The Great Negro Plot

by Mat Johnson

  Because testimony from slaves against whites was inadmissible in court, the near-death confessions of Cuffee and Quack were technically worthless. Technicalities, however, could be worked in the prosecution's favor when court and prosecutor were one and the same. Most of the damning testimony naming Hughson as the lead conspirator had come from slaves Cuffee and Quack, but it had been told to white men. Mr. Moore and Butcher Roosevelt were now called to relay the secondhand evidence of Cuffee and Quack as if it was their own: that Hughson was the first contriver and promoter. That Mary Burton spoke the truth and could speak more.

  Following directly upon these testimonies, constables Joseph North and Peter Lynch were called to the stand to speak about the night in which they interrupted a group at Hughson's Tavern, a night that Cuffee had mentioned in his dying words. The constables had seen all who were involved in the plot and could discover the entire group. The constables attested they had found Peggy Kerry serving blacks and drove off the meeting of Negroes with the lashes of their canes.

  "There was a cabal of Negroes at Hughson's last Whitsuntide," the two constables related. "Ten, twelve, or fourteen of them." Fourteen slaves. Fourteen at the most were at Hughson's when they broke up the party. Yet Cuffee had said "all those involved" were there at the scene, and Cuffee's own forced confession had around fifty involved altogether—which built on the existing understanding that there had been twenty to thirty, as put forth by Mary Burton.

  The Hughsons and Peggy Kerry listened to the testimony without any notable emotion or interference. It wasn't until Mary Burton took to the stand that the accused clan started to lose whatever minor sense of hope to which they might still have been clinging. Mary Burton told her usual tales, given in a now-perfected performance of sympathy. It was damning testimony, but the Hughsons didn't hear it: immediately after Mary Burton started giving her evidence, John and his wife started crying.

  Not just crying, wailing. Wailing loudly and without shame. Demonstratively, for all to see, they hugged and kissed their daughter Sarah in utmost and heart-rending despair.

  "I took great care in raising my daughter, as well as the rest of my children," John suddenly blurted to the court. "Teaching them to read the Bible, and breeding them up in the fear of the Lord."

  Wife Sarah, for her part, at this moment brought her nursing infant from the crowd to her breast to invoke added empathy. The baby was ordered by the court to be taken away.

  After such disturbance, Mary was ordered to resume her testimony and went on. She named additional names, telling of the many oaths to secrecy she had overheard.

  "Hughson swore the Negroes into the plot," she said. "And the Hughsons swore themselves and Peggy. One of the Hugh-sons' daughters carried a Bible upstairs—"

  "Now you are found out in a great lie!" Mrs. Hughson shouted at her through her tears. "For we never had a Bible in the world!"

  The room got a good laugh out of that statement, the comment coining as it did minutes after her husband's biblical assertions.

  Regardless of the momentary interruption, and lightness in the crowd, Mary Burton's testimony demanded their reattention.

  "John Hughson handed out seven or eight guns and swords, gunpowder and shot included. The slaves were to cut their masters' and mistresses throats," Mary claimed. "Hughson was to be king and Caesar governor," Mary repeated to the jury. "They had sworn to kill me, to burn and destroy me if I made their scheme public, but that hasn't stopped me. They bribed me with silks and gold rings, but still they did not prevail."

  Perhaps as damning as the words being spoken inside the courthouse at the moment was the action taking place outside. Some time after the trial began that day, yet another of Philipse's outbuildings was mysteriously set afire, this time a horse stable.

  Again, the quick questions, and harder conclusions. Was it meant as distraction so that the nefarious gang might effect an escape? Were the hot brands that lit the blaze left by precarious accident, or was this act, too, part of the greater plan?

  Whether calculated or not, the blaze did nothing to stop the trial's proceedings. Mary Burton was followed to the stand by Arthur Price, having warmed up on Negroes and now ready to give testifying against whites a try. Again came hearsay, second-party, slave testimony of questionable legality, yet again ignored by Hughson's band, who failed to challenge with questions of their own to in any way refute the evidence being given against them.

