening the community. No such uprising existed, and the trials finally ended when high-placed people realized that the executions were reducing their own wealth by eliminating their valuable property - their slaves. It is a fascinating but depressing examination of slavery, especially a rare look at its relatively early days and its existence in the north.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The history is terrific, vivid and filled with the complexity of 1741 New York - a small place with many tensions.

Reading the author's notes in the Appendices and Footnotes allows you to follow how she developed her data and used current technology (databases, Arc Info) to assist in tracing patterns of residents and activities in the city. She also writes about comparing sources (i.e., "Horsmanden's Journal", with data derived from census and tax lists, letters and other reports.) It gives fascinating insight into how to "make history" and also to evaluate sources - how to read what people write or say against the context of their lives - something we always need to do.

[K Marcu · Rating 3 out of 5]

As many others have already noted, this could have been a very good book, but the way it was written was choppy, and at times confusing & unclear.
Regardless, very interesting and disturbing.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of detail in this book, which has some of the twists, turns and multiple theories as a murder mystery. Unfortunately, the momentum flags at several points, and the author is much more interested in Daniel Horsemanden than I am. However, the links with the Salem witch trials and, especially, the African burial ground (in the epilogue) help redeem the book in my eyes. The process for reconstructing the people and places of 18th century New York described in the appendix is also quite interesting. Not quite a beach read but we’ll worth it.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look at a (to me) unknown incident in 1741 New York City - a series of arsons that resulted in a mass trial of slaves, most of whom were executed. Lepore puts this story in context of the times - slave rebellions, Indian attacks, the rise of Masonry, even what plays were on Broad Way at the time. Sometimes she gets too deep into trial transcripts, and I forgot who was who, but in general this was a really well-written dip into pre-revolutionary New York. Lepore asks the still unanswerable question - how could men who believe so strongly in liberty also believe in slavery?

[Mackenzie_Tbh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for my American History class, and in so many words - wow. Having a window through to an era full of so much hate and inequality, even though it was different to get through sometimes and not because of the subject matter, it's astonishing and absolutely gut wrenching. I would say more about my experience reading this book, but I have to write a review for class so here I'll make due with these few words.

[Madeleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extremely important and under-studied episode of racial injustice in American history. From the absurdity of the legal system to the racial and religious intolerance, the spring/summer of 1741 reflects and reveals so much about the foundations of early New York City and its dependence on slavery.

[Craig Huddleston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts were very interesting and intriguing, but other parts were rather dry. If you are someone who likes to study 17th and 18th America, this would be a good read for you.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

4* for content and quality of research
2* for presentation and writing style

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

New York Burning is an exciting read. Lepore doesn’t detail the race and class tensions in colonial Manhattan, she vividly describes them. To this end, Lepore introduces the city’s residents alongside their favorite haunts, closest friends, plentiful secrets and private aspirations. While she carefully reconstructs 18th century Manhattan, she simultaneously makes the case that a careful analysis of the sources pertaining to the fires that burned across the city in the winter of 1741 point to a complicated story of life in colonial New York.

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost, this is a meticulously, well researched book. Unfortunately, it is also the book's downfall. Ms Lepore takes us down so many different wormholes, she ends up detracting the reader form the main subject of her book. (Did we really need a play-by-play of the Zenger trial--placed right smack-dab in the middle of the book, I might add-- in order to better understand what was happening to these slaves? I still don't know what one had to do with the other.) I read non-fiction almost exclusively, and IMHO, this book needed a much more focused editor.

New York Burning could've been a real triumph. It's a story that needs to be told & one we should never forget. Unfortunately, this story was told by someone who bogged down its importance, with far too much minutia. That being said..... I definitely plan to visit 290 Broadway soon.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read about halfway through the text, one of the appendixes, and three chapters' worth of footnotes (especially the substantive ones). At that point, I gave up. The book is well written, but the amount of detail about slave plots and uprisings in New York City in the early 1700s far outweighed my interest in the topic. I have heard about a Lepore book that sounds more to my interest, and that's the one I'll be looking for.

