| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Peter Charles Hoffer. The Great New York Conspiracy of 1741: Slavery, Crime, and Colonial Law. (Landmark Law Cases and American Society.) Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. 2003. Pp. xi, 190. Cloth $29.95, paper $14.95.

By the time August of 1741 drew to a close, executioners in New York City had taken the lives of thirty blacks (seventeen of them burned at the stake) two white men, and two white women. Were these deaths the consequence, as Judge Daniel Horsmanden insisted, of a massive conspiracy orchestrated by the enslaved to burn the city and slaughter its inhabitants? Or was it, as some recent scholars would have it, the result of a Salem-like hysteria brought on by the pressures of war, or worse yet, a cynical hoax hatched by city leaders to unify whites across class lines by playing to racial fears? Historians remain divided, and with two more books forthcoming (beyond this one under review), the debate shows no sign of an early resolution. To one side stand Graham Hodges, Peter Linebaugh, Marcus Rediker, T. J. Davis, and Leslie Harris, all of whom believe that a major revolt erupted out of the city's interracial gatherings, while Edgar McManus, Jill Lepore, Michael Johnson, and Philip Morgan are dubious of the prospect of servile revolt. Although some writers may remain unconvinced, respected legal historian Peter Charles Hoffer here pieces the story together in a way that erases all reasonable doubt that a good many slaves were indeed "guilty as charged" (p. 165).

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