USA > New York > New York City > History of the New Netherlands, province of New York, and state of New York : to the adoption of the federal Constitution. Vol. I > Part 38
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54
About this time, seven barns were burnt at Hackinsack. Two negroes were suspected The one, because he discharged a gun, saying it was at a person who fired his master's barn, but killed nobody : the other, because he was found with a gun, and loading it with two bullets. They were condemned, and both burnt at the stake. One, it is said, confessed that he burnt three barns. The other denied all guilt. This was adding to the terrors of New York.
On Wednesday, the 6th of May, John Hughson, his wife, and Peggy Carey were tried for receiving stolen goods, and found guilty : and Sarah Hughson, the daughter of John, was committed as one of the confederates in the conspiracy ; and Jack, (Sley- dall's negro) was committed, on suspicion of putting fire to Mr. Murray's hay-stack.
Next day, Peggy Carey, after being convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, and, as the simple recorder says, "seeming to
332
NEGRO PLOT.'
think it high time to do something to recommend herself to mercy, makes voluntary confession."
This wretched creature was an Irish prostitute, and appears to have been a most depraved blackguard. She changes the scene of the conspiracy from Hughson's to John Romme's, (a shoemaker and tavern-keeper of the same description, living near the new Battery.) There she says, that she saw meetings of negroes; and once, in particular, in December last : and she names Cuff, Phillipse's- Brash, Jay's-Curacoa Dick-Cæsar, Pintard's-Patrick, Eng- lish's,-Jack, Beastead's-Cato, Alderman Moore's. We may observe, that her friend, Cæsar Vaarck, is not implicated. All these negroes Romme swore; that is, administered an oath to. She makes the shoemaker propose to the negroes to burn the fort and the city, and to steal, and rob, and bring the goods to him ; and he would carry them (the negroes) to a strange country, and give them their liberty and set them free. That Romme's wife was by ; and after the meeting, Romme made his wife and the confessor Peggy, swear secresy.
All this is so plainly a tale made up to gratify the magistrates and save herself, that even the recorder does not seem fully to believe it, especially as it does not agree with Mary Burton's story. This voluntary confession, extorted by the fear of the cart's-tail, the cat- with-nine-tails, and the gallows, was altogether denied by the wretched woman, when she found that she was condemned to be hanged, on the testimony of creatures as worthless of credit as her- self. She had made out a story of Romme's swearing the negroes to burn the fort and city, evidently because she hoped to save herself.
Romme's wife, he having absconded, conscious of having received stolen goods and sold liquor to negroes, denied the swearing to the conspiracy, but acknowledged that her husband had received stolen goods. If a slave is not a thief, he is an exception to the rule im- plied by his condition. The tippling-house keeper was very likely to be an encourager of other vices, as well as drunkenness.
Romme's wife said that a negro kept game-fowls at their house, and that the negroes used to come and drink drams there; and never more than three at a time.
All the negroes mentioned by Peggy, were apprehended, brought before her, and identified-she accusing them as being sworn, or conspirators, and they denying. They were then passed in review before Mary Burton, Peggy's successful rival for magisterial favour, and she acquitted them of being among her gang. No matter- they are all locked up in the city hall jail. Now, the negroes begin to accuse one and another, as it would seem, by way of injuring an enemy and guarding themselves. All accused are locked up.
Cæsar and Prince are released, by being hanged. " Ordered,
.
.
333
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
That the gibbet on which Cæsar is to be hanged in chains, be fixed on the island, near the powder-house." The powder-house, within my remembrance, stood on a small island made by an arm of the Kolic, or Collect, embracing it, where now Centre street proceeds from Chatham and comes into Pearl street. It appears from the following paragraph, that the horrible torture of hanging alive in the chains, was not resorted to.
" Monday, 11th of May. ' Cæsar and Prince were executed this day at the gallows, according to sentence : they died very stubbornly, without confessing any thing about the conspiracy: and denied that they knew any thing about it to the last. 'The body of Cæsar was accordingly hung in chains." These negroes were thieves, with- out doubt ; and from the above statement of their denial of the con- spiracy, I infer that they confessed the thievery.
· Such was the panick to which the people of New York had wrought themselves, that the 13th of May, 1741, was by procla- mation of the Lieutenant-governour, kept as a solemn fast, because "his most gracious majesty, for the vindicating the honour of his crown, had declared war against Spain, and because of the severity of the cold last winter, and because many houses and dwellings had been fired about our ears, without any discovery of the cause or occasion of them, which had put us into the utmost consternation."