[Patty · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nonfiction book about the 1741 slave rebellion in NYC. Or, well, the supposed 1741 slave rebellion in NYC; as Lepore repeatedly points out, there's not good proof that any sort of rebellion actually existed, and the over 200 people charged (91 ended up either exiled or sold, 21 were hanged, and 13 burned at the stake) were probably guilty of nothing more than muttering about their owners and the rich men of the city.

To start at the beginning: in the spring of 1741, about ten fires sprang up in the then small town of New York City. This was not particularly unusual in wooden cities of the 18th century, particularly at that time of year, when most buildings would have been dried out by winter. However, various events (the contemporary War of Jenkins' Ear, which was on the verge of evolving into the War of the Austrian Succession; recent slave rebellions in Antigua and South Carolina; a particularly brutal winter; political discontent in the city, with rival parties vying for control of the governorship) set off a panic. People became convinced that the fires had been arson and there was a conspiracy on to destroy the city. A young Irish woman, an indentured servant, stepped into the center of attention and accused her master (with whom she seems to have had other reasons to be discontented), his family, and several slaves of fomenting rebellion. This set off a firestorm of accusation and counter-accusation, added by the fact that those who confessed and named names were either freed or received reductions in their sentences, while anyone not already in jail was promised a monetary reward for accusations. Both contemporary and modern observers have compared it to the Salem Witch trials, when a similar panic seems to have led people to declare themselves guilty of obviously impossible feats.

This is a pretty interesting topic; unfortunately I don't think Lepore's book is the best treatment it could have. She's hampered by the usual problems of early history (most of the records of the time have been lost or destroyed, leaving her with only one main source to work from), but other people have succeeded where she fails. In particular she tries to make a comparison between the alleged conspiracy and the contemporary emergence of political parties, but I never agreed with – or even quite understood – what her point was with that. She draws in related histories of the time and place, but never on what I most wanted to know; she spends a lot of time with the biography of the main judge and his presumable motivations for taking the trials so far, when I would have much rather have read about the black population or daily life in NYC in the 1740s. But overall it's not a terrible book, and there's certainly an abundance of interesting facts that pop out here and there. It's just that it could have been so much better.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about a subject which I knew nothing about and of which I’d never heard despite growing up in upstate NY. Lepore does a wonderful job of trying to decipher truth from hysteria and possibility from probability with the small and skewed amount of historical data available. She recreates the political and social scene of 1740s NYC in an attempt to place the conspiracies in context and teases out and defines four separate “plots” tangled within the events, confessions, and retractions.

Since I’ve read this as part of my attempt to become more familiar with black history and especially history from a black historical perspective I was very interested in Lepore’s framing and ideas contained in her epilogue. Most, if not all of the victims, if they were allowed a decent burial, would have been buried in the African Burial Ground which, at the time of publication, had just recently been rediscovered. Lepore was clearly miffed that Howard University was in no rush to publish findings on the bodies which had been disinterred and had not responded to her requests to share any draft reports. This info is now publicly available as a series of articles on gsa.gov, although I’ve not yet taken time to digest the summary article directed toward the general reader.

Lepore’s epilogue mentions the reinterment ceremonies and bemoans the fact that it became more a current political phenomenon than a memorial service. The white politics which clouded the events of 1741 seems to have morphed into the black politics of racial inequality and demands for reparations. I wonder how a black writer would have framed this event? If it is important to understand how the white politics of 1741 influenced NYC residents’ ideas of slave revolt and conspiracy, isn’t it equally important to understand how black politics in the early 21st century influences our ideas of remembrance and commemoration involving our complicated past and what it means for our future?

[Fran Hawthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for conspiracy theorists, QAnon members, politicians, voters, students... everyone!

