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

In the Prologue, Lepore begins by describing a “Great Feast” that occurs at John Hughson’s tavern in January 1741. The winter in 1741 is particularly harsh and cold, with the snow so deep that many New Yorkers are stuck inside their homes. Likewise, famine afflicts many New Yorkers, who have not been able to eat any forms of meat for months. Slaves from throughout the city venture to John Hughson’s tavern to feast on “duck, mutton, pork, or goose” (7). However, before eating, the slaves are made to agree to take part in a plot, which calls for the slaves to revolt, kill their white owners, and take the white women as their wives. The plot is devised by Hughson, who tells the slaves that the revolt will begin with the burning down of New York’s Fort George, after which each of the slaves should kill their owners with knives, as well as any fellow slaves who refuse to join the rebellion. Hughson makes many of the slaves sign their name to a sheet of paper, asking them to swear to agree to participate in the plot.

Although prosecutors have many slaves confess to this description of events during a trial that takes place the following summer, Lepore suggests that this version of the 1741 New York slave rebellion may have been embellished.