The Great Negro Plot

by Mat Johnson

  The rest of the names that were in the combination, I cannot remember, of their master's names. They proposed, to burn the fort first, and afterwards the city; and then steal, rob and carry away all the money and goods they could procure, and was to be carried to Romme's and were to be joined by the country negroes; and that they were to murder every one that had money.

  The reason why I did not make this discovery before, Romme swore them all never to discover, and swore me too; and I thought, I would wrong my own soul, if discovered it. And that all the rest of the negroes in city and country were to meet in one night.

  All the above I am ready to declare upon oath.

  This admission Peggy signed with an X, the mark of an illiterate. It was sent to the judges from jail so that those on the bench could see that the stubborn woman had begun to see the error in her ways. The conviction of Prince, and the one who claimed her love, Caesar, had jarred her mind. Peggy Kerry (or Keary or Sarinbirr, as this document variously declared her) was now telling the truth of the matter, giving herself over to the will of the court.

  The judges seemed to believe that she was moving in the right direction with her new testimony, in the direction of what they wanted to hear, but when looking at this confession, with a basic knowledge of her situation, the subtractions prove most daring. While Peggy pointed her finger at many, it was those omitted from her statement that say the most about her state of mind. Most obvious is the complete absence of the Hughsons from the plot. Peggy moved the scene of the crime away from Hughson's tavern to Romme's, removing the name Hughson from the story altogether. It was clever, and so much safer. John Romme was on the run, elusive and comparatively untouchable, while John Hughson, along with wife and daughter, was in custody and facing execution. As was Peggy. Yet, even more important, the Hughsons' extended family was currently holding Peggy's son for safekeeping. How could she possibly say anything to incriminate them?

  Even more interesting is the list of the slaves named in the conspiracy: The first mentioned was Caesar. But while Peggy had denied her relationship to her Caesar, who was the legal property of the Vaarck family, in attempt to throw off the judges, she had replaced him with another slave with the same name, Pintard's Caesar. The judges could barely keep the slaves straight already—even with the list in front of them, the court tripped over itself when the city constables brought in English's Cork instead of Patrick's Cork. (Patrick's Cork giving such an impressively innocuous, "happy darky" performance that he was released immediately.) Peggy's confession was a ploy—by her, to add to the confusion—with full knowledge of her lover's conviction; it was very well an attempt to exonerate her Caesar through reduction.

  But if Peggy's deposition was an attempt to free Caesar from the grip of this court, it was a failed one. Regretfully, nothing was going to save this man in this world now. The next day, Friday, May 8, 1741, the second of the court's three justices began reading his decision in the case of the two slaves, Caesar and Prince, convicted of capital crimes:

  "I have great reason to believe that the crimes you now stand convicted of, are not the least of those you have been concerned in, for by your general characters you have been very wicked fellows, hardened sinners, and ripe, as well as ready, for the most enormous and daring enterprises," the court's only regret being that the man could not be convicted of more.

  "Especially you, Caesar," the judge castigated, pausing to single out and address individually the insolent beast. "And as the time you have yet to live is to be but very short, I earnestly advise and exhort both of you to employ it in the most diligent and best manner you can, by confessing your sins, repenting sincerely of them, and praying God in his infinite goodness to have mercy on your soul."

  It was the ultimate hypocrisy: men who had been robbed of their very lives being convicted of theft by the people who'd taken everything from them.

  Mercy, it seems, was not to be the concern of the court, nor its intention. After further entreaties to Caesar and Prince to speak of their fellow slaves, it was declared that the two were to be taken from their jail to the place of their execution. The hanging, by the neck until dead, for the burglary of Hogg's store, would be carried out on the following Monday morning. It was further ordered that the body of the rascal Caesar, then be removed from the noose and hung in chains in the square. A message to all slaves and their illicit overseers of the fate that could await them.

  After the sentencing, the judges gathered to discuss the confession received from Peggy Kerry via the jailer the night before. The shifting of the scene of the crime from Hughson's to Romme's had been missed by no one, and no one was amused.

