New York Conspiracy Trials Research Paper

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The New York Conspiracy Trials occurred during the eighteenth century. In the spring and summer of 1741, there was a mysterious string of thirteen fires which began with a great fire that burned and destroyed Fort George. The city officials interrogated more than two hundred people including both blacks and white, and had soon uncovered that a gang of dispossessed slaves and Irish indentured servants had planned on to burn New York City to the ground, and to kill their masters. Even though authorities knew that that the Irish indentured servants were key conspirators, almost entirely all the blame fell on the slave population. The New York Conspiracy Trials revealed that the race relations between blacks and whites were awful and the legal…show more content…
At first she said she knew nothing about the fires, but prosecutors ended up trying to bribe her with promises of freedom and the King’s mercy. The bribery ended up not working, and so the prosecutors ended up threatening her with the gallows or improvement and thus she ended up becoming the main witness. Burton ended up stating that John Hughson was the ringleader of the conspiracy as he planned to burn down the city and promises black slaves that he would let them be free and let them murder and loot white people’s home. She also ended up testifying that the two black slaves Ceasar and Prince were Hughson’s “black guard.” Both Ceaser and Prince ended up the first ones one to be executed despite the fact there wasn’t any solid evidence against them and neither of them confessed. Their bodies were displayed to the public hoping it would break the “knot of the conspiracy.” A month later John Hughson and his wife were also executed. The executions continued afterwards thanks to ‘white evidence’ which were testimonies given by white colonists. The white evidence allowed the court to authorize arrest of black slaves despite having testimonies and no solid evidence, this showed that the legal system in the eighteenth century was an awful and biased system as it convicted slaves with no solid
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