New York Burning

by Jill Lepore

  New York’s slave code was not necessarily an overreaction to the possibility of violent revolt. New Yorkers had good cause to worry about slave revolts; not only did they hold, in the back of their mind, the imperial wheel of fortune conjured by Savage (“Revolving Empire you and yours may doom”), they well remembered the revolt of 1712. Nor did they exercise restraint in punishing plotters. In 1712, more than seventy slaves and free blacks were eventually taken into custody, and forty-three brought to trial by jury. Eighteen were acquitted and discharged. Twenty-five were convicted, of whom twenty were hanged and three burned at the stake. One, a pregnant woman, had her execution postponed. But after giving birth, she, too, met her death.

  Governor Robert Hunter, a skilled satirist and a friend of Jonathan Swift, was a contemplative man. He had been appalled by both the nature and the number of the 1712 executions. “I am informed that in the West Indies where their laws against their slaves are most severe, that in case of a conspiracy in which many are engaged a few only are executed for an example,” he wrote to the Lords of Trade, complaining that “In this case” many were executed. Disgusted by the excess, Hunter fought hard against the remaining prosecutions and was able to reprieve five men, including two “Spanish Negroes” whom he considered not only unjustly convicted but unjustly enslaved. Yet, despite Hunter’s objections to the severity of the prosecution, within months of the 1712 revolt the Assembly passed “An Act for preventing Suppressing and punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of Negroes and other Slaves.” It allowed slaveowners “to punish their Slaves for their Crimes and Offences at Discretion, not extending to Life or Member,” while mandating that any slave found guilty of murder, rape, arson, or assault would “suffer the pains of Death in such manner and with such circumstances as the aggravation or enormity of their Crimes . . . shall merit and require.” The act also sought greatly to restrict the city’s tiny population of free blacks (“an Idle slothfull people”) by prohibiting them from owning “any Houses, Lands, Tenements or Hereditaments,” and requiring any owner manumitting a slave to pay £200 security to the government and a £20 annuity to the freed slave.31 (Such a sizable financial penalty made manumission effectively impossible.)

  Writing again to the Lords of Trade, Governor Hunter apologized for the ferocity of the 1712 “Negro Act”: even after the Governor’s Council lessened the severity of some of its provisions, Hunter worried, “your Lordships will still think [it] too severe, but after the late barbarous attempt of some of their slaves nothing less could please the people.” Hunter had cause to worry. As early as 1686, authorities in London had been astonished at the viciousness of New York’s slave codes. That year, the Duke of York instructed the governor to pass “a Law for the Restraining of Inhuman Severitys which by all masters or overseers may bee used toward their Christian servants, or slaves, wherein provision is to be made that ye wilful killing of Indians & Negros may bee punished with death, And that a fit penalty bee imposed for the maiming of them.” It was never passed. And Hunter, who served as the governor of both New York and New Jersey, was well aware that a 1704 New Jersey “Act for Regulating Negro Indians and Mulato Slaves,” modeled after New York’s 1702 “Act for Regulateing of Slaves,” was so severe (among other things, it mandated castrating black men convicted of raping or fornicating with white women) that Queen Anne overruled it five years later, on the grounds that “the Punishment to be inflicted on Negroes &ca is such as never was allowed by or known in the Laws of this Kingdom.”32

  WHAT HAPPENED IN New York in 1712 cast a long shadow, especially for families caught up in the violence of both 1712 and 1741. Three of Rip Van Dam’s slaves were sentenced to be hanged in 1712 (one was pardoned); in 1741, Van Dam’s slave John was accused in the conspiracy, and his son, Isaac, served as a juror. Adolph Philipse had served as Third Supreme Court Justice in 1712, and his slave Amba stood accused; in 1741, his nephew Frederick held the second seat on the court, and both men owned slaves named in the trials, including Adolph’s Cuffee, accused of setting fire to Frederick’s warehouse. Gerardus Beekman, whose son Andries had been shot to death by Nicholas Roosevelt’s slave Tom in 1712, served as a trial witness in 1741. Three other Beekmans served as jurors in 1741, as did Roosevelt’s sons Jacobus and John.