  Peggy Kerry was brought to stand in front of the bench.

  "Do you understand the seriousness of this matter? That to testify against innocent persons is a grave crime in itself?" the justices harangued her.

  The latter would become a particularly interesting question considering what the court had asked (and would ask) of Mary Burton.

  Peggy looked on evenly at her inquisitors.

  "I certainly do," she responded, knowing it a very serious matter indeed. She was more intimate certainly with what was at stake than they were.

  Regardless, it seemed to the judges that if the "Irish beauty" was not at the moment telling the complete truth of the matter, she was, in part, leading up to doing it. Or, at least, toward the direction they would see the truth go.

  The court assembled the next day to hear a more detailed account of Peggy's version of events. By this time, she already knew the fate of her enslaved lover, that he had been condemned to hang for his crime. Her attempt to exonerate him had failed, but to her mind the battle was not over. The pressure was now on Peggy to save herself, to give the story that would let her escape from this witch hunt with all that was left her, her life.

  Officially recorded, this time with the name of her past marriage, Salingburgh, the woman born Margaret Kerry was now prepared to tell the best kind of tale. The kind laced with specific facts. Those accurate, little details that can afford fiction a sense of reality.

  Peggy attested she moved in with Frank, a free Negro, the fall before. As a woman fallen from marriage, she admitted, she was not very picky, and his lodgings along the new Battery suited her fine. Over time, Peggy became aware of one of her neighbors, a local shoemaker that lived three or four doors down from her new residence. That man was John Romme. Peggy told the court, she quickly noticed Romme was an odd fellow. For one thing, it seemed there was many a Negro coming to and fro his house. Or rather, they staggered to and fro, as they were usually blind drunk on drams, reeking of punch and other strong liquors. Romme kept a public house, one that openly served a Negro clientele. Not that Peggy was looking for such trouble, but it was impossible to ignore. It was a common thing for the Romme house to be wide awake until two, even three, in the morning, as singing was heard, cups filled, and dice rolled freely.

  That the house was one of the many that flagrantly ignored the colony's moral codes was common knowledge. But the level of illicit behavior revealed itself to Peggy that November.

  It was on a Sunday evening between the night hours of eleven P.M. and twelve A.M. that Peggy saw the suspicious sight of two Negroes passing through the darkness, each carrying the considerable weight of a firkin of butter on their muscular shoulders. Why in the dark? she had wondered, for there was definitely something suspicious about the scene. Peggy was sure she was witnessing a crime, and ducked into the shadows of the nearby shed of Mr. Hunt's to bear witness. The darkness was full and thorough, making it too dark to identify the Africans, whose dark skin further obscured their features. Pausing though, muting her breath so she did not reveal herself, Peggy waited long enough to see the men leave sixteen of the weighted barrels inside Romme's gate.

  The court listened, patiently. All this, of course, was still on the subject of petty crime, but what Peggy was doing was merely setting the scene, the context of John Romme as a ringleader of thieving slav
es, so that her next revelations fit that much more into context.

  It was one evening about Christmastime, just months ago, she went on, when at about eight or nine o'clock, she was socializing at the house of John Romme. A friendly neighborly congregation, nothing more, she said. Suddenly, the door flew open and in walked ten or twelve Negroes, come to make merry. Clearly far more people than the law allowed in such establishment, but Romme was turning no man away.

  " Look how well the rich people in this place lived," Peggy said Romme observed to the Africans as each grabbed his own mug and aimed to make the better of it. "If you would be advised by me, we should have the money," Romme, she said, continued.

  "How wilt you manage that?" Cuffee, Mr. Philipse's legal property, replied.

  "Well enough," said Romme. "Set them all a light fire. Burn the houses of them that have the most money, and kill them all, as the Negroes would have done their masters and mistresses formerly."

  Not lost on the Africans, Romme was making a direct reference to the revolt of 1712, still present and immediate in all their minds.

