A Tradition to Live By New York Religious History, 1624–.docx

A Tradition to Live By: New York Religious History, 1624–
1740
Author(s): Thomas E. Carney
Source: New York History, Vol. 85, No. 4 (FALL 2004), pp.
301-330
Published by: New York State Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23187346
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A Tradition to Live By:
New York Religious History, 1624-1740.
Thomas E. Carney, Assistant Professor of Constitutional
History,
University of Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
"Rellijon is a quare thing, " said Dunne's Irish wit, Mr. Dooley.
"Be
itself it's all right. But sprinkle a little pollyticl^s into it an
dinnymit is bran
flour compared with. Alone it prepares man f r a better life.
Combined
with pollytics it hurries him to it."1
The issue of religion was a subject of great concern for the
people of colonial New York and continues to be so for those
historians who
study that place and time. Many historians of this period have
focused
their attention upon the relationship of church and state in the
colony.2
The purpose of this essay, however, is to look at the
development of reli
gion within colonial New York society from a more dynamic

perspec
tive. I will argue that the New York colonial experience
represents the
development of an expectancy of religious freedom. This
expectancy of
religious freedom was a shared belief held by many inhabitants
of colo
nial New York: that each individual had the right to choose and
prac
tice whatever religion that individual found acceptable.
"Expectancy,"
as used in this discussion, is not to be confused with
"expectation."
Rather, expectancy refers to a developing legal interest/right in
its nas
cent form.ί This belief—this expectancy—is based, in the first
instance,
1. Mr. Dooley, created by Finley Peter Dunne, quoted in
Leonard W. Levy, The Establishment
Clause: Religion and the First Amendment, 2d ed., revised
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1994), xivn2.
2. Patricia U. Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion,
Society, and Politics in Colonial America
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 50—54; Thomas J.
Curry, The First Freedoms: Church and
State in America to the Passage of the First Amendment (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 65;
John Webb Pratt, Religion, Politics, and Diversity: The

Church-State Theme in New Yor/ζ History
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967); E. Clowes
Charley, "The Beginnings of the Church in
the Province of New York," Historical Magazine of the
Protestant Episcopal Church, 13 (March 1944):
6.
New York History Summer 2004
© 2004 by The New York State Historical Association
2018 23:12:14 UTC
302 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
in a perception of natural law and came to fruition through the
agency
of tradition. The development of this expectancy was an
evolutionary
process, growing with the experience of each generation. The
expectan
cy did not exist in 1624; it developed gradually and came into
existence
by the 1740s. This story begins with a colony that was diverse
in ethnic
ity, nationality, and religion and became even more so as the
colony
developed. It traces the stages by which this initial diversity

gave rise to
an expectancy of religious freedom that had come to fruition by
1740.
This development was fostered by several different situations
which
existed in the colony: in some instances, the colonists lived
beyond the
constraints of royal authorities; in other cases, the authorities
simply
ignored what the colonists were doing. Under this hands-off
policy,
people grew so accustomed to worshipping without interference
that,
on occasion, they clashed among themselves and with the
colonial
authorities. In all cases, the colonists sought to practice the
religion that
they had chosen. In time the colonists came to believe that they
had the
right to choose their own religion. This expectancy seldom took
the
form of written law (although legislative acts occasionally did
become
part of the process), but, in the colonial period, traditional

practices had
the effect of law in the mind of the people.4
The province of New York, unlike other British North
American
colonies, was founded by the Dutch, not the English. The Dutch
claims
to the area were based upon the explorations of Henry Hudson
who, in
1609, sailing under contract with the Dutch East India
Company, first
explored the river that now bears his name. In 1614, the New
Netherland Company received a monopoly over this area and
estab
lished a trading post at Castle Island, just below the site of
present-day
Albany.5 The company's charter expired in 1618, and another
group of
merchants, the Dutch West India Company, received a
"monopoly to all
Dutch trade and navigation with the Americas and West
Africa."6 The
3. For a discussion of the development of individual property
interests/rights, see Charles A.
Reich, "The New Property," 73 Yale Law Journal (April 1964),
733-787.

4. This process is not unique to the development of freedom of
religion. It is the same process, at
least in part, through which the common law itself was forged.
5. Michael Kämmen, Colonial New Yortç A History (New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975), 26.
6. Ibid.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
Carney New York Religious History, 1624-1740 303
Dutch West India Company began to occupy their claimed
territory in
1624. In April of that year, the company sent the Nieu
Nederlandt,
under the command of Captain Cornells Jacabson May, with the
first
settlers to the colony of New Netherland. These colonists, who
includ
ed Dutch Protestants and also Walloons, French-speaking
Protestants
from southern Netherlands, foretold the diversity that would
character
ize the colony throughout its history to the present day.7
The Dutch West India Company promoted the fur trade in the

colony. Early efforts to populate this desolate and distant land
failed to
excite most of the Dutch people, who enjoyed a reasonably
comfortable
life at home as a result of an expanding Dutch economy. To
attract set
tlers, in the 1630s and 1640s, the company authorized a series
of "free
doms and exemptions" that promised free land and local self-
govern
ment to any hardy soul "who brought five adults with him" to
the
colony.^ These offers brought a moderate growth in population,
but the
new immigrants were not Dutch, and most did not come
directly from
Europe. The ballooning population of New England drove some
English Puritans down the New England coast to the eastern
end of
Long Island, where they established the town of Southampton
in 1640
and soon expanded to found East Hampton and Southold. This
group
came to the colony of New York with a tradition of religious
dissent. In

some cases, these Puritans were dissenters twice over: they or
their
forefathers had fled from religious persecution in England, and
at this
time some of these immigrants were fleeing from religious
disputes in
New England. They would provide fertile soil for the future
develop
ment of the expectancy of religious freedom. By 1644, the
population of
the colony was already so diverse that the Jesuit missionary
Father Isaac
Jogues, a frequent visitor to the colony, wrote: "there may well
be four
or five hundred men of different sects and nations; the Director
General
told me that there were persons there of eighteen different
languages."9
7. Ibid., 29; Randall Balmer, A Perfect Babel of Confusion:
Dutch Religion and the English Culture
in the Middle Colonies (New York: Oxford University Press,
1989), vii.
8. Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of
New Yor, ed. Ε. Β. O'Callaghan
(Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1858), II: 551-57;
I: 119-123. Kämmen, Colonial New
Yor, 31, 34-36; Pratt, Religion, Politics and Diversity, 4.