  There are also hints that whoever set the fires in 1741, if they were deliberately set, was commemorating 1712. Two of the days of the 1741 fires corresponded to the dates on which the 1712 plot was hatched: March 25 and April 6. At the 1741 trial of John Roosevelt’s slave Quack and Adolph Philipse’s Cuffee, William Smith suggested that the memory of 1712 ought to have deterred any future revolt: “That Justice that was provoked by former Fires and the innocent Blood that was spilt in your Streets, should have been a perpetual Terror to the Negroes that survived the Vengeance of that Day, and should have been a Warning to all that had come after them.” In many families, that memory did indeed prove a perpetual terror, but it may also have inspired revolt. For killing Andries Beekman, Nicholas Roosevelt’s slave Tom was burned over a slow fire in 1712. In 1741, John Roosevelt’s slave Quack was burned at the stake. John was Nicholas’s son. Was Quack Tom’s son? That piece of genealogy is probably irretrievable. But generations of Roosevelts’ slaves watched black men from their own household burn in torment. When John Roosevelt’s warehouses went up in flames in 1736, his slaves were the first suspected. “Revolving Empire you and yours may doom.”

  AS THE ICE melted in March and April 1741, England was at war, it seemed, with all the world. In their panic and despair, white New Yorkers contemplating the fires at Fort George, and Warren’s house, and Van Zant’s and Philipse’s storehouses, and all around the city, recalled the fire in 1712 and the Caribbean rebellions and South Carolina of the 1730s, and began to cry, “The Negroes are rising!”

  On April 6, after Jacobus Stoutenburgh’s cry caused the crowd at Philipse’s storehouse to chase Cuffee, the bucket brigadiers–turned– vigilantes swelled and swarmed across the city, taking up any black men unlucky enough to be out on the streets. As Horsmanden reported, “Many People had such terrible Apprehensions . . . and indeed there was Cause sufficient, that several Negroes (and many had been assisting at the Fire at the Storehouse, and many perhaps that only seemed to be so) who were met in the Streets, after the Alarm of their rising, were hurried away to Gaol; and when they were there, they were continued some Time in Confinement before the Magistrates could spare Time to examine into their several Cases, how and for what they came there.”

  From the second-story windows at City Hall, Clarke, meeting with his Council, could see the smoke and the flames and the mob, and could hear the commotion, two floors below, as two dozen slaves were thrown into the dungeon.33 Magistrates, aided by Horsmanden, began their investigation, questioning first the “Spanish Negroes” and next any slaves who seemed suspicious. There was, as yet, precious little to connect the February 18 robbery at Rebecca Hogg’s shop with the fires. But even two days after the fort fire, the mayor, John Cruger, had ordered Prince, earlier released on bail, recommitted. And on April 6, John and Sarah Hughson were arrested again, charged “as Accessories to divers Felonies and Misdemeanours.” Sarah was jailed with her nursing baby. That night, Clarke ordered the militia to keep the city under watch: every night for the next three months crews of twenty-five men would patrol from dusk till dawn.

  All week, city magistrates conducted interrogations. Quack, owned by the Englishman John Walter, was asked what he meant by what he had been overheard to shout while walking up Broadway: “Fire, Fire, Scorch, Scorch, A LITTLE, Damn it, BY-AND-BY.” He said he was “talking of AdmiralVernon’s taking Porto Bello,” a recent English naval victory in the War of Jenkins’s Ear, and “ that he thought that was but a small Feat to what this brave Officer would do by-and-by, to annoy the Spaniards.” Quack was released.

  But Daniel Horsmanden didn’t believe a word of it. Perhaps his suspicions were fueled by the observation that four of the fires had attacked property o
wned by the most prominent members of the Court Party: the Governor’s Mansion; stables owned by Attorney Joseph Murray, who had married Cosby’s daughter; a storehouse owned by Frederick Philipse; and a house belonging to Captain Peter Warren, James DeLancey’s brother-in-law.

  Whatever unspoken fear of “latent Enemies” motivated Horsmanden, he placed his suspicions on the city’s slaves. He was certain Quack’s words meant “that the Fires which we had seen already, were nothing to what we should have by-and-by, for that then we should have all the City in Flames, and he would rejoice at it.” Horsmanden was especially persuaded by the report of Quack’s behavior: “for it was said, he lifted up his Hands, and spread them with a circular Sweep over his Head, after he had pronounced the Words (by-and-by) and then concluded with a loud Laugh.” The laughter. It was the laughter Horsmanden hated.