  "I will be captain over you till you can get all their money, and then I would be governor." How many drinks might have gone down Romme's gullet before this came out, Peggy did not bother to recall.

  Nor if there was a smile to go along with this absurdity.

  Cuffee, she said, dismissed Romme's grand scheming. " We could not do it," she said her lover said.

  "Yes! We'll do well enough," Romme countered. "We'll send into the country for the rest of the Negroes to help, because I can write, and I know several Negroes in the country who can read. You can do it, and I will stand by you. The sun will shine very bright by and by, and never fear, my lads." Romme continued with his assurances. "But if it should happen that anything should come out, I will make my escape to North Carolina, Cape Fear, or somewhere thereabouts. Or into the Mohawk's country, where I lived before. But besides, the Devil cannot hurt me, for I have a great many friends in town, and the best place would stand for me."

  The plan, according to Romme, was simple. "Burn the fort first, and afterwards the city, and then steal and rob, and carry away all the money and goods you can procure. It should be brought to my house, and I will take care to hide it.

  "If the fire does not succeed, and we can not compass our ends that way, then I propose to you that you should steal all you can from your masters, for I would carry you to a strange country and give you your liberty, and set you free. That is whether you like my proposal."

  "There's great talking, and no cider," Cuffee complained, at which time the revelries ended. The plan's attractiveness appeared only as strong as the drink that fueled it. Romme, cautious that the treason might be reported, then forced the whole lot of the Negroes to swear to secrecy. Not even Peggy was exempt, and her silence was sworn on her immortal soul, as she was then forced to kiss a book.

  "Although I know not whether or not it was a Bible," Peggy, the illiterate, reluctantly admitted to the court.

  That there was a dialogue going on among prisoners about the events of the outside world is evident from this little tale. It is not mere coincidence that immediately after the attempted rebellion in Hackensack, Peggy's story adjusted to encompass an uprising spreading beyond New York's village. Peggy's knowledge of Romme's absconding, and probably the spy mentioned to the court in the translated letter of Romme's wife, is referenced also, with Peggy being so kind as to attempt to send the search for Romme on a wild-goose chase into Mohawk country.

  Peggy was also generous enough to the court to add more names for them to digest. Besides Cuffee there was now Curacao Dick, Pintard's Caesar, Weaver's Will, and Mr. Moore's Cato. "The Devil take the failer," Peggy said Cuffee had warned the group on departure. It was a message of which many of these men would have been reminded when the constables arrived to drag them off to jail. Now Peggy knew that she herself had been taken into the Devil's care as well.

  Elizabeth Romme was immediately interviewed in regard to Peggy's accusations. It was a difficult position that she was in. How much could she say to protect herself without dooming her spouse? So Elizabeth, of course, started by denying everything—the specifics, the context, the general idea. Within her denials, though, Mrs. Romme did make room for other facts, as given.

  "Well, yes, there had been some firkins of butter, that much is true, but as to the nature of them I have no knowledge," insisted Elizabeth Romme. "My husband conducted the business."

  "This is all you know, you are swearing here under oath?" prodded the judges.

  "Well, I must confess that Cuffee's father did on occasion store game fowls at our house. And brought the victuals. And sticks of wood during the long winter. And, yes, the Negroes did come to our home to drink drams on a few occasions, but rarely more than past the legal limit of three. And rarely that many."

  Elizabeth added, "But when there were three, it was usually the same group of characters. Cuffee, but also Prince, and Vaarck's Caesar, who was a regular customer," correcting the biggest omission from Peggy's earlier testimony, and thereby placing Peggy's Caesar back in the center of it all.

  The jail was brimming, veritably overflowing with Negroes. Yet, they would have to make room for more on the way. The newest and most important slave to become resident, aside from the two who had already been convicted and sentenced to death, was Philipse's Cuffee. The judges already had their secret weapon, and with the new focus on Cuffee they were quick to use it. Arthur Price was dispatched to do his magic again.