9. Kämmen, Colonial New Yor, 37; Balmer, A Perfect Babel
of Confusion, vii.
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This was probably an overstatement, but the basic sentiment—
great
diversity in religion and ethnicity—was accurate.10
The Dutch Reformed Church was the only officially recognized
reli
gion in the Dutch Republic by the early seventeenth century,
but it was
not the only religion practiced in the country. Despite the best
efforts of
the Reformed ministers, the civil magistrates prevailed in their
efforts to
protect the religious minorities. The result was an uneasy
policy of tol
eration in the Netherlands, born from Article 13 of the Union
of
Utrecht of 1579, leading to tensions and power politics between
the

Reformed Church and the civil magistrates. The magistrates
attempted
to control the Reformed ministers who were vying with them to
domi
nate and direct Dutch society.11 This oppositional situation
was carried
over to New Netherland. The Dutch West India Company
controlled
the colony and looked to the Amsterdam Classis, which was a
loose
knit association of Reformed ministers of Amsterdam churches
who
were responsible for maintaining orthodoxy in Amsterdam and
in the
colony, to provide for the religious welfare of the colony. But
this rela
tionship was not without its tension. The company sought "a
lighthanded policy of toleration" to promote the colony's
success as a
commercial venture, but the company also had to contend with
the
Reformed ministers' demand for orthodoxy and religious
dominance.12
10. The religious and ethnic diversity of colonial New York is
the single fact upon which all his
torians agree and most have commented. William Smith, Jr., A

History of the Province of New Yor/{,
Michael Kämmen, ed. (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1972), I:
203—208; Thomas Jones, History of New Yorl{ during the
Revolutionary War, ed. Edward Floyd
DeLancey (New York: New York Historical Society, 1879), 2;
John Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker
Colonies in America (Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1899), I: 230; Patricia U.
Bonomi, A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial
New Yorf{ (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1971), 1—2; Curry, The First Freedoms, 62.
11. The traditional interpretation of the seventeenth-century
Dutch Republic as "a haven of tol
eration" has recently undergone some réévaluation. Andrew
Pettegree, "The politics of toleration in
the Free Netherlands, 1572—1620," in Ole Peter Grell and Bob
Scribner, eds., Tolerance and
Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 182—198;
see also Jaap Jacobs, "Between Repression and Approval:
Connivance and Tolerance in the Dutch
Republic and in New Netherland," de Halve Maen (Fall 1998):
51—58.
12. Oliver A. Rink, Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and
Social History of Dutch New Yor
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 228. The past
decade has been marked by a renewed
interest in the relationship between the religious and
commercial interests in the West India
Company's administration of New Netherland. Willem Frijhoff
has argued that religion did play a
significant role in the company's decisions; while Jaap Jacobs
and Oliver A. Rink have argued for the

dominance of commercial interests. All these historians,
however, have pointed out that the situa
tion was much more complicated than previously suggested.
Willem Frijhoff, "The West India
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The precariousness of this situation became problematic with
the
appointment of Pieter Stuyvesant as director-general of the
colony in
1647. Stuyvesant, a professional soldier and the son of a Dutch
Reformed minister, was director-general of New Netherland
from 1647
to 1664. He was a devoted Calvinist, "fiercely patriotic,
fearless in battle,
capable of towering rages, and an autocratic leader with a
reputation for
discipline and work."'3 The new governor and the Dutch
Reformed
ministers in the colony entered into a symbiotic relationship.
The gov
ernor ensured that the Reformed Church maintained its
exclusivity

within the colony, and the Church aided the governor in
preserving
order. In the colony the social situation became explosive
because the
governor refused to recognize the unofficial policy of
toleration.
Overturning the unofficial policy of benign neglect of the past,
Governor Stuyvestant sought to eradicate in toto all other
religious prac
tices, regardless of whether they were practiced in public or
private.
Prior to Stuyvesant, the unofficial policy had engendered an
expectancy
on the part of the colonists, especially the English dissidents of
the peri
od, that they would be permitted to practice their religion in
the colony,
at least in the privacy of their homes. This expectancy based on
past
policy and the governor's zeal collided, but the governor could
not
extinguish the colonial drive or desire for individual religious
free
dom.^ Religious freedom was an elixir which, once tasted,

would not
readily be relinquished by those who had enjoyed it.
By the 1650s, many Lutherans resided in New Netherland.
Some
were Dutch, but others were Swedes and Finns who had
established a
colony, New Sweden, on the Delaware River that the Dutch had
seized
and incorporated into New Netherland. In October 1653,
several of
these Lutherans petitioned Governor Stuyvestant for
"permission to call
a Lutheran Minister out of Holland and to organize separately
and pub
Company and the Reformed Church: Neglect or Concern," de
Halve Maen, 70 (Fall 1997): 59—68;
Jacobs, "Between Repression and Approval" de Halve Maen, 71
(Fall 1998): 51-58; and Oliver A.
Rink, "Private Interests and Godly Gain: The West India
Company and the Dutch Reformed
Church in New Netherland, 1624-1664," New Yorl{ History, 75
(July 1994): 245-64.
13. Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 223; Frijhoff, "The West
India Company and the Reformed
Church," 60. Stuyvesant was appointed director-general in May
1645 but did not arrive in the colony
until May 1647. Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in
America, I: 194—95.
14. For a full discussion, see Pratt, Religion, Politics and
Diversity, Chapter 1.

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3o6 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
licly a congregation and church."1? This effort by the colonial
Lutheran
church came close upon the heels of the that of Lutherans in
the mother
country, who had only recently gained a very limited right to
organize
there.1^ The Dutch Reformed ministers, the Reverends
Johannes
Megapolensis and Samuel Drisius, immediately sent word of
the request
to the Amsterdam Classis. Megapolensis argued that such an
action by
the Lutherans "would tend to the injury of our church, the
diminution
of hearers of the Word of God, and the increase of dissensions
of which
We have had a sufficiency for years past." To grant the
Lutherans'
request "would also pave the way for other sects, so that in

time our
place would become a receptacle for all sorts of heretics and
fanatics."1?
Acting on this correspondence, the Classis promptly solicited
the
support of the directors of the West India Company to oppose
the
Lutheran petition. The Classis and directors both feared "that
other
evil consequences might result: that Mennonites, as well as
English
Independents, who are numerous there, might seek to introduce
like
public assemblies."1® The directors of the company on
February 23,
1654, enacted a resolution opposing the Lutheran petition and
forward
ed it to Governor Stuyvestant.'9
The religious composition of the colony was further
complicated in
the fall of 1654 when "some Jews came from Holland" and
were later
followed by other Jews who were forced to flee from Brazil
when the

