Customer Reviews

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

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Jill Lepore's "New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan" is a valuable and admirable examination of one of the darkest episodes in New York's history: the so-called slave rebellion of 1741 and the brutal vengeance that was extracted. Professor Lepore's painstaking research confronts the reader with a terrible conclusion: even the most respectable of people in society will consent to the deaths of human beings, based on even the tiniest shreds of evidence.

Focusing primarily on the actions of Daniel Horsmanden, the City's Recorder, Lepore provides the reader with a background on the attitudes of New York's whites toward their slaves. She makes clear that Gotham was neither the first nor only city to have witnessed slave uprisings. (It had suffered a similar uprising a couple of decades earlier.) But the events of 1741 were unique for several reasons:
--the shifting finger-pointing at various groups;
--the inconsistency of Mary Burton's testimony, which essentially was the case against several slaves;and
--Horsmanden's bizarre behavior toward Mary Burton.

Admittedly, I've only superficially studied this dark time in New York's history, so I was shocked to learn that there were actually several "conspiracies": the Negro Plot, Hughson's Plot, the Spanish Plot, the Roman Plot, etc. Each plot was hatched depending on who confessed to what. Worst of all, the white population of New York--fueled by racism, xenophobia, paranoia, and, not the least of all, bloodlust--went right along with it. And, with the exception of an intriguing anonymous letter from Massachussetts, it seems the rest of the colonies went along with it, too. While Horsmanden is just short of villified in this book, he is not alone in his culpability.

Professor Lapore's "New York Burning" will disturb many readers. The accounts of the slaves and the few whites burning, hanging, begging, and praying are graphic and heartbreaking. Still, this in an incredibly important book for anyone interested in the history of our nation and/or the all-too-tragic fragility of race relations in America. For this, Professor Lapore deserves our appreciation

The subject of American slavery presents numerous challenges to the modern historian, not the least of which is its heterogeneous nature. The experience of a slave on a rice plantation in the Carolinas certainly would have contrasted that of a slave on a tobacco plantation in Maryland. Temporal, geographic, and other less grounded factors might have influenced the condition of human servitude in colonial and post-Revolution America. The distinction of urban slavery in the eighteenth century, particularly in the north, is relatively understudied. In New York Burning, Jill Lepore recreates early eighteenth century Manhattan, recounting the decisions of the court, the common talk on the streets, the comings and goings of sloops of trade and war, the livelihoods of its people, the menace of slavery, and a conspiracy that threatened to burn the city to the ground.

The books is truly a great read, but objectivity and fact are sometimes brought out of focus making for interesting but questionable conclusions. Though the use of literary license, which is scattered between summary of the conspiracy trial and its proceedings, helps to contextualize events and enliven eighteenth century New York in the mind of the reader, it sometimes borders on fictive. The summer of 1941 is characterized in an imagined description: "The wind blew hot. In the streets, hogs sweated and dogs panted, seeking the shade of doorways and market awnings and the smooth coolness of the marble steps of fashionable houses."(Lepore, 171) The language animates the New York heat, working to contrast with the previous winter which was described in stylistically similar prose, however as hogs cannot sweat, some of the magic is lost.

Perhaps Lepore's greatest success is her reconstruction of the social underworld of unsupervised black slaves, some whites, and other captives in the streets and taverns of New York. Lepore leaves an open ended conclusion and brings recent events, such as the treatment of slave burial grounds in NYC to light. In the end, I give this book praise but am not totally sold on this brand of scholarship.

Lepore resurrects a dark chapter of Colonial New York history. In doing so, she offers intriguing speculations about what really happened when New York burned in 1741 and why events may have been misperceived by many white New Yorkers and misrepresented by her chosen villain, Daniel Horsmanden. If only there were enough evidence to get much beyond speculation.

While Lepore is capable of writing very well, many sections of the book are repetitious to the point of tedium. I often got the sense that the publisher was pressing Lepore to "Make it longer! We'll never be able to sell it for anything close to $30 at that length." The Preface, particularly, seems hastily written and superfluous. It's bloated with poorly edited sentences like: "The difference made Alexander's opposition seem, relative to slave rebellion, harmless, and in so doing made the world safer for democracy, or at least, and less grandly, both more amenable to and more anxious about the gradual and halting rise of political parties."

Appendix A, on the other hand, is a wonderful addition. I was fascinated to learn about Lepore's research methodology and am very glad she included that section.

Based on the paucity of evidence available, it deserved to be a 125-page monograph and would have been fine as such. Sadly, there's apparently not much call for those in the popular history market.

