The Great Negro Plot

by Mat Johnson

  Colonial justice was made more complicated for its defendants by its simplicity: The justice of the case served not only as a "judge" in the modern sense, but also played the role of prosecutor. Judges were responsible for choosing to go to trial, gathering the incriminating evidence, securing the prosecuting witnesses, as well as interrogating both them and the suspects. It was an arrangement that made impartiality, at best, difficult; a power dynamic that made any trial without an impartial judge no more than a formality to sentencing. To make matters worse, most judges in the colonies had no qualifications for the job other than that they were wealthy landowners with enough political clout to wrangle these influential, though part-time, appointments. A census taken two decades after the events of 1741 found that only 41 percent of New York's judges had any proper legal training or experience before taking the mantle. As prominent New Yorker, and former legal apprentice, William Livingston would put it in 1745, "There is perhaps no Set of men that bear so ill a Character in the Estimation of the Vulgar, as the Gentlemen of the Long Robe."

  Standing before the court to hear the charges, John Hugh-son was joined by his wife, Sarah, per the court's order, along with their lodger, Margaret Sorubiero.

  Margaret Sorubiero, also known as Margaret Salingburgh, was better known as Peggy Kerry. What could be said of a common Irish woman who lived above this tavern known to be populated by lowly whites and Negroes? That she was a prostitute, of course; it was unproven but there was no need (there were hundreds of such women in the area around the fort). That her board and lodging were paid for by Caesar, the primary Negro in question, was proof enough. The reason for this latest addition to the alderman's request list was made clear when the Hughsons and Peggy laid eyes on the court's first witness.

  "Mary Burton, of the city of New York, spinster, aged about sixteen years, being sworn, deposed," the clerk called, and the slight peasant girl took center stage in the drama. Avoiding the penetrating glances of her former housemates, Mary nervously began:

  "Must have been two o'clock in the morning I'd seen him, that Negro, Caesar, the one what also goes by the name John Gwin (or is it Quin?), sneaking in through the window of Miss Peggy. Yes, Peggy Kerry, this white woman. The Negro slipped right into her bedroom window in the dark of night, he did. What's more, he often made her bed his own, made a habit of it. God's truth."

  The stage-whispered curses of the accused beside her threatened to cut Mary Burton's narrative short, but the mortified gasps from the rest of the room pushed her on, fed her with attention, giving her the strength to continue.

  "The following morn, the speckled linen, it was right there," Mary went on. "I seen the stolen fabric," she told them, but what went unsaid was that Caesar had seen Mary see it, her eyes grow wide at the sight of the fine cloth. Mary failed to mention that Caesar had thrown her two pieces of silver to shut her up, or that Peggy cut an apron from the material to give to her to ensure her silence. Mary was not on trial here. She was simply an innocent corrupted.

  So much money in his hand as Caesar sat that morning in the tavern, gloating. So much more than he could have ever earned honestly, far more intoxicating to him than any liquor he could buy. Mary couldn't tell them that, because she couldn't imagine the feeling, but she could tell other things.

  "Caesar was all casual-like, too, the cat with a mouse, he was. Bought a pair of proper white stockings for his Peggy right then from my master, added two mugs of punch on top to get his silver's worth. The master and the mistress both seen the speckled linen that morning as well, as sure as I did."

  As Mary spoke, the Hughsons sat in terror and disbelief. As they listened they blustered with indignation at such betrayal from this hypocritical and scandalous girl!

  "After Under-Sheriff Mills done arrived the first time in search of this soldier, Gwin, Mrs. Hughson hid the linen in the garret. Then she took it out again after the first search to hide it under the stairs. She's real clever-like, so when the constables came back they missed it. Then later that night, I seen the mistress carrying it to her mother's house."

  John Hughson leaped to his feet, interrupting. "She is a vile, good-for-nothing girl!" he shouted. "She had been got with child by her former master!"

  Hughson hoped that his outburst might distract the court, but his bit of rumor was not the morsel in which this room was interested.