Portuguese defeated the Dutch there.20 Once again, the
Reverend
Megapolensis complained to the Amsterdam Classis and
requested its
assistance in driving "these godless rascals," the Jews, out of
the colony.21
15. "Letter from Reverends Megapolensis and Drisius to the
Classis at Amsterdam, 6 October
1653," Ecclesiastical Records of the State of New Yorfy, ed. Ε.
T. Corwin (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company,
1905), I: 317; Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 230.
16. For a careful examination of the Lutheran efforts to gain a
freedom of religion in the
Netherlands, see Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its
Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477—1806 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
17. "Letter from Megapolensis and Drisius to the Classis,"
Ecclesiastical Records, I: 317.
18. "Request to the Hon. XIX, to Prevent Lutheran Preaching
and Public Assemblies in New
Netherland, with Answer Thereto," Ecclesiastical Records, I:
320—21.
19. "Acts of Deputies Denying Lutheran Petition For a Pastor,"
20. "Letter from Reverend John Megapolensis to the Classis of
Amsterdam, 18 March 1655,"
Ecclesiastical Records, 1:335; Howard M. Sachar, A History of
the Jews in America (New York: Vintage
Books, 1993), 13—14; Rink, Holland on the Hudson, 233.

21. "Letter from Reverend John Megapolensis to the Classis of
Amsterdam," Ecclesiastical
Records, 1:335.
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In closing his letter to his religious superiors, Megapolensis
painted a
picture of what appeared to him to be the dismal religious
complexion
of the colony: "For as we have here Papists, Mennonites and
Lutherans
among the Dutch; also many Puritans or Independents, and
many
Atheists and various other servants of Baal among the English
under
this Government... ; it would create a still greater confusion if
the
obstinate and moveable Jews came here to settle."22
Stuyvestant, an ardent member of the Dutch Reformed Church,
feared the civil disorder that religious dissidents such as the
Lutherans

and Jews might cause.23 He issued a proclamation in early
1655, specif
ically aimed at both, forbidding any "conventicles" or
gatherings to cele
brate or worship pursuant to any practice other than the Dutch
Reformed Church. He also forbade the Jews from trading
within cer
tain areas in the colony. In the Netherlands, these actions were
not
blessed by the directors of the company. Writing to the
governor in
June 1656, the directors chastised Stuyvestant for his actions.
In very
direct language, they told him that the Jews were to be
permitted to
"quietly and peacefully carry on their business as before, and
exercise in
all quietness their religion within their houses." This was not a
grant of
religious toleration or full acceptance in society. The directors
were
possibly concerned that Stuyvestant's hostilities toward the
Jews in the
colony would be communicated to those Jews in the

Netherlands,
whereupon the Jewish investors in the company might
withdraw their
money from the company. Furthermore, the directive
specifically pro
vided that "Jews or Portuguese people however shall not be
employed
in any public service . . . nor to have open retail shops." The
Jews were
also required to live in what has subsequently become known
as ghet
toes: ". . . they must without doubt endeavor to build their
houses close
together in a convenient place on one or the other side of New
Amsterdam."24
22. Ibid., I: 335-36.
23. Governor Stuyvestant's aversion to Jews dated from his
earlier service as governor of
Curacao, Sachar, Jews in America, 14.
24. "Letter from the Directors to Governor Stuyvesant,
Concerning the Jews and Lutherans, 14
June 1656," Ecclesiastical Records, I: 352; Rink, Holland on
the Hudson, 234; Sachar, Jews in America,
13-16.
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3o8 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY
The directors also lamented that "[W]e would also have been
better
pleased, if you had not published the placat against the
Lutherans." The
directors then declared: "Hereafter you will therefore not
publish such
or similar placats without our knowledge, but you must pass it
over qui
etly and let them have free religious exercises in their
houses."25 Perhaps
encouraged by this nominal recognition, the Lutherans
continued to
press for freedom to practice their faith publicly. In October
1656, the
Lutherans in New Amsterdam petitioned the governor and his
council
for the right to "celebrate, with prayer, reading and singing."
Responding to this petition, the governor and council remained
steadfast
in their intention to prohibit "conventicles and public
gatherings, except

those for the divine service of the here prevailing Reformed
Church."20
The Lutheran question appeared unresolvable. The directors of
the
company continued to support the Lutherans' right to the
private prac
tice of their religion, but the New York Lutherans pressed for
the right
to worship publicly with the formation of a congregation under
the
direction of a Lutheran minister. In the summer of 1657,
Reverend
Johannes Ernestus Goetwater, a Lutheran minister, arrived in
the colony
from Holland. Once more, the Reverend Megapolensis raged
against
the Lutherans. In a petition to the Burgomasters of New
Amsterdam,
he argued vehemently that although the Lutherans could not
hold sepa
rate "conventicles," their numbers were increasing. He urged
no further
concessions because "[I]f the Lutherans should be indulged in
the exer
cise of their (public) worship, the Papists, Mennonites and
others, would

soon make similar claims."2? After considering this petition,
the
Burgomasters found that "[W]hen we deliberated on all this, we
could
not believe that the Hon. Directors would tolerate in this place
any other
doctrine, than the true Reformed Religion."2® This decision
was subse
25. "Letter from the Directors to Governor Stuyvestant,
Concerning the Jews and Lutherans, 14
June 1656," Ecclesiastical Records, I: 352.
26. "Petition of the Lutherans to the Governor and Council to
be Permitted to Enjoy Their Own
Public Worship, 24 October 1656," Ecclesiastical Records, I:
358—60; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker
Colonies, I: 231—232.
27. "Petition of the Reverends Megapolensis and Dress to the
Burgomasters, etc., Against
Tolerating the Lutherans, 6 August 1657," Ecclesiastical
Records, I: 386—88.
28. "Report of the Mayor and Aldermen of New Amsterdam
Upon the Petition of the Ministers
Against Allowing Lutheran Services, 14 July 1657,"
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quently ratified by the governor and his council, who ordered
that the
placat prohibiting conventicles "be retained and enforced
strictly."29
Attempting to explain and justify their position, they found this
action
"to be necessary for the maintenance and conservation not only
of
Reformed divine services, but also of political and civil peace,
quietness
and harmony."3°
Such actions did little to reduce the flow into the colony of
religious
dissidents, such as Puritans, Quakers, and Baptists. The
dissident
English religious sect, the Baptists, appeared in the English
areas of
Long Island outside the city of New Amsterdam in 1656.
William
Hallett, an Englishman living in the village of Flushing, was
convicted
of hosting and participating in Baptist conventicles. He was