In the meantime, Hughson, his wife, and Peggy Carey, are indicted for conspiring, confederating, and combining with divers negrocs, to burn, kill and destroy, &c .; and the two first are arraigned-they pleading not guilty.
Mary Burton, who is in possession of the sheriff, and promised protection, liberty, and £100, deposes that Hughson, his wife, his daughter, and Peggy, conspired with certain negroes, naming them, to burn the town, and kill all the whites. . The negroes are appre- hended. Whoever this poor ignorant wretch mentions, is imme- diately put in jail. Among other particulars, she swears that one of these negroes paid Hughson £12, in Spanish pieces of eight, to buy guns, which Hughson did, and hid them away under the garret floor in his house; but they could not be found, nor ever traced.
Hughson, his wife, and daughter being in jail, the magistrates employ a wretch, (who had been committed for thieving,) Arthur Price, to go to the negroes in the jail and give them punch, to get out of them (what are called) confessions ; and Price is likewise employed to go to Sarah Hughson, to endeavour to make ler accuse her father and mother. Price accordingly tells of a conver- sation he says he had with this girl, who being examined and con- fronted with the informer, denies it to his face.
The whole proceedings are a monument of absurdity, meanness, and cruelty, instigated by cowardice and an innate sense of the guilt
334
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
of holding men in slavery. One poor negro is accused of saying that he knew he must be hanged, as the two others had been.
The negroes gave themselves up as lost, the moment they were committed, unless they could escape by accusing others, and making what are called confessions.
Romme was apprehended at Brunswick, New Jersey. He stands accused as a conspirator, by Peggy, and Mary Burton goes so far now as to say, Romme was intimate at Hughson's.
A simple negro boy of the neighbourhood is accused, brought to town, and placed before the grand jury. He denies all knowledge of the conspiracy ; but is told, that if he will tell the truth, he shall not be hanged. The negroes by this time knew, that by telling the truth, is meant to tell of a plot to burn the town. Accordingly, he says, Quack asked him to set the fort on fire ; and Cuffee said he would set fire to one house, and Curacoa Dick to another, and so on. Being asked, "what the negroes intended by all this mis- chief ?" he answered, "to kill all the gentlemen and take their wives ; that one of the fellows already hanged, was to be an officer in the Long Bridge Company, and the other, in the Fly Company."
It appears that on most occasions, the town was divided into two parts-one from the eastern extremity, the Fresh-water or the Swamp, now Ferry street, and called the Fly, and sometimes Smith's Fly, extending along the East River to Wall street-and "the other the Long Bridge, perhaps from the bridge covering the sewer in Broad street, near the Exchange ; and sometimes this division was called Broadway, as including the upper part of the town.
This negro boy is called Sawney, and said to be Hiblett's : he took a good deal of urging and persuading before he could be made to confide in the white people. He said, " the time before, after the negroes told all they knew, the white people hanged them." This was traditionary among the slaves, relative to 1712.
Fortune is apprehended and examined ; who tells of Quack's taking him to the fort sometime before the fire there, and giving him punch, and that Quack told him he would burn the fort ; and after it was done, the last fellow examined (Sawney) told him he was one that did it : thus criminating him. On the 25th, more negroes were committed, and next day Sawney being again exam- ined, says, " at a meeting of negroes he was called in and fright- encd to undertaking to burn the Slip Market," probably the meat market ; and he saw some of the attempts to fire houses, and was sworn at Comfort's house, to be true to one another : he said he was never at Hughson's or Romme's houses, and accused a woman (whom he had before accused of setting fire to a house) of murder- ing her child, by laying it where it would freeze to death. More are taken up and examined, day after day. Quack and Cuffee are
.
