The Great Negro Plot (16 page)

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 about). 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 measure 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.

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