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

I really enjoyed this book, it was very informative and easy to read. This book captures daily life of both colonists and slaves in mid-18th century New York. This book also exposes the brutality of slavery in a part of America not usually associated with slavery. The purpose of this book is to expose the racial hysteria which exploded after a series of fires which occurred in New York in the winter of 1741. Believing there to be a Slave plot to set the fires and revolt against their owners many slaves were arrested and put on trial for conspiring, most were burned at the stake. Eventually the questionable testimony, confessions, and accusations mirrored those during the witch trials in Salem, Mass. in the level of hysteria and shoddy evidence which was acceptable in court, only in New York many more died. This book was very well written and fast paced. It portrayed a very clear picture of life, politics, and legal proceedings during this time. Recommended for anyone interested in either colonial history or the history of slavery in America.

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 lett

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

An amazing, eye-opening book. Here's a colonial city with nothing quaint about it. With only 10,000 people, the NYC of 1741 was already a seething cauldron of political rivalries, ethnic alliances and hatreds, and always the volatile presence of the enslaved population, amounting some one-fifth of the total. With a historian's dogged searching after elusive fact's and a film-maker's gift for scene setting, Lepore shows that New York had a past as complex and riveting as its present!

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!