|
|
|
Wall Street has had it's dark side in it's history "As far back as 1628, slaves constituted a portion of the population of New Amsterdam; and to such an extent had the traffic in them reached that, in 1709, a slave-market was erected at the foot of Wall Street, where all negroes who were to be hired or sold, stood in readiness for bidders.
The
"Negro Plot" of 1741, however, forms a serious and bloody chapter in
the history of New York. At this distance of time it is hard to discover the
truth amid the fears and prejudices which attended that public calamity. The
city then contained some ten thousand inhabitants, about one-fifth of whom were
African slaves, called the "black seed of Cain." Many of the laws for
their government were most unjust and oppressive. Whenever three of them were
found together they were liable to be punished by forty lashes on the bare back,
and the same penalty followed their walking with a club outside of their
master's grounds without a permit. Two justices could inflict any punishment,
except amputation or death, for any blow or assault by a slave upon a Christian
or a Jew. Such was the outrageous law. New York swarmed with negroes, and her
leading merchants were engaged in the slave-trade, at that time regarded fair
and honorable. New York then resembled a Southern city, with its calaboose on
the Park Commons and its slave-market at the foot of Wall Street.
The
burning of the public buildings, comprising the Governor's residence, the
Secretary's office, the chapel, and barracks, in March, 1741, was first
announced to the General Assembly by the Lieutenant-Governor as the result of an
accident--a plumber who had been engaged upon some repairs having left fire in a
gutter between the house and chapel. But several other fires occurring shortly
afterward in different parts of the city, some of them, perhaps, under
circumstances that could not readily be explained, suspicions were awakened that
the whole were acts of incendiaries. Not a chimney caught fire--and chimneys
were not at that day very well swept--but the incident was attributed to design.
Such was the case in respect to the chimney of Captain Warren's house, situated
near the ruins of the public buildings, by the taking fire of which the roof was
partially destroyed; and other instances might be enumerated. Suspicion, to
borrow the language of Shakespeare, "hath a ready tongue," and is "all stuck
full of eyes," which are not easily put to sleep. Incidents and circumstances,
ordinary and extraordinary, were seized upon and brought together by comparison,
until it became obvious to all that there was actually a conspiracy for
compassing such a stupendous act of arson as the burning of the entire town and
murder of the people. Nor was it long before the plot was fastened upon the
negro slaves, then forming no inconsiderable portion of the population. A negro,
with violent gesticulation, had been heard to utter some terms of unintelligible
jargon, in which the words "fire, fire, scorch, scorch," were heard articulated,
or supposed to have been heard. The crew of a Spanish ship brought into the port
as a prize were sold into slavery. They were suspected of disaffection--as well
they might be, and yet be innocent --seized, and thrown into prison. Coals were
found arranged, as had been supposed, for burning a hay-stack; a negro was seen
jumping over a fence and flying from a house that had taken fire in another
place; and, in a word, a vast variety of incidents, trifling and unimportant,
were collated and talked over until universal consternation seized upon the
inhabitants, from the highest to the lowest. As Hume remarks of the Popish plot
in the reign of Charles II, "each breath of rumor made the people start
with anxiety; their enemies, they thought, were in their bosoms. They were
awakened from their slumbers by the cry of Plot, and, like men affrighted and in
the dark.
|
