New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan | 
 enlarge | Author: Jill Lepore
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 233421
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400032261
Dewey Decimal Number: 974.7102
EAN: 9781400032266
ASIN: 1400032261
Publication Date: August 8, 2006
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Amazon.com Review
New York Burning is a well-told tale of a once-notorious episode that took place in Manhattan in 1741. Though, as Jill Lepore writes, New York's "slave past has long been buried," for most of the 18th century one in five inhabitants of Manhattan were enslaved, making it second only to Charleston, South Carolina, "in a wretched calculus of urban unfreedom." Over the course of a few weeks in 1741, ten fires burned across Manhattan, sparking hysteria and numerous conspiracy rumors. Initially, rival politicians blamed each other for the blazes, but they soon found a common enemy. Based solely on the testimony of one white woman, some 200 slaves were accused of conspiring to burn down the city, murder the resident whites, and take over the local government. Under duress, 80 slaves confessed to the crimes and were forced to implicate others. When the trial was over, 13 black men were burned at the stake, 17 more were hanged (along with four whites accused of working with them), and 70 others were shipped off to the Caribbean where slavery conditions were even worse. By necessity, Jill Lepore bases much of her research on a journal written in 1744 by New York Supreme Court Justice Daniel Horsmanden, which she describes as "one of the most startling and vexing documents in early American history" and "a diary, a mystery, a history, and maybe one of English literature's first detective stories." Adding cultural and political context to the available evidence, Lepore questions whether there was a conspiracy at all, or if it was blind fear run amok that led to the guilty verdicts for so many slaves. As she points out, fear of slave revolt was a real and consistent theme throughout the early days of the colonies. Crisply written and meticulously researched (the book includes several detailed appendices), New York Burning is a gripping narrative of events that led to what one colonist referred to as the "bonfires of the Negroes." --Shawn Carkonen
Product Description
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
Anisfield-Wolf Award Winner
Over a frigid few weeks in the winter of 1741, ten fires blazed across Manhattan. With each new fire, panicked whites saw more evidence of a slave uprising. In the end, thirteen black men were burned at the stake, seventeen were hanged and more than one hundred black men and women were thrown into a dungeon beneath City Hall.
In New York Burning, Bancroft Prize-winning historian Jill Lepore recounts these dramatic events, re-creating, with path-breaking research, the nascent New York of the seventeenth century. Even then, the city was a rich mosaic of cultures, communities and colors, with slaves making up a full one-fifth of the population. Exploring the political and social climate of the times, Lepore dramatically shows how, in a city rife with state intrigue and terror, the threat of black rebellion united the white political pluralities in a frenzy of racial fear and violence.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 DAMN, this is a great book! May 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
All history books should be this detailed, this readable, this humane. Lepore knows how to write about a horrible, nearly forgotten episode in NYC history. Unlike many historians, she steps away from overt politics or raw emotion. She knows that this subject is too serious to be shouted. It is the rare history book that is packed with facts as well as knowledge.
I felt like Lepore was taking my hand and leading me through the smelly streets of lower Manhattan in 1741, like I could almost see the faces of...what were they, anyway? The victims of a horrible hoax? The demented planners of a plot to burn the city? Or something in between, where thieves can also be the keepers of ancient rites from a distant homeland, where the world is turned upside down?
I could go on and on, but just buy the book!
 Stylistically unsettling but worthwhile January 25, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
The subject of American slavery presents numerous challenges to the modern historian, not the least of which is its heterogeneous nature. The experience of a slave on a rice plantation in the Carolinas certainly would have contrasted that of a slave on a tobacco plantation in Maryland. Temporal, geographic, and other less grounded factors might have influenced the condition of human servitude in colonial and post-Revolution America. The distinction of urban slavery in the eighteenth century, particularly in the north, is relatively understudied. In New York Burning, Jill Lepore recreates early eighteenth century Manhattan, recounting the decisions of the court, the common talk on the streets, the comings and goings of sloops of trade and war, the livelihoods of its people, the menace of slavery, and a conspiracy that threatened to burn the city to the ground.
The books is truly a great read, but objectivity and fact are sometimes brought out of focus making for interesting but questionable conclusions. Though the use of literary license, which is scattered between summary of the conspiracy trial and its proceedings, helps to contextualize events and enliven eighteenth century New York in the mind of the reader, it sometimes borders on fictive. The summer of 1941 is characterized in an imagined description: "The wind blew hot. In the streets, hogs sweated and dogs panted, seeking the shade of doorways and market awnings and the smooth coolness of the marble steps of fashionable houses."(Lepore, 171) The language animates the New York heat, working to contrast with the previous winter which was described in stylistically similar prose, however as hogs cannot sweat, some of the magic is lost.
Perhaps Lepore's greatest success is her reconstruction of the social underworld of unsupervised black slaves, some whites, and other captives in the streets and taverns of New York. Lepore leaves an open ended conclusion and brings recent events, such as the treatment of slave burial grounds in NYC to light. In the end, I give this book praise but am not totally sold on this brand of scholarship.
Excellent Research on Taboo Subject October 16, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I was, and am still, astounded by the in-depth knowledge that Ms. Lepore manages to uncover page after page of this remarkable revelation of New York racial history at its "rawest". For all those who believed like me that New York City in the 18th centruy was the golden gate to slave refuge -- that which protected runaways from their brutal and inhumane treatment of the southern plantation owners, they too will be equally as shocked, as was I, to find the opposite to be the gut churning truth.
As unconscionable as it may seem, African flesh was reguarly burned at the stake in the middle of the New York City streets to the entertaiment of audiences of highbrowed whites. Such was the unequivocal right of swift justice that was to be handed down to those enslaved for even the mere notion of a slave revolt.
If Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (The History of New York City)]] is/ was an intriguing read to you then "New York Burning" may also lend spark to that flame of interest as well. Great work.
A wealth of Research and a vivid narrative kept me spellbound!!! August 15, 2007
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
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 letter delivered to the judges after the trial, bring a fitting climax to the book.....with many unanswered questions however.
The judicial system in the colonies back then, as well as the prevalent attitudes exhibited towards slaves by whites and clerics alike, and the great hatred (and the acceptance and promulgation of such hatred) exhibited at this trial, of anything that smacked of Papacy, is also a head-turner.
Many questions about this incident and the complex times surrounding it are still unanswered -- many questions will remain unanswered. But thanks to Jill Lepore's intense scrutiny, research and highly complex rendition of these people and their circumstances, these long-dead and mostly unknown slaves and their colleagues become flesh and blood history, as do their accusers and prosecutors.
Informative, educational and supportive illustrations are found peppered throughout the book. I would have liked more details, such as illustrations and/or web sites, pertaining to the Negros Burial Ground, especially as it concerns the present. Dr Lepore treats the subject of the Negroes Burial ground and its hallowed inhabitants with proper reverence; perhaps a book can be written about this in the near future.
Search for Scapegoats June 8, 2006
14 out of 16 found this review helpful
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
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