I had high expectations towards this book. The subject seems to be a fascinating episode of New York's history with all the ingredients to a good historical thriller. Yet, after reading the first couple of chapters, one cant help feeling somehow disappointed. The trouble with this work, as Jill recognises herself, is that although the incident of the 1741 fires caused great upheaval there is very little documental materiel for a thorough historical research. As a result, for much of the book, Jill Lepore relies on rough guessing and dwells on matters which are of little relevance to the conspiracy. When she does focus on the conspiracy, the examination of the trial reports gets boring and quite confusing as names and statements are confronted over and over again. And while the author does her best to show the failings of the colonial judicial system, the question remains wether the condemned slaves actually did start the fires, however ill-treated they were.
Once you get through the first 100 pages you end up thinking the subject could have made a good research paper but there really isn't enough to it to make a good book. Not with such limited historical sources anyway.

All history books should be this detailed, this readable, this humane. Lepore knows how to write about a horrible, nearly forgotten episode in NYC history. Unlike many historians, she steps away from overt politics or raw emotion. She knows that this subject is too serious to be shouted. It is the rare history book that is packed with facts as well as knowledge.

I felt like Lepore was taking my hand and leading me through the smelly streets of lower Manhattan in 1741, like I could almost see the faces of...what were they, anyway? The victims of a horrible hoax? The demented planners of a plot to burn the city? Or something in between, where thieves can also be the keepers of ancient rites from a distant homeland, where the world is turned upside down?

I could go on and on, but just buy the book!

What I love about Jill Lepore's books is how she takes a lesser known part of history and highlights its importance. I wonder why we don't learn about these things in school? The book is well researched, lyrically told, and great to read. It is a scholarly work, but also a book that the average intelligent person can read and appreciate. A great book!

During the American Revolution, Samuel Johnson, who was unfailingly able to spot paradoxes and express them forcefully, asked, "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" It took almost a hundred more years for the paradoxes of slavery to be abandoned in America, but it had been business as usual in America for centuries. The New York of the mid-eighteenth century was dependent on slave labor, as was everywhere in the New World. There were New Yorkers even then who worried that slavery was wrong, but there were others who worried that the slaves were going to rise up in insurrection, as they had in the South and in the Caribbean. Thus, when there was a rash of fires in New York in 1741, it was easy to suspect a conspiracy conducted by black slaves. In _New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan_ (Knopf), historian Jill Lepore has focused on a forgotten and shameful episode in American history. There are few documents surviving from the incident, and many of those that Lepore has been able to consult were written by authors that were justifying themselves in the events. The account compiled here, however, is convincing and is as close to historical truth about the incident as we are likely to get. What's more, it is a vivid picture of Manhattan life two and a half centuries ago.

The first major fire of 1741 erupted in Fort George, near the Battery. There was another one seven days afterwards, and then another seven days after that. Lepore describes a history of conspiracy theories blaming religious sects, political factions, or Indians for different outrages before the fires, but once the fires started, it was not long before suspicion fell on the city's slaves. It is hard to tell just how much of a plot there was, but there certainly was not the intricate fomentings of the eventual 200 slave suspects. The initial arson and conspiracy charges were based almost completely upon questionable testimony. The legal system was not well equipped to handle infractions by slaves, as their owners had responsibility for determining guilt and administering punishment for most offenses. The Colonial Supreme Court Justice Daniel Horsmanden was sure he could detect guilt merely by looking at black faces. The first slaves found guilty were sentenced to being burned at the stake, and were talked into fingering other conspirators so that they could simply be hanged instead of being tortured by fire. They were treated unfairly even in this; after naming names, they still were burned alive. In the midst of the judicial process, and after thirty executions, Horsmanden decided that slaves did not have mental capacity to plan such a conspiracy. The handiest explanation was that it was a Catholic plot. In the end, 80 of the 152 blacks who were arrested and charged confessed to conspiracy charges, and thirteen were burned at the stake, with seventeen more hanged, with their decomposing bodies put on exhibition as warnings. Others were sold off into worse slavery in the Caribbean. The four alleged white ringleaders were hanged (burning was administered only to blacks).

Lepore cannot tell how much of a true conspiracy there was. The main initial witness whom Horsmanden had used as a foundation for further prosecution was thought completely credible as long as she kept identifying slaves in the conspiracy, but her subsequent testimony about the participation of gentlemen in ruffles and wigs was not believed, although it did not make Horsmanden doubt what had gone before. New Yorkers began to insult the witness on the street, yelling at her, "There was no plot!" Thus the doubts about a conspiracy were present even while slaves were being killed for it, but Lepore makes the case that political conflict between the Court and Country Parties helped fuel conspiracy fears. She writes that a slave conspiracy was "like a political party, only more sinister." There are countless descriptions of life in the city; who would have suspected, for instance, that New Yorkers once cursed the clamorous tree toads for their racket, which drowned out the songs of birds? Lepore's recreation of the place and time is constantly interesting, and her account of yet one more instance of the monstrosities involved in slave-keeping brings useful attention to a forgotten story.