  "Who else, young Burton?" the court demanded. "Who else took part in this nefarious plot? You are reminded, you are before a court of law, and your pardon depends on a complete testimony."

  "Well, just yesterday morning I was sweeping the porch and I heard the Dutchman John Romme saying to my master, Tf you will be true to me, then I will be true to you.' To this my master replied, T will, and I will never betray you.' Which I found odd and suspicious, as such."

  With this added revelation, examining the room and pondering his own situation, Hughson belatedly came to the realization that he was screwed, and it suddenly dawned on him how he had just managed to hurt his cause not only with the room but also with the one person who had the power to stop this madness. In a typical John Hughson style adjustment of strategy, before the entire audience to whom he had just defamed young Mary, Hughson instantly tried the opposite tactic of compliment and flattery.

  "She was a very good girl," he cried, assuring those who were still bothering to listen. "Why, in hard weather last winter, she used to dress herself in me own clothes, put on boots, and go out with me in my sleigh in the deep snows into the commons to help me fetch firewood for my family. Love her like one of my own, really."

  In response, the crowd stared back at Hughson, largely quiet. The ones that were making a sound giggled at his ineptitude.

  "Silence, man!" the deputy town clerk ordered him. "Continue. Speak the truth."

  "I hardly dare speak," Mary cringed back dramatically. "I am so much afraid I will be murdered by them!"

  Hughson and the other accused were doomed and they knew it. If there was any doubt, the testimony that came next from John Vaarck, the baker—Caesar's owner—took that away as well. After demonstratively apologizing for the fact that he was too busy with work to enslave his Negro properly, Vaarck told a story that would further cement the fate of the accused.

  That very afternoon, he said, his younger slave, Bastian, had met his master's growing anxiety about this recent trouble with a look of guilt of his own. "What do you know, boy?" the baker insisted he pressed him. They stood in the kitchen, where the slave boy slept on a mat in the corner.

  " 'Nothing, sir,' " the baker said Bastian had offered sheepishly. " T don't know nothing.' "

  "This is no time for nonsense. Have it out now, boy, before that black bastard, Caesar, has us all marched to the gallows."

  Bastian thought that an excellent point. After apparently allowing the thought to settle, the boy pointed down to the floor below them.

  "What? Something wrong with your bloody foot? Stop the riddles!"

  "Look underneath the floor, sir. There's something down there."

  Vaarck did indeed look down there. As far as he could tell, there was no trapdoor, no loose floorboard. In order to look underneath his kitchen, Vaarck had to walk out his house, climb through his neighbor's yard, then come alongside to stare into the small dark crevice beneath his home. Huffing, on his knees, Vaarck looked up at where Bastian stood behind him.

  "And you just happened to come across this little hiding space, did you?"

  Bastian shrugged back at his pink owner.

  Reaching into the darkness, hoping not to find a handful of skunk or porcupine for his efforts, Vaarck's hand came on the texture of rough fabric atop the dry soil. As he pulled out the heavy bag, the contents clinked as they rubbed together. Plates, stolen linen, filled it.

  That bastard Caesar, Vaarck said he thought. He'd spent good money on that darky, gave him damn near free rein, and this was how Caesar had repaid him.

  What interested the court as much as the booty, which was broug
ht out now for the three judges to see, was the location itself.

  When questioned Vaarck told them, "The only way you can get down there is through the yard of John Romme." That neighbor whose yard the house and its kitchen adjoined was the very John Romme whom Mary Burton had just described as being in cahoots with John Hughson. The area was only accessible through Romme's small yard, Vaarck insisted. The implication: that even if his own slave had strayed, there were whites guilty of more than just loose management, to be discovered in this affair. John Romme was married into the Dutch upper class of the colony, but this allegation and implication of guilt was too much to ignore. Despite his high-up connections, John Romme was sent for immediately.

