An empire of slavery

Slavery was the cornerstone of the British Empire in the 18th century. People were enslaved in every colony, from the southern rice plantations of Charles Town, South Carolina, to the northern docks of Boston. Slavery was not just a labor system. It also influenced all aspects of colonial thought and culture. The unequal relations it created gave white settlers an exaggerated sense of their status. Contrasting status gave us meaning and coherence for white people. African slavery brought common racial ties and identities to white settlers.

Slavery and the British Empire

The transfer of slaves to the American colonies accelerated in the late 17th century. In 1660, British monarch Charles II founded the Royal African Company to trade slaves and African goods. His brother James II ran the company before he came to the throne. Under these two kings, the Royal African Company had a monopoly on transporting enslaved people to the British colonies. Between 1672 and his 1713 company, from the coast of Africa, he purchased 125,000 prisoners of war, 20% of whom he died in the middle of his passage, a voyage from the coast of Africa to America. Many more English merchants engaged in the slave trade, greatly increasing the number of enslaved people being transported. From there, they were transported to the mainland English colonies on company ships. Other enslaved people dealt with the trauma of their situation by actively resisting their condition—whether by defying their owners or running away. The most prominent maroon communities controlled an interior area of Jamaica, keeping the British away.

The Stono Rebellion

Everywhere, enslaved people resisted exploitation and sought freedom. They fully understood that rebellions would entail large-scale white reprisals, and therefore had little chance of success. In September 1739, a notable rebellion took place in South Carolina in what became known as Stono's Rebellion. An educated enslaved man named Jemmy led a large group of slaves in an armed uprising against the white settlers, killing several before the militia stopped them. The militia put down the uprising after a battle in which both slaves and militiamen were killed. The remaining slaves were either executed or sold to the West Indies. Other enslaved people in South Carolina may have had a similar background. This law imposed new limits on enslaved people`s behavior, prohibiting them from assembling, growing their own food, learning to write, and traveling freely.

The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741

In addition, one in five New Yorkers was enslaved, and tensions ran high between enslaved people and the free population, especially in the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion. Ever fearful of an uprising among enslaved New Yorkers, the city`s white population spread rumors that the fires were part of a massive slave revolt in which enslaved people would murder white people, burn the city, and take over the colony. The Stono Rebellion was only a few years in the past, and throughout British America, fears of similar incidents were still fresh. Searching for solutions, and convinced enslaved people were the principal danger, nervous British authorities interrogated almost 200 enslaved people and accused them of conspiracy.

The events of 1741 in New York City illustrate the racial divide in British America, where panic among white colonists spurred great violence against and repression of the feared enslaved population. .