The Great Negro Plot

by Mat Johnson

  "I don't know what they were, but, yes, demon rats! But that is not all. One night, some time about New Year, I was listening at the door of the room upon the stairs, where there was Ury, Hughson, his wife and daughter Sarah, Vaarck's Caesar, Auboyneau's Prince, Philipse's Cuff, and other Negroes, and I looked up through the door and saw upon the table a black thing like a child."

  The room hushed, gasps of air being sucked into silence. Mary leaned forward, her voice growing louder as she expanded upon this tale of horror.

  "Ury had a book in his hand and was reading, but I did not understand the language. And having a spoon in my hand, I happened to let it drop upon the floor, and Ury came out of the room, running after me downstairs, and he fell into a tub of water."

  It took some moments of digestion, before the judges were able to discern what Mary had purportedly seen. The demon rats, they decided, must have been the Africans' toes, obscured from her angle or perspective, she, after all, spying on them, peering under the door.

  The judiciary made no attempt to seek an explanation for the second vision, this embryonic, black devil thing, "like a child," surely an incarnation of Beelzebub himself. More curious, neither did John Ury avail himself, he who now had chance to seek certitude, stepping to the fore in order to question Mary immediately after the prosecution had finished up with her.

  While cross-examining Mary Burton, John Ury paced the floor, ineffectually intent, although armed with opportunity, to expose this trial for the sham that it was, be done with the insanity, and clear his good name.

  "You say you have seen me several times at Hughson's; what clothes did I usually wear?" Ury began.

  "I cannot tell what clothes you wore particularly," Mary deflected.

  "That is strange, and you know me so well."

  "I have seen you in several clothes, but you chiefly wore a riding coat, and often a brown coat trimmed with black," Mary ventured.

  "I have never worn any such coat!" John Ury turned to declare proudly to the court, a slight smile on his face that he'd caught her. "And let me ask you further, what was it the Negroes said in response to my supposed offer to wipe away their sins?

  "I'm sure I don't remember."

  "You don't remember?" Ury declared. "That will be all," And that was it. There were no further questions.

  John Ury might have been a very good Latin teacher. An excellent teacher, it is said, of Greek as well. But as a criminal defense attorney, he was truly pathetic—even when arguing verily for his own existence.

  William Kane was called next, offering a far less sensational testimony, but one that still agreed on the points that mattered. John Ury had tried (and failed) to persuade Kane to become a Roman Catholic, and Kane had seen him baptize a child, Kane swore. Also, Kane said, he knew Ury to have connections with Hughson, and said that there were slaves to be involved in the burning of the city. John Ury's rebuttal to this was to follow the same line of questioning he had pursued so ineffectually with Mary Burton.

  "You say you have seen me very often, you saw me at Coffin's, you saw me several times at Hughson's; pray, what clothes did you see me in?" Ury asked Kane.

  "I have seen you in black, I have seen you in a yellowish greatcoat, and sometimes in a straight-bodied coat, of much the same color."

  To this Ury had no response. Did that mean he actually owned such clothes, the room wondered. Either way, did it matter? John Ury was trying to discredit the accusers by saying they had never seen him before and couldn't even remember his dress, but it wasn't physically impossible for people to change clothes (although, perhaps, financially impractical). If John Ury was a man who could control legions of rats, invoke monster babies, and cause the docile African to rise in armed rebellion, why wouldn't John Ury be able to scrounge up an extra coat?

  "And you, what do you say as to the time that I was supposed to have frequented the public house of John Hughson's?"

  "It was in the evening," William Kane responded. Again, it was a pointless line of questioning. When else was one likely to go to a tavern?

  The schoolmaster did show a bit of acumen when Sarah Hughson was called to witness against him, showing he clearly was prepared, finally, in her regard.

  "I except against her being sworn," Ury contested, "for she has been convicted, and received sentence of death for being concerned in this conspiracy, and, therefore, cannot be a witness."

  Unfortunately for Ury, the court thought otherwise.

  "But, Mr. Ury," the attorney general volleyed back, "she has received His Majesty's most gracious pardon, which she has pleaded in court this morning, and it has been allowed of, and, therefore, the law says, she is good evidence."

  Yes, Sarah had been conveniently pardoned of her convicted crimes that morning, just in time to pass her death sentence on to another. And after that brief respite, Sarah did her testifying, basically repeating her deposition of days before.

  Predictably, John Ury's response to Sarah Hughson's allegations were as ineffectual as his previous cross-examinations. All he managed was a rather tepid, quick exchange with Sarah concerning who he had supposedly baptized among the conspirators, and not even bothering to challenge her replies.

  Yet, things were about to get even worse for John Ury. Hundreds of miles south, in the debtor's colony that was Georgia, General James Oglethorpe, the colony's original advocate and current leader, was in the middle of the War of Jenkins' Ear, as English Georgia fought it out with Spanish Florida. Under siege and headed for defeat, the beleaguered general sent a frantic note to the English colony of the north warning of impending doom.

  Frederica, in Georgia, May 16, 1741.