  The witnesses called by the accused prisoners (for they, of course, were handling their own defense, able to afford no lawyer, nor, probably, capable to find one willing, even if they had the money) were completely ineffectual. One, the poor, white wife of a sailor, made the implausible claim that she had never seen any Negroes besides Cuffee at Hughson's at all during her two-month stay there. Another man, again white, said he saw Hughson serve alcohol to blacks, "but thought him a civil man." A final witness said he saw no harm in John Hughson but he "knew nothing of the character of Hughson's house."

  Perhaps the most sympathetic testimony of the trial came from a witness for the King, a former neighbor who said he often chastised Hughson for his late-night revelries. The neighbor complained, after one such night of debauchery, he spoke once more to Hughson about the offending behavior.

  "It's my wife, isn't it?" the witness reported Hughson told him. "She dragged me away from my quiet country life of farming and shoemaking for the chance at more money in the city, but my gains have been so small, and my family so large, that they soon run away with what we have. My wife, she's the chief cause of having the Negroes in the house."

  "The witnesses declare," Horsmanden clarified for all still unable to discern, "the principal contriver of those mischiefs to be that wicked man, John Hughson, whose crimes have made him blacker than a Negro: the scandal of his complexion, and the disgrace of human nature! Whose name will descend with infamy to posterity!"

  At that point, the judge informed the jury they had all the pertinent information needed, and that now they needed to make their decision.

  "But on the other hand," the judge continued, "as the evidence against them seems to be so ample, so full, so clear and satisfactory, if you have no particular reason in your own breasts, in your own consciences, to discredit them, if that, I say, is not the case, if you have no reason to discredit them, then I make no doubt but you will discharge a good conscience, and find them guilty."

  And so the jury did, wasting very little time at it.

  John Hughson and his wife, Sarah, along with Peggy Kerry, were convicted of three guilty indictments, daughter Sarah of two. The self-righteous, racial indignation of the good white people of the city of New York was on full display as the sentence was handed down.

  As it turned out, it was John Hughson's failure as a traitor to whiteness that was as much his crime as the more fanciful charges alleged against him.

  "Yours are indeed as singular, and unheard of before, they are such as one would scarce believe any man capable of committing, especially any one who had heard of a God and a future state; for people who have been brought up and always lived in a Christian country, and also called themselves Christians, to be guilty not only of making Negro slaves their equals, but even their superiors, by waiting upon, keeping with, and entertaining them with meat, drink, and lodging, and what is much more amazing, to plot, conspire, consult, abet, and encourage these black seed of Cain to burn this city, and to kill and destroy us all. Good God!"

  The three whites were sentenced to be hanged by the neck until "severely dead" on June 12, 1741. After death, the infamous John Hughson was still to receive special treatment. His corpse was to be removed from its noose and rehung in chains next to the body of his nefarious slave comrade.

  Caesar's corpse silently awaited the company.

  Four days later, on the day of his scheduled execution, Hugh-son declared from his jail cell, "I deserve death for the stealing of Hogg's property, but as to the rest! As for the rest I am innocent!"

 
It was good that John Hughson could agree, at least in part, to his sentence, but regardless, he was about to die. That much was obvious, foregone, and highly anticipated.

  "Yet listen to my prophecy—a great sign from God will occur to prove me so," he insisted.

  "Just come out of your cell, John Hughson," the guard ordered. "You will have all the audience you desire on this day."

  John Hughson emerged from his cell with his head held high. Not simply to show his enduring pride, but also to show off his latest affectation: two shilling-size red marks on his face, one adorning each cheek. It was a painful bit of performance art, shoving his dirty and ragged fingernails into the tender flesh of his rum-softened face, but it was worth the effort. As the crowd turned out to watch the condemned be pulled down the road in open carriage, the sight of John's self-inflicted stigmata sent the spectators atitter with the spectacle. A great preview of things to come.

  Finally given an opportunity to truly play to the crowd, Hughson made sure that the citizens of this New York would have a good look at him in his majesty, standing in his cart the whole way to his hanging. He had become a symbol, and knowing that performed as one literally.