fined fifty
pounds Flemish and banished from the colony. In the fall of
1657 the
Reverend Megapolensis sent notice to the Amsterdam Classis
of the
recent arrival of "Quakers, as they are callec' "31 He also
complained
once more about the continued presence in the colony of the
Lutheran
minister, Reverend Johannes Ernestus Goetwater.32
Governor Stuyvestant responded to the Quaker invasion by
issuing a
proclamation forbidding anyone from sheltering or assisting the
Quakers.33 This caused an outright rebellion by the English
settlers of
the village of Flushing. In a well-reasoned argument based
upon
Christian charity, the people of Flushing, many of whom were
Quakers
but some of whom were not, defied the governor:
The law of love, peace and libertie in the [Dutch] states
extending
to Jews, Turks and Egyptians, as they are considered the sonnes

of
Adam, which is the glory of the outward State of Holland; so
love,
peace and libertie extending to all in Christ Jesus, Condemns
hatred, warre and bondage; and because our Savior saith it is
impossible but that offence will come, but woe be unto him by
29. "Receipt of Report of Mayor and Aldermen by Governor-
General and Council,"
30. Ibid.
31. "Letter from Reverends Megapolensis and Dress to the
Classis of Amsterdam, 25 October
1657," Ecclesiastical Records, I: 409.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
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■ NEW YORK HISTORY
whom they Commeth, our desire is not to offend one of his
little

ones in whatsoever forme, name or title hee appeares in,
whether
Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker; but shall be glad
to
see anything of God in any of them; desireing to doe unto all
men
as wee desire all men should doe unto us, which is the true law
both of Church and State;34
This truly Christian proclamation resulted in the arrest and
imprison
ment of two Flushing magistrates, Edward Farrington and
William
Noble, who had been foolish enough to sign the Remonstrance
and then
appear before the governor after he had read it. No
documentation
exists that would explain what provoked Farrington and Noble
to do
this. One might, however, reasonably presume that the two
magistrates
were themselves Quakers or, at least, had Quaker tendencies.
The
Remonstrance then becomes a personal statement of faith; such
expres
sions were common among Quakers.

Attempting to raise his attack on the Quakers to a theological
level,
Stuyvestant issued a Proclamation for a Day of Prayer for
March 18. He
preached to the citizens of the province that God in his
righteous anger
. . . hath visited near and remote places, towns and hamlets
with
hot fevers and dangerous diseases, as a chastisement if not
punish
ment of the thankless use of temporal blessings; permitting and
allowing the Spirit of Error to scatter its injurious passion
amongst
us, in spiritual matters here and there, rising up and
propagating a
new unheard of, abominable Heresy, called Quakers; seeking to
seduce many, yea, were it possible even the true believers. . .
.35
But prayer was not the governor's only means of attack on the
Quakers.
On 28 January 1658, Governor Stuyvestant found Tobias Feaks
of the
village of Flushing guilty of harboring and leading "the
abominable sect

called Quakers." Feaks was fined and banished from the
colony, but the
sentence was suspended because Feaks confessed his sins and
promised
34. "Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of Flushing, L. I.,
Against the Law Against the Quakers
and Subsequent Proceedings by the Government Against Them
and Others Favoring Quakers, 1
January 1658," Ecclesiastical Records, I: 413; Rink, Holland on
the Hudson, 237.
35. "Court Minutes of New Amsterdam, 21 January 1658,"
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Carney New York Religious History, 1624-1740
to sin no more.36
Despite Stuyvestant's best efforts, in the fall of 1658, Reverend
Megapolensis continued to lament the inroads that various
other reli
gious sects were making in the colony. The English towns on
Long
Island were seeking an Independent minister because they
could not

find a Presbyterian; the Quakers "continue to disturb the people
of the
province."37 And a new religious attack had commenced. In
1642, the
French Jesuits had begun to proselytize the Mohawk. This
effort even
tually proved to be a failure. Later the French Jesuit Father
Simon Le
Moyne visited Manhattan "at the invitation of Papists living
there, espe
cially for the sake of French privateers, who are Papists, and
have
arrived here with a good prize."38 Nevertheless, the Jesuits
were never
able to establish a continued presence in the colony.
In 1660, the Lutherans of Fort Orange (Albany) began to press
for
their own church and to take up subscriptions to pay the salary
for a
Lutheran minister. In his report to the Amsterdam Classis, the
minister
at Fort Orange, Gideon Schaats, foresaw a "great schism" if the
desire
of the Lutherans was met.39

Like the Lutherans, the Quakers too continued in their
obstinate
ways. The governor dispatched the Reverend Drisius and the
under
sheriff to the village of Rustdorp on Long Island in early 1661
to break
up the Quaker conventicles which had been reported to him.
Although
the governor's representatives were unable to reach the
conventicle, they
did obtain the names of those who participated. The
townspeople of
Rustdorp were forced to sign an oath promising to inform on
anyone
who gave aid to the Quakers. Those few who refused to sign
the oath
36. "Sentence of Tobias Feaks, Schout of Flushing, for
Harboring Quakers," Ecclesiastical
Records, I: 415.
37. "Letter from Reverends J. Megapolensis and S. Dress to the
Classis of Amsterdam, 24
September 1658," Ecclesiastical Records, I: 433—34. Despite
Megapolensis's vehement opposition to
any religion other than the true Reformed Dutch Church, he
carried on an odd part professional/part
personal relationship with the French Jesuits dating from 1642.
On two separate occasions, he was
responsible for saving the lives of Jesuit missionaries, one of
whom was Fr. Isaac Jogues, whom he

ransomed from the Mohawks and sent to France. "Letter from
Reverends J. Megapolensis and S.
Dress to the Classis of Amsterdam, 28 September 1658,"
Ecclesiastical Records, I: 436—37.
38. Ibid., 1:436—39; "Isaac Jogues," The Francis Parkjnan
Reader, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New
York: DaCapo Press, 1998), 162—63.
39. "Letter from Reverend Gideon Schaats to the Classis of
Amsterdam, 22 September 1660, "
2018 23:12:14 UTC
were arrested and imprisoned.^0 These efforts by both church
and state
to vanquish the Quakers were unsuccessful. One year later, the
magis
trates of Rustdorp complained to the governor "that the
majority of the
inhabitants of their village were adherents and followers of the
abom
inable sect, called Quakers, and that a large meeting was held
at the

