The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime, and Colonial Law

Three and a half decades before the city of New York witnessed the first great battle waged by the new United States of America for its independence, rumors of a massive conspiracy among the city’s slaves spread panic throughout the colony. On the testimony of frightened bondsmen and a handful of whites, over seventy slaves were convicted and a third of these were executed.

The suspected conspiracy in New York prompted one of the most extensive slave trials in colonial history and some of th...