  Sir—A party of our Indians returned the eighth instant from war against the Spaniards; they had an engagement with a party of Spanish horse, just by Augustine, and brought one of them prisoner to me: he gives me an account of three Spanish sloops and a snow, privateers, who are sailed from Augustine to the northward, for the provision vessels, bound from the northward to the West-Indies, hoping thereby to supply themselves with flour, of which they are in want. Besides this account which he gave to me, he mentioned many particulars in his examination before our magistrates.

  Some intelligence I had of a villainous design of a very extraordinary nature, and if true, very important, viz. that the Spaniards had employed emissaries to burn all the magazines and considerable towns in the English North-America, thereby to prevent the subsisting of the great expedition and fleet in the West-Indies: and that for this purpose, many priests were employed, who pretended to be physicians, dancing-masters, and other such kinds of occupations; and under that pretence to get admittance and confidence in families. As I could not give credit to these advices, since the thing was too horrid for any prince to order, I asked him concerning them; but he would not own he knew anything about them.

  I am, sir, your very humble servant,

  James Oglethorpe.

  Superscribed,

  To the honourable George Clarke-Esq.

  Lieutenant Governor of New York

  This letter proved a death knell for the unlucky John Ury. A proponent of debtors' rights and a staunch antislavery advocate who had so far kept Georgia slavery-free despite his colonists' wishes, James Oglethorpe was a respected leader in the American colonies. Unfortunately for John Ury, although Oglethorpe's paranoid warning was written in a completely different context and for a completely different purpose, in content it suited the New York court's fears and prejudices perfectly.

  The letter was read in its entirety before the court, and John Ury's fate was further sealed in the process.

  Refusing to submit or even address these outlandish accusations, Ury proceeded to bring forth a grouping of past employers and associates as character witnesses. People who had come to know him over the past few months, people who attested to his hours, and his devout religious nature as nonjuried member of the Church of England (even if they also confessed that they didn't quite understand what Ury was talking a
bout). Through his former business associate, John Campbell, and his wife, the defendant was able to establish his only existing tie to Sarah Hughson: the fact that he had been with the couple weeks before when they came coincidentally to take up residence at the vacant house formerly let by John Hughson, only to be chased away by the bereaved daughter, Sarah Hughson, as she swore and cursed at these people for their perceived audacity to think they had the right to rent and move into the home once occupied by herself, her father, and her mother.

  John Ury apparently had said to Sarah at the time, "How dare you talk so impertinently and saucily to an old woman, you impudent hussy! Go out of the house, or I will turn you out."

  So he had already met Sarah Hughson, and in a manner those insults hurled might have given her more of a motive to testify falsely against him. Here was a powerful weapon John Ury could have used to challenge the damning testimony of young Sarah. A weapon which he again failed to use to defend himself, when the time was right to do so, instead wasting his time questioning Sarah about the specifics of the supposed baptism.

  Still, John Ury managed a strong point in his closing argument.

  "A priest, a joint contriver of firing a fort, a celebrator of masses, a dispenser of absolutions as it is said I am, so long passed by? Such a particular person forgotten? No, gentlemen, you must think and believe he would have been the next person after the discovery of the plot that would have been brought to the carpet."

  The jury took the wisdom in this statement, as well as the excessively lengthy entreaty Ury offered them in regard to the stark differences between his form of Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism, and armed thusly went off to confer about the fate of this white stranger residing in their midst.

  They came back fifteen minutes later with their verdict. John Ury was sentenced to hang on August 29.

  "Fellow Christians," John Ury addressed them on the day of his execution, prepared to deliver his last sermon to the mortal world. "I am now going to suffer a death attended with ignominy and pain; but it is the cup that my heavenly father has put into my hand, and I drink it with pleasure, knowing that all that live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution. And we must be made in some degree partakers of his sufferings before we can share in the glories of resurrection."

  John Ury was given peace by his faith, and he clung to it as he went on to deny not just his crime, but to deny also the Catholic concept of absolution, and the disregard for the sanctity of community that the fires had displayed.

  "Indeed, it may be shocking to some serious Christians that the holy God should suffer innocence to be slain by the hands of cruel and bloody persons. (I mean the witnesses who swore against me in trial.) Indeed, there may be reasons assigned for it, but as they say, that is one of the dark providences of the great God, in his wise, just and good government of this lower earth."

  The statement was eloquent, composed, and pious. It would not, however, save John Ury from the noose—that found him brief moments after his speech concluded—but the words did manage to live longer than he did. The oration, as it was prepared by Ury in the weeks leading up to his trip to the gallows, made it back to some acquaintances in Philadelphia who printed it in its entirety, circulating the impassioned words as proof of the barbarity and backward nature of their neighbors to the north.

  A white man had died. A white male life, the most sacred of God's creations, wasted. An educated, seemingly harmless free white man, sent to his maker.

  Madness.

  The fires had stopped. People were not so scared anymore. Rational thought was moving back into the territory, and people were reassessing the situation. The loss of white life. The loss of black property. So many slaves had been forfeited, taken into custody during the events, killed, or otherwise made useless to their owners. Bloodlust subsided, people started looking around, awakening from their haze.