house of John Bowne in Vlissingen [Flushing] every
Sunday.'^1 The
governor responded by once again ordering the arrest of the
Quakers.
The orthodox sentiments of Governor-Director Stuyvestant
contin
ued to be out of step with those of the authorities in the
Netherlands.
These had now moved beyond their former position of
unofficial tolera
tion of private worship by dissenting sects. For even as the
governor con
tinued his persecution of the non-conformists, the States
General passed
and published an Act in 1661 promising religious freedom in
New
Netherland. The Act specifically sought to induce "all Christian
people
of tender conscience in England or elsewhere, oppressed" to
come to
New Netherland where they could establish a colony free from
persecu
tion^2 But how far the States General was truly prepared to go
to estab
lish freedom of religion in New Netherland quickly became a

moot
question, for in September 1664, an English fleet under the
command of
Colonel Richard Nicolls captured New Netherland, thus ending
the
Dutch control of the area. On 30 July 1673, the Dutch did
regain control
of the colony, but it lasted only until October 1674, when the
province
was returned to the English under the terms of the Treaty of
Westminister.43
This point in time has some importance for two reasons. First,
it
marks the end of the Dutch phase in the development of the
expectancy
of religious freedom in colonial New York. More importantly,
it fore
shadows the intrusion of a new contentious force into this
process—the
Church of England.
At first, an expectancy of some degree of religious freedom
based
upon the informal Dutch policy grew as the colony changed
hands.

40. "Council Minutes. Proceedings Against Quakers at Jamaica,
Long Island. Land at Flatbush,
1661," Ecclesiastical Records, 1:496—99.
41. "Council Minutes. Quakers in Flushing, 24 August 1662,"
Ecclesiastical Records, I: 526-27.
42. "Act of the States General and Conditions Offered by the
Dutch West India Company to
Settlers in New Netherland, 1661," Ecclesiastical Records, I:
499.
43. Kämmen, Colonial New Yori{, 89.
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With the English capture of New Netherland in 1664, the Dutch
Reformed Church lost its official status. Its church members
became
part of the general population that shared an expanding
expectancy of
religious freedom as the result of the guarantees given to the
Dutch in
the Articles of Capitulation. The formal transfer of the colony
of New
Netherland from the Dutch to the English government was
effected

through the Articles, which were a series of twenty-three
provisions
drafted by Colonel Richard Nicolls on behalf of the province's
new pro
prietor, James, Duke of York and Albany. In one sense, the
Articles
were a Bill of Rights for the Dutch who remained in the
colony. The
Articles specifically guaranteed the enumerated rights to the
Dutch citi
zens. Paragraph eight stated very pointedly: "The Dutch here
shall
enjoy the liberty of their conscience in Divine Worship and
church dis
cipline. "44
Furthermore, in the last decades of the seventeenth century,
Louis
XIV of France inadvertently contributed to the religious
diversity of the
province of New York. In the 1660s, the French king embarked
upon a
campaign of persecution of the Protestants within his country
that cul
minated in his repudiation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685,
thereby out

lawing Protestantism in France.45 During this period over
160,000
Protestant men, women, and children fled France. Many found
new
homes in the British North American colonies of South
Carolina,
Massachusetts, and New York.4^
Those French Protestants, Huguenots, who came to New York
set
tled in several locales. By the mid-1680s, they comprised
roughly one
third of the population of Staten Island, but most banded
together to
44. "Articles of Capitulation on the Reduction of New
Netherland, 24 August 1664,"
45. In 1598, the Protestant Henry of Navarre accepted
Catholicism and became Henry IV, King
of France. After all, as Henry said, "Paris is worth a Mass." In
an effort to reduce religious discord
in his country, the new king issued his famous Edict of Nantes.
Under this royal pronouncement,
limited freedom of religion was granted: Protestant rituals of
worship were permitted in two hun
dred fortified cities, towns, and villages, but were forbidden in
any town where a Catholic bishop
resided, and no new Protestant congregations were allowed to
be established after 1598. The Edict
suffered several reversals after Henry's death in 1610 before it
was finally revoked by Louis XIV in
1685. This revocation of the Edict resulted in a mass exodus of

French Protestants, the Huguenots.
See Jon Butler, The Huguenots in America: A Refugee People
in New World Society (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1983), 1, 14—15.
46. Ibid., 1.
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found the town of New Rochelle. They purchased the land from
the
Pell family and built their town from the ground up. By the
1690s, the
Huguenots had constructed their own church.47 In 1695, it was
esti
mated that 200 families comprised the French church in New
York
City, making it one-half as large as the Dutch Reformed
Church, but
twice as large as the Church of England congregation in that
city.4®
The decision of the refugees, who were seeking a land where
they could
practice their religion without fear of persecution, to settle here

must
certainly have been influenced by the expectancy of religious
freedom
that was shared by the other inhabitants of the colony.
This expectancy was reflected by the "Charter of Libertyes and
Priviliges Granted by His Royal Highness to the Inhabitants of
New
York and its Dependencies,"passed by the New York Assembly
in
1683.49 Pursuant to his instructions from Prince James, the
Duke of
York, Governor Thomas Dongan had convened the colony's
first elected
assembly in that year, and the assembly passed the "Charter."5°
Under
its terms, "no person or persons, which profess faith in God by
Jesus
Christ, shall at any time, be any ways molested, punished,
disquieted, or
called in question for any difference of opinion or matter of
concern
ment, who do not actually disturb the civili peace of the
Province."?1
The Charter provided that "the Churches in New York do

appear to be
privileged Churches . . . provided also that all other Christian
Churches,
that shall hereafter come and settle in the province, shall have
the same
privileges."52 These provisions are particularly significant.
This was the
first popular expression of the colonists' expectancy of
religious freedom
that was made in New York. It provides clear evidence that
such an
expectancy was alive and well there. With the second of the
foregoing
provisions, the colonists' representatives rejected the idea of a
single
47. Ibid., 146.
48. Ibid., 147.
49. "The Charter of Libertys and Privileges Granted by His
Royal Highness to the Inhabitants
of New York and its Dependencies, 30 October 1683,"
Ecclesiastical Records, II: 864.
50. "Instructions of James, the Duke of York to Governor
Dongan, 27 January 1683,"
51. "The Charter of Libertys . ..," Ecclesiastical Records, II:
864.
52. "The Charter of Libertys," Documents Relative to the