335
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS. -
tried for wickedly and maliciously conspiring with others to burn the town and murder the inhabitants ; and the attorney general makes a speech, telling the jury that this was the mystery of iniquity, that these negroes were monsters, devils, &c., and they ' will find Quack and Cuffee guilty. The principal witnesses for the king, are Mary Burton and Price, who tell the same story as before ; the others tell the most frivolous circumstances ; negro evidence being good against each other. Fortune and Sawney are accordingly witnesses, and say that Quack and Cuffee said so and so-that they wanted to set fire to the fort, &c. Rosevelt, master of Quack, deposed that he was at home when the fire took place at the fort ; and Phillipse, Cuff's master, testified much the same of him. A soldier swears that Quack did come to the fort, (he being sentry,) and would go in, (his wife living there,) the sentry knocked him down, but the officer of the guard admitted him on the day of the fire. The prisoners protest their innocence. Mr. Smithi, who had disfranchised the Jews by his eloquence, summed up. He is aware of the folly of the plot, still he insists on the proofs of it. He observes, that the negroes had been in- dulged with the same kind of trial as is due to freemen ; though they might have been proceeded against in a more summary and less favourable way. Of the negro witnesses, he observes, " the law requires no oath to be administered to them; and indeed it would be a profanation of it to administer it to a heathen in a legal form." He says, " the monstrous ingratitude of this black tribe is what exceedingly aggravates their guilt." He then represents their happy situation, very much as is still done. . " They live without care ; are commonly better fed and clothed than the poor of most Christian countries ; they are indeed slaves, but under the protection of the law : none can hurt them with impunity ; but notwithstanding all the kindness and tenderness with which they have been treated among us, yet this is the second attempt of this same kind that this brutish and bloody species of man- kind have made within one age." The court charged, the jury found them guilty, they protest their innocence, and the judge sentences them to be chained to a stake and burnt to death-" and the Lord have mercy upon your poor wretched souls." He tells them they ought to be very thankful that their feet are caught in the net, and the mischief fallen upon their pates. He calls them abject wretches, the outcasts of the nations of the earth ; and tells them of the tenderness and humanity with which they have been treated. He advises them to take care of their souls, but as to their bodies, they must be burnt ; and, accord- ingly, on Saturday, the 3d of May, about three o'clock, they were brought to the stake, surrounded with piles of wood. The spec-
.
336
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
tators were very numerous, and impatient to set fire to the wood. The poor wretches showed great terror in their countenances, and looked as if they would gladly have confessed all they knew, but on being interrogated by Mr. More, the deputy sheriff undertook to examine them without effect. Then Mr. Rosevelt undertook Quack, (his slave,) and More examined Cuffee ; and these exam- iners drew up minutes of what they called the poor terrified wretches confessions : that Hughson contrived the plot to burn the town and kill the people-that Quack did set fire to the fort with a lighted stick, &c.,-that other negroes named (voted) Quack the proper person, as he had a wife in the fort-that Mary Burton had spoken the truth, and could name many more. Both made confession, and the execution was suspended until the governour's pleasure should be known as to a reprieve, which they are flattered with, if they confess as required. It being thought that more dis- coveries might be made, and persons of more consequence than Hughson, &c., implicated ; but the people were so impatient and determined for the show, that the sheriff did not dare take them back to jail, and the execution proceeded. More negroes were taken up.
The confessions, so called, of Quack and Cuffee, when chained to the stake and surrounded by the wood ready to be fired to con- sume them alive, are evidently mere words put in their mouths, and repeated in the hope of saving their lives. On the 1st of June, Sawney (or Sandy) was examined again, and implicated more ne- groes as being sworn in, and threatening him if he would not join them ; and talks of penknives produced and sharpened to kill white men. Accordingly more negroes are put in jail. Fortune is examined, and he accuses Quack (who had been burned,) and Sawney ; but never heard of a house where conspirators met, nor knew Hughson. Sarah, a negro wench, is examined, and is in violent agitation ; foamed at the mouth, and uttered the bitterest imprecations, denying that ever she was at Comfort's house, or knew any thing of the conspiracy : but being told that others had said so and so, and that she could only save her life by confessing, she affirms all that is told her, and implicates a great number of negroes ; but on hearing read to her what she had confessed, de- nied and excused many persons. Hughson desires to be sworn, apparently that he might in the most solemn manner deny the con- spiracy ; but the recorder tells him, that he and wife and daughter being convicted felons, must be executed as such, and exhorts him to confess the conspiracy. He demands to be sworn : it is refus- ed : and he in the most solemn manner denies all knowledge of the conspiracy to destroy, &c., and exculpates his wife and child : * but is sent back to jail unheard.
. Although Hughson and family were already sentenced to be
.
337
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
hanged respecting the robbery, they were tried for conspiracy, on the 4th of June, 1741. There were three indictment: 1st, that Hughson, his wife, his daughter, and Peggy Kerry, or Carey, with three negroes, Cæsar, Prince, and Cuffee, conspired in March last, to set fire to the house in the fort : 2d, that Quack (already burnt,) did set fire to and burn the house, and that the prisoners, Hughson, his wife, daughter Sarah, and Peggy, encouraged him so to do : 3d, that Cuffee (already burnt,) did set fire to, Phillipse's house, and burnt it; and they, the prisoners, procured and encouraged him so to do. The prisoners pleaded not guilty
The attorney-general's address to the jury is full of invectives the most outrageous : Hugh- son is infamous, inhuman, an arch-rebel against God, his king, and his country ; he is a devil incarnate, &c. Besides this eloquent attorney-general, there were counsel for the king, Jos. Murray, James Alexander, William Smith, and Jno. Chambers. The witnesses, Moore and Roosevelt, testify to the confession of Quack and Cuffee, at the stake, in hope to save themselves from the flames.
