The New York Conspiracy. With an Introduction by Thomas J. Davis.

Octavo, black cloth & blind-stamped blue boards (hardcover), xxv, 491 pp. Very Good+, with light foxing (age darkened spotting) to endpapers, and slight edgewear, in a Very Good dust jacket with edgewear. "Like the Salem witch trials, but much more murderous, the New York Conspiracy of 1741 was one of the most extraordinarily revealing events in American colonial history. The New York Conspiracy is an account of the trials of 20 whites and more than 150 slaves accused of conspiracy. Compiled by Daniel Horsmanden, one of the judges, it contains his narrative of the events which led to the trials and the trial record based on his own notes, those of his fellow judges, and the lawyers on verious cases. Eventually 13 slaves were burned alive, 4 whites and 18 blacks were hanged, and more than 70 people were banished from the province of New York. The story begins with a robbery involving both blacks and whites, and a series of fires which, compounded by uneasiness over an unpopular war with Spain and anti-Catholicism, intensified the everpresent fear of a slave uprising. On April 21, 1741, a grand jury was summoned and charged to consider the many frights and terrors which the good people of this city have of late been put into, by repeated and unusual fires and burning of houses." Black History, African American History, United States History, New York, Law Studies, Trial, United States History.…