Colonial History of the State of New Yorf(,
1:115.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
established church by providing for an equality of privilege
among all
"Christian Churches."53 While this was not separation of
church and
state in the modern sense, it was a clear step in that direction.
The
duke, when he became king, subsequently refused to approve
the
Charter, thus denying it the effect of law. Nevertheless, his
refusal
could not change the fact that the people of New York in 1683,
through
their elected representatives, had come to a recognition of their
right to
freedom of religion. The Charter remained an expression of the
expectancy of religious freedom that existed in the colony.54
Dongan, as was true of all of New York's colonial governors,

was
aware of the diversity of religion within the colony. In his
"Report on
the State of the Province" in 1684, he wrote: "Here bee not
many of the
Church of England; few Roman Catholics; abundance of
Quaker
preacher men and Women especially; Singing Quakers; Ranting
Quakers; Sabbatarians; Antisabbitarians; Some Anabaptists;
some
Independents, some Jews; in short of all sorts of opinions there
are
some, and the most part, of none at all."55 Such diversity was
obvious
proof of the expectancy of religious freedom that existed in the
colony,
and under Dongan this expectancy expanded. In 1684, the New
York
City mayor and aldermen imposed a property tax for the benefit
of the
city and provided an exemption from the tax "for those of the
Calvinist
opinion."56 This exemption was most likely a concession to the
Dutch
Reformed Church and done to comply with the provisions of
the

Articles of Capitulation. The representatives of the Lutheran
church in
the city promptly petitioned the governor and his council that
the same
exemption be granted to their church property. Dongan and the
coun
cil, with little discussion, granted the Lutheran petition.57
James II's ascendancy to the throne in February 1685 marked a
peri
od of confusion in the policy of toleration. In the "Secret
Instructions to
53. For an extended discussion of "multi-established churches,"
see Levy, The Establishment
Clause, 12.
54. Kämmen, Colonial New Yor, 103—05.
55. "Governor Dongan's Report on the State of the Province,
1684," Ecclesiastical Records, II: 879.
56. "Petition of the Lutheran Church at New York to be Exempt
From Taxes. Order of Council
Thereupon, 16 September 1684," Ecclesiastical Records, II:
884.
57. Ibid.
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Gov Dongan," issued on 29 May 1686, James, a Roman
Catholic but
officially head of the Church of England, directed that "you
shall take
especial care that God Almighty bee devoutly and duly served
through
out your government: the Book of Common Prayer, as it is now
estab
lished, read each Sunday and Holyday, and the Blessed
Sacrament
administered according to the Rites of the Church of
England."5® Other
subsequent actions, however, were not consistent with James'
new appar
ent interest in the Church of England. Whitehall—with the
king's obvi
ous blessing—granted the New York City Huguenots' petition
that they
be allowed to trade freely with the British territories.59 These
French
Protestant merchants, not being English citizens, were
generally prohib
ited from trading within the English empire by the Navigation

Acts.
Then in April 1688, Dongan granted the Dutch Reformed
Church's
petition for incorporation.60 These actions, taken by King
James in an
attempt to garner the support of nonconformists, were,
nevertheless, par
ticularly provocative. In the first instance, the act of
incorporation gave
the Dutch Reformed Church a legal status that arguably was
equivalent
to that of the Church of England in New York. With the act of
incorpo
ration the Dutch Reformed Church became a legal entity that
was capa
ble of holding title to both real and personal property. In later
years, the
Lutherans also petitioned for incorporation on several
occasions, but
these requests were denied by the colonial governors and the
imperial
authorities at Whitehall. The Lutherans did not receive their
charter
until after the War for Independence.6'
58. "The Secret Instructions to Governor Dongan From James

II, 29 May 1686," Ecclesiastical
Records, II: 913.
59. "Petition by French Protestant Merchants Residing in New
York to be Allowed to Trade
Freely with All Other British Territories. Petition Granted by
Whitehall, 19 July 1687," Ecclesiastical
Records, II: 936.
60. "Petition of the Dutch Church of New York to be
Incorporated, 4 April 1688," Ecclesiastical
Records, II: 952
61. For an excellent summary of the Lutheran experience in
colonial New York see A. G. Roeber,
Palatines, Liberty, and Property: German Lutherans in Colonial
British America (Baltimore, MD: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), Chapter One. The state-
centered, conformist nature of
British religious policy, in New York as elsewhere, arose out of
painful circumstances. The religious
conflict and radicalism that had convulsed Great Britain during
the English Civil War and after
wards in the intolerant regime of Puritan Oliver Cromwell
caused a "centrist" movement to emerge,
which tried to chart a course between the Catholicism and
absolutism of the Stuarts and the radical
Calvinism of the Puritans. The centrists restored the monarchy
in 1660 and enacted a series of laws
designed to curb both Catholics and Protestant dissenters of all
sects. These laws included the Act of
2018 23:12:14 UTC

The inconsistency of the official religious policy, brought on
by con
tinued religious tensions, continued after the Glorious
Revolution of
1688—89 in England, and in 1689—90 with Leislers Rebellion
in New
York. The "Secret Instructions to Governor [Henry] Sloughter,"
issued
by William and Mary in 1689, combined James II's earlier
admonition
to initiate the use of the Book of Common Prayer with a grant
of "liber
ty of Conscience to all Persons (except Papists), so they be
contented
with a quiet and Peaceable enjoyment of it, not giving offence
or scan
dal to the government."^2 This was in accord with William's
promo
tion of the Act of Toleration, intended to relieve pressure on
non-con
formists, enacted the same year. Two years later, official
policy, as it was
now represented by Governor Sloughter, had made a turn.
Sloughter

attempted to fulfill the first part of the Instructions by
proposing "An
Act for ministers in every town, and their maintenance." The
act was
rejected by the Assembly, but the struggle between that body
and repre
sentatives of the British government was just beginning.6^
In spring 1693 the new governor, Benjamin Fletcher (1692-
1698),
addressing the assembly, renewed Sloughter's demand for an
established
Anglican church: "There are none of you but what are big with
the
privilege of Englishmen and Magna Carta, which is your right;
and the
same law doth provide for the religion of the Church of
England."64
Fletcher's exhortations were to no avail; the largely non-
conformist
Uniformity (1662) which required all ministers in England and
Wales to use and subscribe to the
Book of Common Prayer. This was superceded by the more
severe Test Act of 1673, that excluded
from public office (both military and civil) all those who
refused to take the oaths of allegiance and