  Looking around now, assessing the damage, it was transparent to most—rich and poor alike—what had been lost.

  That was clear. That was obvious.

  But then, what exactly had been gained?

  "PEOPLE WITH RUFFLES"

  IN SPITE OF THE SHIFT in sentiment, the ebbing of citizen concern, the court continued to seek conspirators, still unsatisfied, if exhausted, growing increasingly weary of public opinion. The judiciary kept moving forward because that was its momentum, and, trusting nothing, could never believe any final resolution, more or less revelation, had in actuality been reached.

  A new logical question was posed. If John Ury, the Papist spy, was so involved in the conspiracy, yet his existence brought so late to the attention of the courtroom, could there not be other, even larger fish, awaiting discovery?

  After Ury's execution, pressure from politicos and slave-masters put pressure on the court to wrap up its case.

  And the court took notice. Why were they doing that? Could it be that these individuals had something to hide? Could they be trying to stop the trial before it got close enough to uncover them?

  So went the skewed logic of the last months. Could these higher-ups be guilty? Was it from them John Ury received his instruction?

  You either had to continue with that paranoia and its perspective, or challenge the validity of all that had come before.

  The ever-eager Mary Burton, called in response to these new suspicions, hinted that there were more at the top whom she had just happened to fail to mention before.

  "I remember now, that there were white people of more than ordinary rank above the vulgar that were concerned," Mary gladly accommodated.

  "What do you mean by this? Go on, Miss Burton, please. Make your statement, if any statement is to be made." Mary became silent in response, offering no more. Annoyed by this sudden uncooperative impertinence, the judges once more threatened her freedom and her Hfe—and, of course, her promised hundred-pound reward. Mary, eager to remove herself from a precarious position once more, responded with further confessions.

  "There were some people with ruffles that were concerned," Mary Burton told the hushed room.

  Ruffles? That could only mean people better dressed than the ordinary, the clothing style of the upper class!

  Threatened with the dungeon if she did not continue further, Mary Burton responded to the pressing judges, going on to name the only upper-class people she could think of, the only upper-class people she had ever come into contact with. Mary Burton started naming the names of the family and associates of the very judges themselves.

  The judges Hstened aghast as sweet little Mary now impeached those that they knew to be beyond suspicion and impeachment, astonished that their star witness, the one on whom the entire, prolonged case had rested, could He so freely and easily, could besmirch the innocent in such casual manner. If Mary Burton was capable of this, what did that mean about the months of preceding testimony?

  Shaken by this thunderbolt, the grand jury wrapped up that instant. The conspiracy case, in its entirey, was immediately closed. Before she could say another name (those that were said lastly being erased from the record and history com­pletely), Mary Burton was proffered her money and promised freedom, putting an end to the investigation. The remaining slaves and whites in jail were either freed or quietly relocated before another question could be asked, or another answer created. The investigation into the Great Negro Plot was abruptly over. Everyone could go home now. There was nothing more to see here.

  Of Mary Burton's final, libelous testimony, Daniel Horsmanden would himself years later rationalize that it comprised yet another attack by villains who intended with hindsight to discredit the proceedings in their entirety. Clearly, Horsmanden felt, that could be the only explanation. Still, although Horsmanden felt thwarted, justice had to some degree been served, he insisted.

  "A check has been put to the execrable malice, and bloody purposes of our foreign and domestic enemies, though we have not been able entirely to unravel the mystery of the iniquity; for it was a dark design, and the veil is in some mea
sure still upon it!"

  And there the veil would remain, lying in place to obscure the scrutiny of further generations.

  In the city of New York the fear had dissipated, the context had changed. Once there had been great intoxication, and now there was the great and painful sobering that must follow. Awakening from their indulgence, rife with paranoia and racial distrust and hatred, the people of the city of New York felt their anxiety replaced with a greater peace, but also regret, and a greater shame.

  In the end, both Caesar and John Hughson, if not in life, but in death, would be able to have their own final, posthumous word. It seems, in part, John Hughson's sign from the heaven would come. As their bodies remained hanging in public display all through the steaming New York summer of 1741 and into the fall of that year, the last two physical reminders of the court case that had so shaken the community for the months before, a miracle of sorts would happen. White in life, John Hughson's bloated, decomposing corpse would turn ebony black as it hung on view, darkened by its putrid rot. In contrast, the body of Caesar, enslaved in life, and brutalized because of its dark, melanin-rich skin, would decay, drain of blood, rot, and mold until its skin was nearly white to the eye. In death, the two maligned villains would trade the complexions that had been their burdens while living.

  It was a sign, the colonists said, eyes transfixed on the aberration, as they kept walking apace, moving on with their lives now. God has spoken, they decided. Judgment had come.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Books

  Berlin, Ira, and Harris, Leslie M., eds. Slavery in New York. New York: New Press, 2005.

  Burrows, Edwin G., and Wallace, Mike. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Conniff, Michael L. Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

  Davis, Thomas J. A Rumor of Revolt: The "Great Negro Plot" in Colonial New York. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990.