North and Lynch, constables, testify that they saw negroes eat- ing and drinking at Hughson's, and dispersed them ; and that Peggy was waiting on them with a tumbler ; and they had knives and forks.
Mary Burton swears, that negroes came to Hughson's at night, eating and drinking, and bought provisions. She swears to all stated by others, viz. Hughson's swearing the negroes, procuring arms, that she had seen seven or eight guns and swords, a bag of shot, and a barrel of gunpowder at Hughson's ; that he said he would kill her if she told, and wanted her to swear, and offered her silk gowns and gold rings; but she would not.
Arthur Price, the fellow employed by the magistrates to go into the jail and drink with the negroes, to make them confess to him, and who is praised for his cleverness in convicting them, confirms his former stories.
Five men testify, that they heard Quack, Cuffee, &c. say, when in jail, to Hughson, " this is what you have brought us to."
Of the witnesses for the prisoners, one stated that he lived in Hughson's house three or four months the last winter, and never saw any entertainments there for negroes. Two others stated, that they never saw harm in him or his house.
None but the wretches, Burton and Price, pretend to speak of a conspiracy ; and the prisoners protest their innocence, but have no counsel.
Mr. Smith then addressed the jury, and told them that it is a borrid thing to burn the town and kill them all-it is " black and hellish" -- that John Hughson's crimes have made him blacker than a negro-that the credit of the witnesses is good-and if they VOL. I. 43
338
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
-
find the prisoners guilty, they cannot acquit them without the great- est injustice and cruelty to their country.
The judge tells the jury, that the evidence against the prisoners is ample, full, clear, and satisfactory. And the jury find them guilty in a short time-merely going out and returning. On the 8th of June, Hughson and family are brought up, and the judge tells them that they are guilty of an unheard of crime, in not only making negro slaves their equals, but even their superiours-by waiting upon, keeping company with, entertaining them with meat, drink, and lodging ; and, what is much more amazing, to plot, conspire, consult, abet, and encourage these black sced of Cain to burn this city, and to kill and destroy us all. He further tells them, that although "with uncommon assurance they deny the fact, and call on God, as a witness of their innocence, He, out of his goodness and mercy, has confounded them, and proved, their guilt, to the satisfaction of the court and jury." This may serve as a specimen of judicial eloquence at that day, although he berates them still more, before he sentences them all "to be hanged by the neck till . dead," on Friday, the 12th of June, four days after, and John Hughson to be hung in chains. On the 12th, Hughson, his wife, and Peggy, are accordingly hanged, protesting their innocence of the conspiracy-Hughson acknowledging his guilt in receiving stolen goods. Peggy, who had accused Romme, declared to the last, that she had in that forsworn herself. In the meantime, the court go on ; and on the 5th of June, Sarah, the negro wench, is examined again, and names twenty negroes who were present at Comfort's, whetting their knives and saying, " they would kill white people." Accordingly, 6th of June, Jack, Cook, Robin, Cæsar, Cuffee, another Cuffee, and Jamaica, are put at the bar, and plead not guilty : and on the Sth, they are tried. The evidence against these poor creatures, is the confession of Quack and Cuffee at the stake, and the stories of Sawney, Mary Burton, and black Sarah. They, of course, are found guilty, denying the charges. It was ordered, that Jack, Cook, Robin, Cæsar, and Cuffee, be executed the next day, and Jamaica three days after. But Jack promises, if his life is spared, he would discover more ; and they "respite his execution, till 'twas found how well he would deserve further favour." The others were executed. Jack is pardoned ; and by his testimony, fourteen more are implicated, one of whom, for the same reward, confesses, as it is called, and accuses more still. Jack's dialect was perfectly unintelligible: but two white interpreters were found ; and as Jack mentioned negroes who had eat and drank at Hughson's, they were taken up : "when they were eating, he said they began to talk about setting the houses on fire," and afterwards mentions such and such blacks who said they would set their mas- ter's houses on fire, and then go out to fight ; five or six Spanish
-
.