supremacy, who refused to receive the communion according to
the rites of the Church of England,
or who refused to renounce belief in the Roman Catholic
doctrine of transubstantiation.
Inconsistencies in applying these laws were caused when the
Stuart monarchs Charles II and James
II attempted to intervene on behalf of Catholics. William and
Mary, who had been installed in the
monarchy by Parliament in the Glorious Revolution of 1689—
90 on agreeing to a number of condi
tions, one of which was to uphold the Church of England,
continued through their ministers to pro
mote the established church. However, William worked with
the Whigs in Parliament to enact the
Act of Toleration of 1689, which repealed many restrictions on
Protestant dissenters. In spite of this,
sentiment in favor of curbing the religious dissension that had
caused so much discord and blood
shed continued to be strong. It was this sentiment in Great
Britain and the official policy fueled by it
that clashed with the expectancy of religious freedom that was
evolving in New York.
62. "Secret Instructions to Governor Sloughter, so far as They
Relate to Religion, 1689,"
Ecclesiastical Records, II, 991; see also, Documents Relative to
the Colonial History of the State of New
Yor, III: 688-89.
63. "Council Journal, New York, 10 April 1691," Ecclesiastical
Records, II: 1013.
64. "Governor Fletcher's Opening Address, 10 April 1693,"

2018 23:12:14 UTC
assembly refused to act. Undaunted, the governor renewed his
proposal
at the next session of the assembly: "I recommended to the
former
Assembly the settling of an able ministry, that the worship of
God may
be observed among us, for I find that great and first duty very
much
neglected."65 This time, the new assembly chose to act on the
gover
nor's proposal, promptly referring the matter to a committee to
prepare
the necessary legislation. The committee quickly completed its
task and
placed the proposed legislation before the full assembly. The
act provid
ed "that in each of the respective Cities and Counties hereafter
men
tioned and expressed [the City of New York and Counties of
Richmond, Westchester, and Queens] there shall be called and
inducted

and established a good sufficient Protestant Minister to
officiate and
have the care of souls. . . ,"66 The Ministry Act was passed on
22
September 1693 and sent to the governor.
Governor Fletcher responded to the bill by requesting that the
assembly amend it by inserting language that vested in the
governor the
authority to appoint the ministers. The assembly, however,
quickly
rejected the governor's demand. Fletcher, angry and frustrated
with the
assembly, called them to appear before him. From the very
beginning
of his statement his frustration with them was apparent. "There
is also
a Bill for settling a ministry in this city and some other
counties of the
government, " he said. "In that thing you have shown a great
deal of
stiffness."67 The governor understood that the assembly had
deliberate
ly defied him:

I sent down to you one amendment of three or four words in
that
Bill, which, though very immaterial, yet was positively denied.
I
must tell you it seems very unmannerly. There never was an
amendment yet desired by the Council Board but what it was
rejected. It is a sign of a stubborn ill temper, and this have also
passed. But, gentlemen, I must take leave to tell you, if you
seem to
65. "Governor Fletcher's Opening Address, 12 September
66. "An Act for Settling a Ministry & Raising a Maintenance
for them in the City of New York
County of Richmond Westchester and Queens County, 22
September 1693," The Colonial Laws of
New YorFrom the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany, NY:
James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1896), I:
329.
67. "Governor Fletcher's Address to the Assembly,"
2018 23:12:14 UTC

understand by these words (calling the minister) that none can
serve without your collation or establishment, you are far
mistaken;
for I have the power of collating or suspending any minister in
my
government by their Majesties letters patent, and whilst I stay
in
the government.*^
With these words, the governor prorogued the Assembly, and
thus
began the controversy over whether or not the Anglican Church
was
established in New York.
Many English governors and officials of this period and a
number of
historians have argued that the Ministry Act of 1693
established the
Church of England as the official church in at least the four
lower
counties identified in the act. But not all historians have
agreed.
Sanford Cobb, in his analysis, has stated: "What in legal
construction it

[the Ministry Act] did, was to establish, not a church at all, but
six
Protestant Ministers in places named, and these ministers of no
specified
denomination, save that they must be Protestant."69 Later,
Clinton
Rossiter, reviewing this situation, remarked that if there was an
estab
lished church, under the terms of the Ministry Act, "no one was
quite
sure what it was."7°
In fact, what is not said, as well as what is said, in the act goes
against
any interpretation favoring the establishment of the Church of
England
anywhere in the colony of New York. In the first instance,
nowhere in
the text of the act is there any reference to the Church of
England or the
use of the Book of Common Prayer in the liturgy, although
such refer
ences were commonly used at this time. On the other hand, the
act did
specifically provide that "there shall be ... a good sufficient
Protestant

Minister" at the specified locations in the colony.71 The
obvious point is
that "Protestant" does not necessarily mean or specify Church
of
England. Therefore, the specific language of the act does not
support a
68. Ibid.
69. Sanford H. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in
America: A History ('New York: The
McMillan Company, 1902), 339.
70. Clinton Rossiter, "Shaping of American Tradition,"
William & Mary Quarterly, 3d series, XI
(1954): 522.
71. "An Act for Settling a Ministry & Raising a Maintenance
...Colonial Laws of New Yorl{, I:
329.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
narrow interpretation of it as establishing a specific
denomination any
where within the colony.

In addition, the composition of the assembly goes against this
inter
pretation. Colonial assemblies, generally, opposed the wishes
of their
governors. In respect to religion, it is unlikely that the New
York
Assembly, elected by a population that contained only a
minority of
Anglican church members, would want to establish the Church
of
England in the colony. Rather, under the specific language of
the act,
each "good sufficient Protestant Minister" was to be "called in
to offici
ate in their respective precincts by the respective Vestrymen
and church
wardens" of each church.72 This concluding provision of the
act was a
recognition of the established practice within the colony of
allowing the
people of each local church to select their respective minister.
The act
was, in reality, part of the developing tradition of religious
freedom in