This is not a book to read in one night--in this book one bookmarks certain pages, and refers back to those pages, with satisfaction and an ever growing understanding of these times and the people who inhabited Manhattan back then.

Exceptional research (the footnotes and the Appendix far from being dull and dry discourse, add to the wealth of knowledge and narrative contained in the body of the book) brings to life the character and personalities of those implicated in the plot as well as those who supported, judged or cross-examined them. This book also brings to the fore the incredible racism in Manhattan at that time -- apparently one out of every 5 individuals there was a slave.

Add to this an analysis of slave trade and daily life in the 18th century Manhattan, of the party systems and favoritism and British Rule, with and without the usual checks and balances, as well as a new nation trying to stand on its own, plus insight into the lives of Peter Zenger and Benjamin Franklin--this is a "cast of hundreds" with great "supporting actors and actresses".

As I read through this book I had many occasions to refer to the 2 excellent maps at the front of the book, which helped support the narrative and lend more understanding of the lay of the land in Manhattan back then. I never knew Manhattan's water was so polluted (even back then in the "early days" of the city), and Ms Lepore does a through job of describing that which actually figured prominently into the "fuel" for this ("The Negro Plot") rebellion -- the water sources where the slaves would gather to draw tea water for their masters. I was also surprised - as I looked at these 18th century maps -- to see how much has now been added to the island of Manhattan in modern times by landfill.

The book begins with a clandestine feast attended by the slaves, (some of whom were quite literate -- all of whom, taken from many parts of Africa Spain and the Barbados to be treated as nothing more than expendable chattel, were dissatisfied to one extent or another with the way they were treated) and Dr Lepore keeps bringing us back to this feast, with its sworn secrecy, oaths and threats -- many times in the book, as it is the pivot point from which the alleged slaves' "Negro Plot" to burn New York and kill their masters was hatched, and is the background from which the accusations against them, and their eventual death sentences sprang .

The slaves' trial, which to many seemed a hurried sham, was covered in great detail -- as were the accusations, some of which contradicted instead of accusing, which led to the deaths / transporting or discharging of so many of those slaves, many of whom may have been unjustly accused, hurriedly sentenced, and gotten rid of in various and terrible ways. And finally-- Mary Burton's quest for freedom (with Horsemanden trying to help her achieve her goal), Horsemanden's detailed narrative of this whole affair, and the a finely crafted and well-written mysterious letter delivered to the judges after the trial, bring a fitting climax to the book.....with many unanswered questions however.

The judicial system in the colonies back then, as well as the prevalent attitudes exhibited towards slaves by whites and clerics alike, and the great hatred (and the acceptance and promulgation of such hatred) exhibited at this trial, of anything that smacked of Papacy, is also a head-turner.

Many questions about this incident and the complex times surrounding it are still unanswered -- many questions will remain unanswered. But thanks to Jill Lepore's intense scrutiny, research and highly complex rendition of these people and their circumstances, these long-dead and mostly unknown slaves and their colleagues become flesh and blood history, as do their accusers and prosecutors.

Informative, educational and supportive illustrations are found peppered throughout the book. I would have liked more details, such as illustrations and/or web sites, pertaining to the Negros Burial Ground, especially as it concerns the present. Dr Lepore treats the subject of the Negroes Burial ground and its hallowed inhabitants with proper reverence; perhaps a book can be written about this in the near future.

American slavery and the attendant slave revolts were not all initiated in the South as this documentary illustrates. "New York City Burning" is a good read, not only on the NYC slave revolt that took place, but takes the reader to 18th century Manhattan.

This is a great piece of historiography about something few know about at all --- slavery in New York City in the 18th century. How about a slave "rebellion" in New York City, how about more people burned at the stake than in the Salem witchcraft trials, how about dark byways and highways of old New York, barely transformed from its days as New Amsterdam, dark plots in dank places, shrill frightened tyrants overreacting with bloody retribution, burned ruins of an early African American village in Central Park?
One cannot make up this stuff, it is too real so it must be history at its best.
And written by one of our premier authors of history, a woman who makes our history live in The New Yorker to the acclaim of many, and yet whose best book, this one, is still too little known.
If you appreciate Harry Truman's remark that the only new thing under the Sun is the history you haven't read, then this is one to curl up with and marvel at; a great way to spend a rainy day or a dark night.