  Not even adding another white suspect, this one a member of the old Dutch gentry, would be able to move John Hugh-son from the focus of the judicial eye. Considering the social relations and possible ramifications of prosecuting one of their own class for such a petty crime, if anything, an arrest of John Romme would make it more likely the Hughsons would be made the scapegoats, that the burden of blame could be carried by them completely. Fate dictated this to be the case, as the constables sent to retrieve Romme returned with the news that the gentleman had already absconded. Still, too much of a political bother, really, when you had a perfectly good (and perfectly guilty) white man to take the burden right in front of you. So it turned out that John Hughson was good for something after all.

  Seeing his predicament, Hughson thought confession his best alternative, and proved to have much to offer to the conversation. He confided that Peggy had given him goods, and told him that they had been left by Caesar, a stash, Hughson admitted, he later delivered to his mother-in-law. He added that he proceeded to hide the silver coins through repeated visits to confound the investigation. He further went on to say that it was Peggy that gave him the remainder of the bundle, which he delivered that morning to the authorities.

  The court scribe struggled to keep up with Hughson's guilty revelation, making sure the language was correct to ensure its legal worth. Finishing up the last words, the document was turned back to Hughson for his approval.

  "Sign your confession, John Hughson. Your testimony will be noted," the court clerk told him on completion. Hughson just stared at the lengthy page, its ink still wet.

  But now he declined to put his signature to the document.

  "What? What are you on about?" the court demanded. "It's your confession, man. You agreed to give your confession; you've already told the room of your part in this matter, what is the point of resistance now? Don't be daft, sign the paper."

  Hughson continued to stare at the words on the page, considering the matter. Then, coming to a decision, he shook his head at the whole thing. "No, I don't think I shall. No, not at all. Thank you anyway, gentlemen."

  "Are you quite mad? Sign the paper!"

  "There is no occasion for me to sign it," Hughson insisted.

  The court was aghast at the insolence of this rascal. They were so busy voicing the outrage over this affront to the court that they didn't bother to discern that the reason John Hugh-son wouldn't sign the confession was in fact fairly practical. The old fool couldn't read even the simplest words on the page, even if he could have managed more than an X to add to them. He was illiterate.

  Regardless, both John and Sarah were remitted right then and there, with the understanding that they would be brought back in front of the Supreme Court on the very first day of the next term.

  The last white on trial, Peggy Kerry, had more fight to offer. Despite the wealth of witnesses against her and the detailed confessions, Peggy stood on the witness stand unmoved, and unmoving.

  "Do you, Peggy Kerry, admit to having had possession of the stolen property from Hogg's store?"

  "I do not," the redhead resisted, her back straight despite the societal shame engendered in that room and foisted down upon her.

  "You do not even admit to the repeated attempts to conceal the evidence from the rightful authorities, as already laid out by the confession of your landlord, John Hughson?"

  "I most certainly do not." Peggy stood strong, ignoring the rumbling of the onlooking crowd.

  "Will you admit, then," the court continued, "as it has already been revealed here this day, that you willingly have shared your bed with a Negro property of Vaarck, the baker, this notorious black called Caesar, that now stands bound in this courtroom?"

  "I deny that as well," Peggy said to them, ignoring the motion off to her right when Caesar's shocked gaze snapped in her direction.

  Focused on Peggy's eyes, Caesar silently begged a response as his lover forcibly tried to ignore him.

  "You what?" the court continued. "Oh, I see you are being quite the villainess this day, miss. Then, may I ask, what fact is it that you would be willing to testify to this day?"

  "Only to the goodness of my landlords, John and Sarah Hughson," Peggy told the room. "They are honorable, decent people and I am fortunate to board with them," she said, looking over to where the Hughsons sat, making sure they heard her every recommendation. The stolen property was not the only treasure that had been removed from John Hughson's tavern to his mother-in-law's. Unknown to the court that day, Peggy's young son was waiting for her with the old woman as well. Her only son, in the hands of the people she was being asked to incriminate. Some said the boy was as white as any colonist's child, others that he had the African blood in him as sure as any other mulatto. Either way, Peggy knew her only chance of protecting him would be to hold her tongue as concerned the family that now had him.

