Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

8
Slavery in New York
Of all the Northern colonies, New York had the most trouble with Negro
slave rebellions. In 1702, New Yoik found it necessary to outlaw any assembly
of slaves or even to allow their testimony in court, in view of frequent
confederations of slaves to plan escapes from their fate. However, in a remarkable
bit of loading the legal dice, the testimony of slaves was to be
acceptable when acting as informers on their fellows! Three years later, the
death penalty was decreed for all runaway slaves found more than forty miles
north of Albany, and hence heading toward freedom in New France. In
1706, slave restiveness in Kings County led Governor Edward Hyde, Lord
Cornbury, to issue a proclamation ordering the justices of the peace to seize all
Negroes who had "assembled themselves in a riotous manner" or had run
away. If any Negroes refused to submit, then the officials were to "fire on
them, kill or destroy them, if they cannot otherwise be taken. . . ."
Two years later, in 1708, a group of slaves in Newtown, Long Island,
rebelled and killed seven whites. Four of the rebel slaves, including an Indian
woman, were executed, the woman being burned by the authorities. A subsequent
law in New York allowed judges to sentence local slaves to death in
any manner they might deem best to attain public tranquility. The fear of
slave rebellion was clearly acute among the white masters.
Early in 1712, a group of Negro slaves in New York City formed a massive
plot for an armed uprising. In the spring, a group of about thirty of the
slaves obtained arms and then set upon a party of whites, routing them and
killing nine. Soldiers soon crushed the mutiny, however, arresting seventy
Negroes as conspirators (one of whom was convicted after being once acquitted)
, and placing the city under arms. Twenty-one of the slaves were executed
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