  Whatever variety of opinions there might have been initially about the cause of the rash of fires, Horsmanden’s view soon became the governor’s official interpretation. On Saturday, April 11, the Common Council convened. Horsmanden attended in his capacity as City Recorder. He began the meeting by representing his interpretation of recent events as the conclusion any reasonable man must draw from the evidence:

  The Recorder taking Notice of the several Fires which had lately happened in this City, and the Manner of them, which had put the Inhabitants into the utmost Consternation; that every one that reflected on the Circumstances attending them, the Frequency of them, and the Causes yet undiscovered; must necessarily conclude, that they were occasioned and set on Foot by some villainous Confederacy of latent Enemies amongst us; but with what Intent or Purpose, Time must discover.

  At Horsmanden’s recommendation, the Common Council voted to offer a reward of £100, and a pardon, to anyone who would reveal those “latent Enemies”:

  Order’d that this board Request his honour the Lieut. Governor to Issue a Proclamation Offering a Reward to any white person. that Shall Discover any person or persons lately Concern’d in Setting fire to any Dwelling House. or Store House in this City. (So that Such person or persons As be Convicted thereof) the Sum of One hundred pounds. Current Money of this Province. and that Such person Shall be pardon’d if Concern’d therein. And any Slave that Shall Make Such Discovery to be Manumitted or made free. And the Master of Such Slave to Receive Twenty five pounds. therefor. And the Slave to Receive besides his ffredom the Sum of Twenty pounds. and to be pardon’d. And if a free Negro. Mulatto or Indian. to Receive forty five pounds. And also to be pardon’d if Concern’d therein.34

  The proclamation was posted across the city. Meanwhile, the Council decided to scour the city for evidence, and to try to halt the looting of abandoned homes that had begun after fearful whites fled. “A Scheme was proposed, that there should be a general Search of all Houses throughout the Town, whereby it was thought probable Discoveries might be made, not only of stolen Goods, but likewise of Lodgers, that were Strangers, and suspicious Persons.” The scheme was kept secret over the weekend. On Monday, April 13, each alderman led a search party through his ward while militiamen stationed themselves at street corners, stopping everyone “carrying Baggs or Bundles, or removing Goods from House to House.” Every building in the city was searched, and every person found identified. That not a single stranger was detected in all of Manhattan is perhaps the best testament to the intimacy of this eighteenth-century city. Nor were any stolen goods discovered. “But some Things were found in the Custody of Robin, Mr. Chambers’s Negro, and Cuba his Wife, which the Alderman thought improper for, and unbecoming the Condition of Slaves.” Robin and Cuba were arrested.

  For the rest of that week, magistrates continued questioning jailed slaves. From the general search, the interrogations, and the posting of the reward, nothing much about a plot emerged, and precious little evidence of conspiracy. Days passed with no alarms. And then, on April 21, the Supreme Court opened its regular session, and Daniel Horsmanden donned his robe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Stone

  AT NINE-THIRTY on Tuesday, April 21, 1741, the bell ringer, paid ninepence for his pains, pulled the rope that rang the bell in the cupola atop a two-and-a-half-story stone building on the corner of Wall and Broad streets, to announce the sitting of the Supreme Court of Judicature of the Province of New York. The court, established in 1691, was only slightly older than the building, whose foundation was laid in 1699. It took four years, a herd of horses, and hundreds of men, slave and free, to build City Hall, out of stones that had once formed a barricade built by slaves generations before, at Wall Street. In 1703, City Hall opened to house meetings of the Supreme Court, as well as the city’s mayor and Common Council and the province’s General Assembly, although the assemblymen had cause for complaint: the Assembly Room, on the east wing of the second floor, wasn’t furnished for another year. While politicians and lawyers argued in chambers, plumbers and plasterers trudged along the hallways, trailing their ladders behind them. And still the work continued. “A Cage Whipping post pillory and Stocks” were soon erected in front of the triple-arched arcade, opening onto Wall Street.