  After listening to his alleged sins revealed, his guilt reasserted, when called to testify, Caesar, too, denied all that involved him in the crime of the stolen property of Mr. and Mrs. Hogg. Not that his denial would mean much; any hope either he or Peggy held for being released on bail was now far gone. But when it came time to address the issue of his relationship with Miss Kerry, Caesar, his pride evidently still intact, and despite the sure knowledge of persecution such revelation would beg, was more forthcoming.

  "Mary Burton told the truth, in that regard," Caesar told the room as Peggy took her turn to stare downcast.

  He looked directly at her as he spoke, nonetheless. "I have been sleeping in the room of Peggy Kerry and I will not deny that," he said.

  It was an admission that could surely cause his destruction, but Caesar stood proudly behind the pronouncement. Displaying the very defiance, stubbornness, and nihilism that soon would be revealed as archetypal of his brown brethren in response to their enslavement in New York City.

  FIRE, FIRE, SCORCH, SCORCH, A LITTE, DAMN IT, BY AND BY

  EXACTLY TWO WEEKS LATER, at one in the afternoon, things started getting hot. At Fort George, on the southern tip of Manhattan isle, the glow of fire danced on the roof of His Honor, Lieutenant Governor Clarke's house. The light show came to fruition before notice was even called to it. It started on the roof of the east side of the house, about twenty feet from the closest building, the chapel. By the time the alarm was sounded, the blaze had ignited the entire wood-shingled rooftop, raging into a beacon that could be seen well beyond the city limits.

  The fires had started.

  The chapel's bell alerted the population at large to the conflagration. Soon the city's citizenry, never known for their general sense of community, interrupted their lives to come to the rescue. Fire was a communal event. The town's newly acquired state-of-the-art, side-stroking, manual-pump fire engine could divert some river water out its gooseneck onto a burning structure to slow some furies, but nobody thought that was enough, given the magnitude of the blaze. Once these wood-beamed structures really struck afire, the community's primary duty was reduced to removing all they could of the internal contents of the building, its destruction being a foregone conclusion. From practice, the approaching crowds knew how to set up a proper bucket brigade, to form lines to the doors, with at least one line carrying the building's prized possessions out into the safety of the str
eet while another brought buckets of water in to slow the blaze. It was a group performance that was as practical as it was collective. Fire knows no satiation, and in a city with over eleven thousand people, where buildings had been erected so close together, if not handled immediately a fire such as this could easily grow beyond its initial source. Its hunger devouring an entire neighborhood without pause.

  Much commended in the aftermath, the gathered crowd got most of the furniture out of the lieutenant governor's home before the blaze completely engulfed it. Fine couches brought from Europe met sooty hands in the chill late afternoon air. Oil portraits risked becoming little more than flammables. But what did it matter? Despite their efforts, despite the eventual arrival of the fire engines, it was soon determined that not the home, nor the chapel next door, could be saved. A violent southeast gale had goaded the flames faster than could be discouraged.

  It was decided that efforts should be diverted instead to the secretary's office, situated right outside the English fort's gate, where the priceless records of the colony were kept, as well as the soldiers' barracks that stood across the quad from the governor's house. With speed and diligence born of desperation, the citizens stormed the buildings, throwing records and books out the windows on the town side to save them from destruction as the heaving winter wind blew documents chaotically down the city's streets. Most were later recovered, and it was a good thing, too, as soon after the office building was vacated, the roof became engulfed as well.

  Chaos took hold as the contents of these rich structures were vomited, neighbors trying desperately in the confusion to save their city from destruction. As if nature wanted an inferno, the wind continued its mischief, draped with smoke and decorated with the floating red embers of civilization. Soon, too, the nature of man seemed to conspire for the blaze as well. When fire ignited the roof of the nearby military barracks, not long after it took the office building, the rumor spread through the crowd that there was now a greater danger that must be avoided: there was gunpowder in that building. The humble barracks was now on the verge of becoming the largest bomb any had had the misfortune of standing next to.