  "Sit your bloody arse down, are things not as bad as they can be?" his wife beseeched him, but he remained undaunted. One hand straight up in the air as high as he could manage, his forefinger pointing as a beacon, John Hughson became a vision to be remembered, as surely as he intended.

  "Will you look at that, he marks his destination in the heavens above, making his peace with the God he knows," came a whisper through the crowd.

  "Don't be a fool—he's signaling for his rescuers, for the revolution to begin!" Darting eyes swept the street searching for the first glimpse of the apocalyptic mob of armed Africans.

  But none appeared. The wheels on the horse-drawn cart bounced forward on the uneven cobblestone road without halting. John Hughson kept his finger in the air, but no dark hordes would come to his rescue. The wheels on that cart did not stop until they reached the gallows.

  His wife, Sarah, was resigned, immobile, "a lifeless trunk," as the coarse hemp rope was placed around her neck and then thrown over a stout tree limb. Despite her cooperation and confession, Peggy Kerry found herself right beside her. The crowd, for its part, roared. "We die as innocents," Peggy declared. "We know nothing of this conspiracy which has been imagined. It not be more true for our deaths."

  And then the rope went taut, and the three had nothing more to say in the matter.

  Legs kicked. Bodies spun. Pendular mortality giving its parting dance, and the crowd cheering at the sight of it. Quieting only to witness the next victims, slaves Albany, Curacao Dick, and Francis, fitted for their own nooses.

  In death all motion stilled. John Hughson's lifeless body was cut down. As prescribed, only to be restrung in chains for permanent display alongside Caesar's. Mates in life, death, and history.

  " I'VE BEEN A SLAVE LONG ENOUGH"

  THE CITY OF NEW YORK had gotten so good at killing Negroes, they were doing them five at a time. Peck's Caesar, Gomez's Cuffee, Comfort's Cook, Comfort's Jack, Ellison's Jamaica were brought to trial together. Men without whole names, their very identities enslaved by their masters'. They were marched in together and this was how they were convicted as well, largely on the death scene confessions of Cuffee and Quack as told via Mr. Moore and Mr. John Roosevelt once more. Black confessions, born under duress, now filtered through the voices of white men for the appearance of legality. The court had lost its facade as balancer of guilt and innocence.

  Sandy appeared again on the witness stand and told the judges, "Peck's Caesar bragged to me, TU kill the white men and drink their blood to their good health.' "

  By now Sandy had grown accustomed to testifying in front of the court, liking quite well the attention and personal safety it offered him. In fact, Sandy liked talking so much that even after his final appearance was over, and he was being shipped out of town and far away, he was still yapping, his tale growing so large and extravagant with each retelling, that some of his shipmates believed that the trials had only touched the tip of the bother.

  Five Africans brought in front of the New York court of inquisition, five guilty verdicts waiting to be pronounced. Only Jamaica proved to have any mitigating circumstances.

  "Jamaica is not concerned that I know of, but he was frequently at Hughson's with his fiddle," Quack had declared in his final, desperate confession. The magistrates chose to ignore Quack's dying words, however. Thanks to Mary Burton.

  "Oh yes, I know that one," she declared. "He said he'd dance or play over the whites while they were roasting in flames. Tve been a slave long enough,' was what he said."

  Still, in the end Jamaica was the fortunate one. While his fellow enslaved were quickly sentenced to be chained and burned at the stake, Jamaica was spared the torture. Instead, he was sentenced to a relatively comfortable hanging. A considerable break, since by giving up others, Jamaica was able to convert his sentence into expulsion to the West Indies.

  The more slaves brought in, the more names named. The more names named, the more slaves brought in. The more slaves brought in, the more the story grew. And grew. And grew.

  In just a few months, half of the city's male slaves over the age of sixteen had been implicated in the plot.

  Antonio de St. Bendito, Antonio de la Cruz, Pablo Ventura Angel, Juan de la Sylva, Augustine Gutierez, Spanish blacks all, pled not guilty before the court, as if their pleas mattered. Insisting that their real surnames be used and not the names of their kidnappers, the group was clearly not attempting to endear themselves to the jury. For these men, their time in front of the court was opportunity to finally discuss their unlawful slavery.

