New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, And Conspiracy In Eighteenth-century Manhattan

From Strand Bookstore

In a narrative rich with period detail and vivid descriptions, Jill Lepore pieces together the events and the thinking that led white New Yorkers to make 'bonfires of the Negroes.' She reconstructs the harsh past of a city that slavery built - and almost destroyed. With 17 illustrations and 1 map. 352p.

From the Publisher

An illuminating chronicle of an alleged eighteenth-century slave conspiracy to destroy New York City explores the social and political climate of the 1730s and 1740s, examining the interactions between slaves and their masters, the influence of the threat of black rebellion, and the imiplications of the events of the era in terms of American politics and history.

Review

Francis X. Clines - New York Times Book Review
"Lepore...presents a fascinating social and political history by focusing on the one detailed source that does survive--the self-aggrandizing, self-vindicating journal of Daniel Horsmanden, a scheming city recorder and judge."

Review

Peter Filkins - New York Observer
"To her credit, [Lepore] refuses pat or surefire answers. Instead, taking this little-known incident and looking at it from a wider perspective, she speculates upon and illuminates the roots of political liberty that would later flower into revolution."

Review

Alan Taylor - New Republic
"Instead of finding a single, smoking firebrand of explanation, Lepore's social sleuthing provides something even better: the most vivid and telling description of life and death in a colonial seaport yet produced by a historian. By crafting a rich social context, Lepore illuminates the horrific decisions of people with power over the bodies of the vulnerable."

Review

Nation
"Jill Lepore...has unearthed two varieties of grimly fascinating stuff. The first is slavery itself....The other--Lepore's main subject, and the reason the book ought to be read even by those with no particular taste for colonial history--is the complex dance of power and fear....[T]he lesson at the heart of the book--how those who abuse power become haunted by the idea of retribution--could hardly be more timely."

Review

Publishers Weekly
"With riveting prose...a richly imagined re-creation of a horrible but little-studied event...."

Review

New Yorker
"Lepore's account is vivid and provocative; she evokes eighteenth-century New York in all its moral and physical messiness...and shows how...the 'Negro Plot' trials shaped the colonists' vision of liberty."

More about the book

This stunning historical account of a forgotten chapter of New York City history examines the events of 1741 when, following a string of fires in buildings owned by wealthy people, a rumor of a slave rebellion spread through the city. As a result, African Americans were tried and convicted, burned at the stake, hanged, deported to the Caribbean, and imprisoned in dungeons under the city's streets. As Jill Lepore recreates New York's slavery era, she digs deeply into the teeming political and social tensions of the time in a city she calls "a jumble of cultures, languages, and religions..., a frenzied factious place," and focuses on one official, Daniel Horsmanden, and his campaign to expose the conspiracy. In her fascinating appendices, Lepore explains her process of researching the story, which involved constructing three separate databases on people, places, and events in order to detect patterns that otherwise might have been missed. She also includes several tables, including one on "The Accused" and one on "The Owners," both of which are rich in data and very revealing.

First Line

After ten feet of snow over Christmas, the skies cleared in January. In the brightening sun, poor widows and orphaned children hobbled through the snow to a house on Smith Street, across from the Black Horse Tavern, where a charity promised "To Feed the HUNGRY and Cloath the NAKED," or at least those "in Real Need of Relief."