  Cuffee didn't know Arthur Price was a traitor. To Cuffee, Price was just another white, lowlife character, recognizable from the underworld of this little village. Cuffee had not prepared himself, he was not on guard. He was just scared and bored and lonely. So Cuffee talked to the man.

  "Why is Peggy called down so often?" Cuffee nervously observed to Price. It must have seemed considerably suspicious to him, particularly as he was made to sit and wait for days on end to be formally brought before the court for the first time. Not helping matters was Peggy's manner toward him. She should be forgiven in this respect, however. After all, she was the one who'd implicated him in the first place.

  "I think she is discovering the plot about the fire," Price confirmed for him.

  "She can not do that unless she forswears herself. I know, for he that had done that was sworn after she was in prison. I left my master's house in the evening and went along the wharves to the Fly Market, and waited there till one Quack came out of his master's house. We went to the house of John Hughson, where we met nobody but Hughson, his wife, and daughter Sarah. We called for a tankard of punch, and Hugh-son swore Quack three times."

  "I believe I know this Quack," Price bluffed. "He lives with a butcher."

  "No, he doth not live with a butcher, he lives with a painter who lives within a few doors of a butcher," Cuffee told him, unaware he was being manipulated by Price. "Quack is married to a Negro woman who is cook to the fort. To the governor, as I understand."

  "How did Quack do it?"

  "I don't know how he did it, but that Quack was to do it, and did do it," Cuffee insisted.

  "Do you not think that the firing will be found out?" Price asked.

  "No, by God, I do not think it ever will."

  "Are you not afraid that the two Negroes who are to be executed Monday would discover?"

  Cuffee remained confident of Caesar and Prince's integrity. "I am not afraid of that, for I'm sure that they will be burnt to ashes before they will discover it. I would lay my life on it," Cuffee continued. But, of course, he already had.

  Still, lingering on the situation, Cuffee could make no sense of it. Looking around at the jail told him immediately who had been captured, and who remained free.

  "I wonder why they only took up the Long Bridge Boys and did not take up those of the Smith's Fly? For I believe, if the truth was known, they are as much concerned as we."

  An intriguing statement, the judges thought la
ter when Arthur Price eagerly recanted it. The Smith's Fly Boys, referencing the slave men living in the affluent quarters of the Smith's Fly neighborhood near Pearl Street. There were two major neighborhoods where affluent colonists lived with slaves, one on the east side and one on the west. Each had its own gang of slave compatriots, now seemingly complicit. Based on this information, one of the Smith's Fly Boys, Roosevelt's Quack (not to be confused with Walter's Quack, the already incarcerated slave who had uttered the line "Fire, fire") was apprehended.

  On Monday, May 11, the "very wicked fellows," Caesar and Prince, were escorted out to the gallows in accordance with their sentence. They knew they were going to die. This knowledge had been with them for a few weeks now. They also were fully aware their deaths was going to be painful, and that it wouldn't be suffocation that killed them, but the weight of their own bodies being launched down from the hangman's noose, snapping their necks. They knew that their bowels would empty into their pants, but that they wouldn't smell it. Because they'd be dead.

  They knew all that, and yet they were defiant. Caesar and Prince, two African men whose powerful names were a joke on their complete lack of power. They knew, also, that regardless of any petty criminal actions they may have taken in comparison to their purported victims they were, in actuality, the righteous ones. So, despite the continued inquisition, in the face of the very people who had damned them, they remained adamantly silent.

  "Who else is involved in this horrendous action?"

  Nothing.

  "Who was your master in these despicable acts?"

  Not a word.

  Caesar and Prince died honorably, naming no one, condemning no others, either out of fear, or out of concern for their already doomed hides. They proved Cuffee right; there was no discovery here. The only thing Caesar had confessed to, in the end, was his relationship with Peggy Kerry. And while Peggy never admitted that she loved him, too, she showed it by trying to omit him from all crimes she reported. This she did at her own peril.