  Cuffee and Quack had said that Sandy could tell the court about the Spanish Negroes, and Sandy did not disappoint. Neither did Comfort's Jack or Mr. Moore, who was called to the stand to repeat Cuffee's and Quack's confessions.

  "Damn that son of a bitch. If he does not carry us to our own country, we will ruin the city and play the devil with him," Antonio de St. Bendito, pointing to Captain Lush's house, was said to have muttered to the other Spanish enslaved.

  "We'll burn Captain Lush's house with him tied to a beam inside it, roast him like a piece of beef," de St. Bendito allegedly continued to strategize. "Let us stay in New York for a month and a half to wait for the Spanish to arrive. If they did not come, we'll begin taking control of the island by ourselves."

  Sandy said he heard his contribution just passing by the Spanish Negroes as they were speaking to each other. It's an interesting excuse. Question: why would these men be speaking to one another about such a sensitive topic in English, loud enough for a random passerby like Sandy to hear them? Either Sandy was lying about hearing anything, or lying about his own involvement. The court didn't care which one. The court didn't care about anything but confirming their own nightmare. That there was a sleeper cell ready to take the city down in blood and fire.

  The issue of whether the accused Spanish blacks were even legal slaves at all was brushed aside with the testimony of a sailor who swore that he had traveled with Antonio de St. Bendito's brother. The sailor claimed that he knew a man who had bought Antonio's brother in Havana, relaying assurances that the African's family was from Cartagena, and all were slaves. This third-party account from a man of foreign birth and residency, completely unknown, to the court was all they required to damn all of the "Spanish Negroes."

  Realizing he was about to be relieved of his hefty investment, Antonio de St. Bendito's enslaver, merchant Peter De Lancey, jumped in to try and protect his investment.

  "It may interest the court that my Antonio was away from the city, north at my farm in the country, during much of the time in question," the merchant began. "It should also be known that Antonio had also suffered from frostbitten feet and was completely lame at the time, not returning to the city until after the fort was burnt."

  In light of this revelation
, the court considered excluding Antonio de St. Bendito from the sentencing. But then the master of Antonio de la Cruz stepped forward with an almost identical alibi, declaring that his slave had been completely homebound with frostbitten toes from November to the middle of March.

  Then a witness for Pablo Ventura Angel forswore that he had been sick until March. By the time a witness for Augustine Gutierez declared that he had suffered in February from ague, the health excuses were so worn as to render them all ineffectual.

  It took a half hour to convict the lot of them.

  The question of whether the men were even slaves in the first place was finally dealt with by selling them all to slave traders headed for the West Indies. It was the opinion of the court of New York that these Spanish blacks could go argue for their freedom elsewhere.

  In the end, approximately one hundred and sixty of New York island's Africans would be thrown into jail and questioned. Seventy-two would be banished from the life they had known in the colony altogether, forced to start over again in the tropical islands to the south or on the Portuguese coastal island of Madeira. Eighteen would feel the coarse rope of the noose tighten around their necks. Thirteen would be publicly roasted alive for the pleasure of the crowd. Fire having begat fire, their only fortune was to die poetically.

  "HE SEEMED VERY LOATH TO DO IT"

  NEGROES WERE STUPID CREATURES, Servile, childish, incapable of higher thought—common knowledge not worthy of debate in the enlightened year of 1741. That said, like children they were prone to their tantrums, their outbursts, their petty acts of rebellion; any slaveholder could tell you that. This was the knowledge that informed the direction of the court in these trying times, but this was also the contradiction. How could a group of incompetents such as composed this blackened race manage to convene a conspiracy of such stunning size and complexity? It was inconceivable. Everyone knew it was scientifically impossible that hundreds of the infantile, bestial Negroes could have organized themselves to such purposes. One only need read David Hume's recently published essays to find expert proof of that. God had placed the Negro, like the ox or the hen, on earth to serve white man's needs. The truth was, therefore, inescapable. There must be a conniving white man behind all the chaos. Someone whose fair skin hid a dark heart beneath. Someone so powerful as to make the Africans turn against their own divinely ordained nature.