Along with the better-known "The Crucible," it's a horrifying investigation into how easily Americans have been seduced into wild conspiracy theories that blame The Other for any misfortunes. In the 17th century Salem witch trials in Massachusetts (the subject of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible"), the main targets were women who had supposedly bewitched their neighbors' daughters, husbands, and livestock. In "New York Burning," the targets are enslaved Blacks and, later, Catholics, after a series of fires in 18th century New York City.

As the hysteria mounts, the claims go far beyond the original fires, to wild plots about a slave-and-Catholic uprising to take over the entire colony of New York. The official judicial system encourages this conspiracy-mongering by pressuring each arrested person to name more names.

This book is impressive for many reasons, not just its detailed research and important topic. Author Jill Lepore puts the era in context, showing the importance of a free press and the chilling impact of a biased judicial system that lacks rules of evidence or any real system for defense. My chief complaint is that she doesn't probe enough into the mindset of people other than the main prosecutors and accusers. Did the majority of New Yorkers really believe these charges? For that matter, why did slave-owners keep accepting the loss of their valuable "property" whenever one of their enslaved people was arrested?

To make sure this kind of horror never happens again, we have to understand -- not just the people who actively perpetrated it -- but also the ones who let it go on.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Social Historian Jill Lepore published the book New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteen-Century Manhattan in 2005. I read the book on the Kindle. Lepore’s 2005 book is a social history of the aftermath of a series of arson in the spring of 1741. Suspicion for the arsonist fell on the enslaved population and some of the poorer White population of Manhattan. During a series of trials between April and August of 1741, 30 Blacks and 4 Whites were executed. Around 80 people, mostly Black people but several White people were exiled from Manhattan (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2020). The exiled enslaved people were transported to other colonies with enslaved populations (Lepore 88, 247). Lepore’s book includes appendixes that provide an overview of the database that Lepore and her graduate students compiled to try to recreate life in 1700s Manhattan around the time of the events of 1741. The book covers a lot of the ground. The book includes many different aspects of social life in Manhattan in 1741, especially focused on the lives of enslaved people in Manhattan. The book includes several black-and-white illustrations. Jill Lepore’s New York Burning is an excellent and interesting view of the trails of 1741 in Manhattan.
Works Cited:
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020. “New York Slave Rebellion of 1741.” Chicago, Illinois: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved: October 9, 2022.
(New York slave rebellion of 1741 | Britannica).

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting story of a plot in New York in 1741 that resulted in a bunch of slaves being burned at the stake, many more being hanged, and still more being sold and transferred to other far flung locations. It’s possible the plot was all in the fevered imaginations of the judge and investigator Daniel Horsmanden who wrote up a self-serving history of the whole affair. Since he had convinced himself that there was a plot started by slaves and some white folks he told people he was questioning that they’d get a more lenient sentence if they confessed and named names. This usually meant hanging instead of burning, which isn’t nothing but the thought of actual innocence doesn’t seem to have occurred.
The while story ties into some really interesting stuff-Slave life in New York which was very different from slave life on rural plantations; rules for evidence and trials at the time (for instance “negro testimony” wasn’t allowed against white people, unless it was a dying confession right before being hanged or burned, then it was fair game because who would lie under those circumstances?). There was also the fear and hatred of poor Irish laborers, whites who consorted with blacks, crappy New York drinking water, how the press worked and more. Very interesting stuff.
But just really depressing to read. So odd to my modern sensibilities to think of a large segment of the town turning out to watch someone be burned to death. We have come a long way.

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a devastating book about slavery, race, and the law. Lepore looks at one event in New York City's history: a rash of fires in 1741, the legal conclusion that it was a plot by enslaved people to burn down the city, and the subsequent imprisonments, hangings, and burnings of the people convicted.

