April–June 1712
ResistanceBook sources
New York suppresses an uprising of enslaved people
New York City
Enslaved people set a fire and attacked colonists responding to it in April 1712. Governor Robert Hunter reported military pursuit, trials and twenty-one executions. His June letter also described reprieves where evidence was defective, including a man convicted after two acquittals.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
Hunter defended the repression and supplies an official account, not an impartial record of every participant. He acknowledged that more people had died by execution and suicide than he could identify as active participants. This was not the first resistance to slavery in the Americas.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2, pp. 35–36; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Robert Hunter to the Lords of Trade, 23 June 1712, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, vol. 5, pp. 341–345, transcription ↗