  In 1707, wainscot was nailed to the walls. Three years later, seats for grand and petit jurymen were finally installed in the elegantly appointed Supreme Court Room, on the second floor. In 1711, masons working in the cellar’s “Great Gaol,” an open space that ran the length of the building, walled off corner cells. City Hall’s bell and cupola, faced with a magnificent clock of four dials, a gift of Stephen DeLancey, James DeLancey’s father, topped the roof. A decade later, a jailer’s apartment was built in the garret over the east wing, and in 1727 a “prison for small crimes” was added to the garret opposite. Two debtor’s apartments occupied the corners of the west wing garret, separating them from the decidedly squalid (“neither cieled nor plastered”) debtor’s prison that ran under the roof. In 1730, when the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel donated 1,642 books to the city, carpenters built shelves and desks in the west wing jury room, which then became a library. Two years later, the imported Newsham fire engines arrived and were stored in a small room on the ground floor’s east wing until a house for them was built on Broad Street in 1736. Beginning in 1733, the Assembly Room was graced with a large mahogany table. And in 1741, after the fire at Fort George, all of the books and papers rescued from the Secretary’s Office were moved, at Daniel Horsmanden’s request, to City Hall’s Common Council Room, until a better place could be found. 1

  Plan of City Hall, c. 1740, by David Grim, 1776. Collection of The New-York Historical Society.

  Courtroom, prison, mayor’s office, library, engine house, pillory, archive. New York’s City Hall stood at the center of the metropolis, a monument to government, order, and retribution. Authority, wealth, and status descended along its stairwells, from the windowed and wainscoted Supreme Court on the second floor to the open walk of the ground floor’s Common Hall to the dank, cramped cellar dungeon, an enduring display of rank in a world of daily deference.

  At the sound of the bell on that Tuesday in April 1741, marking a half-hour warning, birds fluttered, scattering from their perches on the cupola, and flew over the city, and those officers of the court who had not already arrived entered through the Wall Street arcade, a gentle breeze at their backs, walked across the Common Hall, climbed up the east wing stairs and under an arched entryway, and assembled in the Supreme Court Room, where they were bathed in the early spring’s slight morning light. Admitted by the doorkeeper, in came the clerk, the sheriff and his deputies, the crier, the bailiffs and constables. Spectators settled themselves on benches and on the balcony. In the dungeon below, thieves and alleged conspirators—Caesar, Prince, Cuffee, Peggy Kerry, John and Sarah Hughson, and the more than two dozen city slaves and “Spanish Negroes” rounded up in the first weeks of April—listened to the peal of the bell and the clatter of footsteps.

  Last came the judges. Chief Justice James DeLancey was noticeably absent; he, along with New York’s surveyor-gen
eral, Cadwallader Colden, had been called to Providence to serve on a committee arbitrating a boundary dispute between Massachusetts and Rhode Island. DeLancey had left New York the first week of April and would not return to City Hall until July 2. In his absence, Second Justice Frederick Philipse officially headed the court, but Third Justice Daniel Horsmanden, with his English legal education, wielded overarching influence on the bench. (Even when DeLancey was present, Horsmanden “often held the pen” for him.)2

  The room hushed as the judges entered. Despite his penury, Horsmanden probably insisted on hiring a coach-and-six, a wild extravagance, to travel through town. Perhaps just such a coach stopped in front of City Hall that morning, its spry coachman opening the door and escorting the Third Justice down from the carriage and across the paving stones, past the cage, the whipping post, the pillory, the stocks. In New York, William Smith, Jr., reported in his History, “judges and practisers in the Supreme, and all other courts, wear no particular habits as they do at Westminster.” But Daniel Horsmanden had made a splash in 1732 when, as a young lawyer and new arrival, he insisted on wearing his “barr gown” at court. (James Alexander had mocked him for his foppery.) According to Smith, Horsmanden’s “chief Merit consisted in a Gentlemanlike Exterior, a strict Attention to the Formality and Decorum of the Court & a Defence of the Profession agt. the vulgar and parcimonious Prejudices of an uncultivated Populace.” Much later in his career, in 1764, Horsmanden would mandate Westminster pomp in the courtroom: “considering that it has been the Usage of most of the civilized Nations in Europe to distinguish the different Orders of Men in the learned Professions by their Dress” and convinced that such dress would “advance the Dignity Authority Solemnity and Decorum of the Court,” Horsmanden ruled that New York Supreme Court judges must appear “in Robes and Bands” and attorneys “in the Bar Gown and Band.”3