Lepore really gets into the details to try to understand what happened, which can at times feel tedious (there are a lot of internal party politics going on that surely are important to understanding the context for the legal system but simply can't keep my attention). But as I kept reading, the story told by the prosecutors dissolved. I expected to read between the lines to cheer on the "criminal element" here, but I didn't expect this horrifying possibility: the "conspiracy" could have just been a witch hunt spurred by the bad conscience of slave owners.

The only way for accused people to get free (or even to get a death by hanging instead of death by burning) was to give the prosecutors what they wanted, name names in a wider and more outlandish conspiracy. Like the Salem witch trials, the whole thing only ended when members of the owning class started to be named as conspirators as well.

Either way, makes you wish the place really had all burned down.

Reading this made me think a lot about the law and the use of law's authority. How frequently it's twisted to provide a neutral, objective-seeming authority to the worst injustices. Just a total nightmare.

[Zachary · Rating 1 out of 5]

As much as I liked In the Name of War, I really disliked this book. Like the Thistlewood diary, apparently there was a rush on the Horsmanden account, and Lepore with her weight got there first. Like Name of War, Lepore boldly asserts that the NY conspiracy trials were the origins of something important American pluralism. She bases this off the Zenger trial of 1735 which established a precedent for freedom of the press. She extends this to the fires of 1741, arguing that the ruling court party (of which Horsemanden was a part) tried to use the fires to rouse up the populace into a hysteria that would maintain their political dominance over a nascent "Country Party." This is based on a lot of detailed political stuff too boring and tedious to relate here. Ultimately this is not convincing. It seems that the hysteria was much more widespread. Much of the book wisely admits that much inference needs to be made considering the paucity of sources and reliance on Horsemanden. Brendan McConville, who is much more familiar with this region than Lepore, persuasively tears her a new one in the AHR. It's also very narrative heavy, and you can see that it was targeted at a popular audience.

[Michael McCue · Rating 5 out of 5]

New York Burning is a very good study of an awful event. Another reviewer, Mary Beth Norton, said "Jill Lepore's meticulous reconstruction casts new light on the well-known but still mysterious slave conspiracy of 1741 in New York City". Among the general public I think these events are far from well-known. Even the fact that slavery was legal and in existence in New York until around 1820 would surprise most people. The events of 1741 began with some fires of unknown origin. Looking for a scapegoat to blame officials and others blamed the many slaves in the city. When a few were arrested and coerced into confessing a vast conspiracy was imagined. The first slaves arrested were encouraged to think that they might be treated better if they implicated others. In time over 100 slaves and poor whites were arrested and crowded into the jail. Over 30 were executed by hanging and or burning at the stake. One contemporary observer compared the event to the Salem Witch trials that happened not far away and just 50 years before. We like to think our country has a proud and noble history. Not all of it is anything approaching proud or noble. Jill Lepore is a historian I did not know before now. I will be looking for the rest of her books.

[Mike]

* Political slavery and political liberty obsessions with 18th century New York / England but chattel slavery was not considered. James Alexander wrote on both while owning slaves.
* 1 in 5 residents was a slave in New York leading up to the arson in 1741. By comparison, London was roughly 2% black.
* 1735 trial of printer John Zanger. Zanger printed opposition paper to Gov. Cosby with Alexander writing essays. Cosby tried Zanger for libel. Defense said Zanger printed the truth and won.
* Alexander plotted to depose Governor. Slaves supposedly plotted to kill the Governor.
* Daniel Horsmanden who was judge at the trials was plain racist.
* Tavern of John Hussen was where slaves met to plan revolution. The winter of 1741 was tremendously cold with 10+ feet by January.
* In 4-5 years, only 30% of Africans survived "seasoning" in West Indies on way to NYC.
* Being in a country taken from indigenous and built by slaves, English settlers could feel right was possibly on the slaves side.
* 1741 may have been tribute of 1712 revolt.
* Too many fires had happened in early spring of 1741 to not arouse suspicion. Many of the judge's slaves ended up being accused like Justice Delancey.