Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Slavery: Not Just Something For The South

Part XV

I want to show now how the "Fort George Incident" and the "The Great Negro Plot" became (no pun intended) a lightening rod for cruelty and abuse of blacks in the North and the growing discontent because whites felt that they deserved jobs that were held by blacks.

I will just repeat a bit that will lead us back into the original premise:

"1712-1741 saw the number of slaves living in N.Y. more than doubled, and the laws curtailing their freedom got tougher. Brutal acts against blacks became more common, more acceptable, and families were routinely separated. 1735: A slave violated his curfew, was horse-whipped to death by his owner and an all-white jury declared the cause of death was not the beating but "Visitation by God!"

More slave markets, named after prominent city slave traders, sprang up on Wall Street near the East River; by 1741,one-fifth of the city's population consisted of black slaves--nearly 1,800 amid a total population of about 10,000; they were one-third of the city's workforce &  were rapidly replacing its white indentured servants.

Black men continued to gather illegally at taverns, during their few leisure hours, despite the already-strict black codes. New York's small constabulary could only enforce the codes sporadically.."

1741 was a horrid year for New York and surroundings. FIRES!

First there was the March 1741 torching of Fort George. The single most important symbol of the city's military security went up in smoke; it was a terrible blow to the British colony: first, it was a familiar landmark within the city and also the three great European powers: Great Britain, Spain and France were in intense struggles over trade. The loss of the fort made the city quite vulnerable. Rumors being heard by the colonial authorities were of a possible attack by Spain; also, the British captured a Spanish sloop that spring and had brought it into New York Harbor.

The citizens quickly noticed, when the fires started that they occurred in or near areas where blacks lived: on the waterfront, in bakeries, cooperages, and blacksmith workshops: any place where fire was a daily tool.

On an April Sunday, Abigail Earle looked out the window of her Broadway home, saw three black men and she heard them laughing and chanting: "Fire, fire, Scorch, scorch, A LITTLE, damn it, BY AND BY." Getting back from the window she ran to a neighbor, who recognized the speaker as Quaco, a slave belonging to a former assemblyman.

Flames the next day ran along the roof of a timber warehouse belonging to Adolphe Philipse, New York's wealthiest merchant. Cuffee, his slave was seen leaping from a storehouse window. His immediate capture filled the streets with "The Negroes are rising!" Dozens of blacks were jailed, questioned about the fires, but released when no immediate evidence emerged.

About the same time a 2nd parallel drama began, this time at the center of which was an already-notorious slave.

Caesar Vaarck, or "Varrck's negro." as he appears in trial accounts was a slave who refused to act like one. He lived & thought independently, even dangerously sometimes.

He was an accomplished thief when he wasn't firing ovens for his owner, John Vaarck, a baker. Publicly flogged for stealing casks of gin, he insouciantly founded a drinking club named Geneva, after jenever, a Dutch word for gin. He also fenced stolen goods to whites and had a gorgeous white mistress with red hair.

Peggy Kerry had a murky past and lots of aliases. She'd immigrated from Ireland and claimed to have a husband, but in the spring of 1741, "Negro Peg" was living at Hughson's tavern, the rough hostelry on the Hudson where Caesar & others brought their stolen goods. The previous fall she'd given birth to Caesar's child.

The drama began after Caesar and his accomplice, another slave named Prince, stole silver candlesticks, coins, and some fancy cloth from a shop belonging to Robert and Rebecca Hogg. Caesar gave Peggy a few of the coins and a length of speckled linen.

Sarah and John Hughson, tavern owners, were known by city authorities to violate the black codes by serving food and drink to slaves. They also knew that Hughson, with his tough cookie for a wife, also served as a fence for Caesar and other blacks.''

Rebecca Hogg discovered the theft next morning and spread word among other shopkeepers, prompting one, Anne Kannady, to question 16 year old Mary Burton, an indentured servant who worked for the Hughsons. (In a society where unfree labor was commonplace, Kannady knew just what to say to the young servant.) If Mary could provide information about the theft, Kannady promised she would arrange for her indenture to end. Mary hedged, only briefly, and soon Caesar was arrested, along with Peggy Kerry. The Hughsons were taken into custody but released on bail.

Caesar's situation was awful, but not hopeless. He faced, as a repeat offender, at least a beating and probably banishment from the colony. But then, while he was still in prison the fires began, and with them, a grimmer outcome for Caesar was guaranteed.

As Peggy and Caesar sat in dank cells, New York's citizens grew more panicked with each new fire. By mid-April there'd been a dozen fires of unexplained origin, and when the colony's supreme court opened its spring session on April 21, Justice Frederick Philipse II,nephew of the wealthy merchant, summed up the fears of the other colonists when he asked, "Who can say he is safe or tell where it will end?"

None had died except that first soldier at Fort George, but the destruction and the threat of more on property had been substantial and the grand jury, which included the owner of a warehouse that had been burned--was impaneled to investigate the fires and thefts.

Although only circumstantial evidence was presented that linked black men to the fires, the court decided that the unlawful gatherings of blacks in taverns was worth pursuing. "How this notion of its being lawful to sell a penny dram, or a pennyworth of rum to a slave, without the consent or direction of his master, has prevailed, I know not," said Justice Philipse, meanwhile suggesting that drinking might have led to their plotting.

The grand jury quickly focused on John Hughson's tavern, the notorious haven for black thieves and a site fo "caballing" by slaves. Mary Burton, the maidservant was called and she grudgingly agreed to "acquaint them with what she knew relating to the goods stolen from Mr. Hogg's, but wouldn't say anything about fires."[/u]

The fires? The grand jury had not hoped for something like this, but in a tavern house where black men caroused over trenchers of mutton and bowls of strong punmch, Mary Burton was privy to every illegality, from Caesar's going upstairs with his white lover, to slaves' dancing and drinking, to the Hughson's hiding of stolen merchandise. In the following months, her devastating testimony dovetailed perfectly with the ambitions and racial hatred of the most powerful lawyer in New York.

Justice Daniel Horsmanden, son of an English minister, was trained in England and he presided for months of trials with 2 other men, who recorded the day-to-day proceedings of the tribunal. (In trial lawyer Daniel Horsmanden, the "Great Negro Plot" found a man who served as stenographer for the proceedings, as well as a judge and chief inquisitor. His detailed and hate-filled record of the conspiracy trials is the only contemporary account to survive. A JOURNAL of the PROCEEDINGS in The Detection of the Conspiracy formed by Some White People, in Conjunction with Negro and other Slaves. New York, Printed by James Parker,at the New York Printing-Office, 1744.)

Trust me, these incidents become more serious as the trials begin.

By Allen (Piewacket1861) He is member in the forum