New York Conspiracy of 1741 - Trials

Trials

Having gathered witnesses, Horsmanden started the trials. Kofi (Cuffee) and another slave Quaco (Quack) were the first to be tried. They were convicted, although each of their masters defended them. Respectable white men whose testimony normally would have been given considerable weight, they stated that each of the slaves had been at home the evening in question. The slaves were convicted anyway. Each of the slaves was hanged. Immediately before being hanged on May 30, they confessed and identified dozens of other so-called conspirators. Moore asked to save them as future witnesses, but the officers of the court decided against it because of the rage of the crowd.

More trials followed quickly. The trials and testimony in courtrooms were filled with conflicting evidence. Both the Hughsons and Peggy Kerry were tried on June 4. They were sentenced to hang eight days later. At the height of the hysteria, half of the city’s male slaves over the age of 16 were implicated in the plot and jailed. Arrests, trials and executions continued through the summer. "The 'epidemic of mutual incrimination' reached such proportions that officials were forced to suspend circuit courts for the rest of 1741. The jails simply could hold no more people." An anonymous letter was sent to the city of New York, cautioning them against the epidemic of suspicion and executions, as the writer claimed to have seen in the Salem witch trials.

Five men known as the "Spanish Negroes" were among those arrested. Dark-skinned Spanish sailors who had been sold into slavery by a privateer, they contended they were full Spanish citizens and unfairly enslaved. Because Britain was at war with Spain, this did not earn them much sympathy; it even raised suspicions against them as infiltrators. The British colonists were worried about anyone with Spanish and Catholic ties. The five Spanish blacks were convicted and hanged.

As the investigation wore on, Horsmanden came to believe that a man named John Ury was responsible. Ury had just arrived in town and had been working as a school teacher and a private tutor. He was an expert in Latin, which was enough to make him suspect as a Roman Catholic priest by less educated Protestants. Horsmanden arrested him on suspicion of being a priest and secret agent to the Spanish. Burton suddenly "remembered" that Ury had been one of the plotters of the conspiracy and testified against him.

Ury was put on trial. His defense was that he was a dissenter from the Church of England, but not a Catholic priest, and had no knowledge of any conspiracy. But at the time of the trial, Horsmanden had received a warning from the governor of Georgia that Spanish agents were coming to burn all the considerable towns in New England. This added to suspicions about Ury, and the teacher was convicted. He was hanged on the last day of August.

Gradually the fears died down. When Burton's accusations began to charge members of the upper class and family members of the judges as conspirators, the case became a major embarrassment to Horsmanden. In addition, the political leadership of the city was changing. The case was finally closed. Those slaves and whites still in jail were released.

By the end of the trials, 160 blacks and 21 whites had been arrested. From May 11 to August 29, 1741, seventeen blacks and four whites were convicted and hanged, 13 blacks were burned at stake, and 70 blacks were banished from New York. Seven whites were also deported. The following year, Mary Burton finally received her reward of ₤100 from the city, which she used to buy her freedom from indenture, and had money left over. The executions were conducted near the Poor House at the north end of the city and its boundary of Chambers Street. North of there was the African Burial Ground National Monument.

Historians remain divided about the events of 1741. Some historians, notably Edgar J. McManus and Jill Lepore, believe that wartime hysteria, together with Horsmanden's desire to advance his name, exaggerated the extent and basis of a slave plot. A majority of scholars, however, believe the evidence suggests some plot did exist (but not necessarily that all of those charged and executed were guilty). T.J. Davis, Graham Russell Hodges, Leslie Harris, Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh, and Peter C. Hoffer all regard the numerous fires as evidence of an actual slave conspiracy.