339
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
negroes were with them ; but he could not understand them ; that they waited a month and a half for the Spaniards and French to come, but they not coming, set fire to the fort. On the 11th June, Francis, a Spanish negro, Albany, and Curacoa Dick were sentenced to be chained to a stake, and burnt to death. One who had con- fessed and was pardoned, said, that Hughson was to have the goods stolen, i. e. plundered on firing the houses, and Cæsar was to be king. King Cæsar had been hanged. Sarah Hughson was respited to 19th June. On the 15th June, Ben and Quack are condemned to be burnt, and, three others hanged.
The five Spanish negroes had been taken in a prize, as I have mentioned, and not only denied the conspiracy, but said, notwith- standing they had been sold at auction, that they never were slaves at home ; but the jury found them guilty.
On the 19th June, the Lieutenant-governour proclaims pardon to all who will confess and discover, before the 1st July. Wan and London, two Indian slaves, are among the accused. After the proclamation, confessions and discoveries multiply, and more and more are taken up; and the confessions are the evidences on the trials. They were to cut the white people's throats with pen- knives. When the town was on fire, they were to meet at the end of the Broadway, next to the fields.
June 25th, Mary Burton, who at first denied the guilt of any white man, except Hughson, accuses Jury, or. Ury, a Roman priest, so called, as concerned with Hughson, and implicates Campbell, who once was a schoolmaster, in company with Cry.
London, who is called a Spanish Indian, confesses. Brash, Mr. Peter Jay's negro, confezses. Seven more negroes are apprehended.
June 26th, nine negroes are arraigned; seven plead guilty, in hope of mercy; two are tried and convicted on Mary Burton's testimony; eight more are arraigned, and all plead guilty ; seven more are arraigned, and some plead guilty, others, not guilty.
June 27th, Adam confesses; but makes Hughson engage him in the plot three years, or more, ago : he says, Hughson told him there was a man who could forgive him all his sins : the confession · is aimed at Ury. Forgiveness of sins, and rum, reconcile him to the oath Ury, the priest, az accused by Adam, as making with the 1 conspirators. One Doctor Hamilton is now brought in, who lodged at Holt's ; and Holt i, accused as one concerned. Holt recom- mended his negro, Joe. to Ere the play-house, at such time as he should tell him. All the easy confessors and accusers, mention no whites but the Hughsous ano Peggy Carey and Romme : now, four or five willte men are seen and .Adam talks of seven or eight bar- rels of ponder. It aspean. that the negroes, after the proclama- tion, were afraid of casa obes, and each wanted to be first at con- fession. The confessixa are repetitions, only bringing in more .
. $40
TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS.
individuals. The historian says, "Now many negroes began to squeak, in order to lay hold of the benefit of the proclamation." Before the proclamation, there were between sixty and seventy negroes in jail; and before the 27th June, thirty more slaves were added to the number : "'twas difficult to find room for them, nor could we see any likelihood of stopping the impeachments."
-
The judges were afraid the number might breed an infection ; and the poor debtors confined with them, were suffering. The judges and lawyers meet, to get rid of their prisoners, and recom- mended some to mercy, for the purpose. They devised short modes of taking confessions-lumping the business. Still the accu- sations and apprehensions go on and increase. On the 30th of June, Braveboy gives an account of a frolick, at a free negro's, between Mr. Bayard's land and Greenwich lane. Rum is always ' , the precursor of the proposition to burn and murder.
July 1st, the Spanish negroes, those taken by an English priva- teer, and adjudged to be slaves, and sold as such, were brought up and sentenced to be hanged; and the same day, five others are sentenced, one of them to he hung in chains, on the same gibbet with John Hughson ; and likewise Sarah Hughson, still continu- ing inflexible, i. e. persisting that she was innocent of any con- spiracy, is ordered for execution on Wednesday, Sth July. That day, this girl was brought up to Mr. Pemberton, who came to pray by her, and after all his admonitions, still denied her guilt; and being carried to her dungeon, where was the negro wench Sarah, also to be executed this day, Sarah Hughson at last owned to her that she had been sworn into the plot. This being reported by the negress, both are respited, and the girl examined again. She then confesses that she knew of the plot, speaks of seeing Ury and Campbell and a doctor, and thinks she heard the name of one Coffin. When sent back to her dungeon, she retracted again, and tho judges ordered her execntion, as the last experiment to bring her to unfold this infernal secret-at least so much of it as might be thought deserving a recommendation of her as an object of mercy. It is, in another page," said by Horsmanden, that this girl accused Ury of saying " he could forgive all their sins, if they did not discover." But on the 11th July, being brought before the chief justice, she still denies all she had confessed, and afterwards again says it is all true. She is again respited, and again twice more, and finally, on the 29th July, pardoned and dismissed ; for the business had grown upon the judges.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.