New York.
Governor Fletcher's response also undermines interpretation of
the
act as establishing the Church of England in the colony. Upon
his
receipt of the act, the governor demanded a single amendment
to the
act. He wanted the selection of each minister by the vestrymen
and
church wardens to be "presented to the Governor to be
approved and
collated,"73 a means by which he could ensure that they were
Anglican.
The governor's request was summarily rejected by the
assembly,74 sug
gesting that this provision lay at the heart of the governor's
determina
tion to establish the Church of England in the colony and that
prevent
ing its passage was central to the assembly's resistance to such
an estab
lishment.
The assembly, in the years that immediately followed the
passage of
the Ministry Act, took the opportunity to clarify its intent in

passing the
act. In 1694, Governor Fletcher allowed the Anglican chaplain
of the
English army, the Reverend John Miller, to claim the benefits
under the
act. The assembly rejected the governor's action and found "by
a
Majority of Votes it is ye opinion of the board that a dissenting
Minister
72. Ibid., 1:331.
73. "An Act for Settling a Ministry ..., 22 September 1693,"
74. Journal of the General Assembly, 22 September 1693,1: 34.
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be called to officiate and have the care of souls for this City as
aforesaid."75 One year later, in response to a petition from the
"Church
Wardens and Vestry for the City of New York," the assembly
offered its
opinion "that the Vestrymen and Church-Wardens have power

to call a
Dissenting Protestant Minister; and that he is to be paid and
maintained
according as the Act directs."7^ These pronouncements by the
elected
assembly are important for two reasons. First, the assembly
clarified the
meaning and the spirit of the act. The act was not meant to
establish the
Church of England or any other denomination as the official
church of
the province. Second, the assembly, through the act, left it to
the people
to pursue their individual religious preferences. Each of the
assembly
members, elected by the inhabitants of their respective
districts, reflected
the interests and desires of the electors. Specifically, the act
reflected the
expectancy of religious freedom that was shared by the
population.
Governor Benjamin Fletcher had failed to convince the
assembly to
enact legislation that would establish the Church of England as

the offi
cial church of the province. Instead, the assembly passed a bill
that
authorized the people to call a Protestant minister of their own
choice,
thereby advancing the expectancy of religious freedom in the
province.
Faced with this reality, Fletcher disregarded the intent and
wording of
the Ministry Act and fiercely maintained that the Church of
England
was the official church of the province. By means of this
rhetoric, his
own persistence, and political power, he created an
interpretation that
the Church of England was the official church of the province.
So per
suasive was Fletcher that his interpretation has been accepted
by some
modern historians.77 More important, the creation of this
"official"
interpretation proved to be a dangerous tool in the hands of
subsequent
defenders of the Anglican church who used this interpretation
to argue

that the Church of England was the established church in the
colony.
There was, however, a quasi-legal basis for the actions of the
late sev
enteenth-century governors' efforts to portray the Anglican
church as
75. "Decision as to the Meaning of the Ministry Act, by the
Assembly, 12 February, 1694,"
Ecclesiastical Records, II: 1096,1097; Cobb, Rise of Religious
Liberty in America, 340-41.
76. "Journal of Assembly of New York, A Dissenting Minister
may be called, 12 April 1695,"
77. Kämmen, Colonial New Yor/(, 136; see also Bonomi, Under
the Cope of Heaven, 51—52, for a
discussion of the nature of the "established church" in colonial
New York.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
the official church of the province. In the secret instructions to
Governor Fletcher and the Earl of Bellomont (1698-1699), who
succeed

ed Fletcher, the king directed that "no Minister be preferred by
you to
any ecclesiastical benefice in that province, without a
certificate from
the Right Reverend Bishop of London, of his being
conformable to the
Doctrine and discipline of the Church of England."?8 Acting on
this
instruction, the Earl of Bellomont in 1691 reported to the Lords
of
Trade that he had rejected an act passed by the assembly to
establish a
non-Anglican minister in the province because "it being
contrary to his
Majesty's instructions."79 And again in 1700, the Earl of
Bellomont
refused to "countenance" or to "recommend" petitions from the
resi
dents of Queens and Suffolk Counties requesting the
appointment of
Protestant ministers who were not Anglican.®0 Bellomont's
actions
were an extension of Governor Fletcher's "official
interpretation" that

the Church of England was the established church in the
colony. The
assembly's actions and the petitions of the people of Queens
and Suffolk
Counties, however, illustrated that the people had rejected that
interpre
tation.
The religious diversity of the Province of New York continued
to be
a distinguishing aspect of its colonial history. Echoing the
statements of
earlier Dutch and English reports, the ministers of the Church
of
England at the close of the first decade of the eighteenth
century report
ed to the Bishop of London: "That it has been a general
observation that
considering the number of Inhabitants of the Colony of New
York no
place produces a greater diversity of opinion in matters of
Religion."81
In a practical attempt to deal with their own diversity, the
peoples of the
colony divided themselves into "virtually a series of colonies.
The com

78. "Secret Instructions to Governor Sloughter . . .
Ecclesiastical Records, II: 991; "Secret
Instructions for the Earl of Bellomont, 31 August 1697,"
79. "Earl of Bellomont's Report to Lords of Trade, 22 July
80. "Earl of Bellomont's Report to Lords of Trade, 17 October
1700," Ecclesiastical Records, II:
1392-93.
81. "Memorial of the Clergy of the Colonies of New York, New
Jersey and Philadelphia in
America To the Right Hon. & Right Reverend Father in God,
HENRY, Lord Bishop of London,
Relating to Mr. Poyer and the Church of Jamaica, New York,
13 November 1711," The
Documentary History of the State of New Yort(, ed. Ε. Β.
O'Callaghan (Albany, NY: Weed, Parsons &
Company, 1850), 3:224.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
mereiai town on Manhattan, the Dutch settlements in the
Hudson
Valley, and the Puritan villages on Long Island were quite
independent

of each other."®2 This geographical division enhanced their
expectancy
of religious freedom, breeding a peculiar sense of religious
identity and a
suspicion of those of differing beliefs. When people of
different beliefs
were mixed, conflict often followed. The area most hostile to
any effort
to impose Anglicanism was certainly the Queens County area
of Long
Island. The early Anglican ministers described this area to their
superi
ors: "The Inhabitants of this County are generally Independents
@ [sic]
what are not so are either Quakers or of no professed Religion
at all the
generality averse to the discipline of our holy mother the
Church of
England & enraged to see her Ministry established among
them. And
it was this area that became the battleground in the
government's drive
to establish the Church of England in the province.
The newly appointed governor, Edward Viscount Cornbury

(1701 to
1708), arrived in the colony in 1702.^4 Soon after his arrival,
Cornbury
began an uncompromising campaign to establish the Church of
England
in the colony. In the winter of 1702-03, the newly established
Anglican
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Lands
dispatched a
missionary/minister, the Reverend Mr. John Bartow, to the
colony. The
morning that he arrived at the church at Jamaica, Long Island,
to con
duct his first service, he was surprised to find that the
Presbyterian min
ister, Reverend Hobbart (a.k.a. Hubbard), was already
conducting a
service for his dissident followers. Not willing to be outdone,
that after
noon Reverend Bartow arrived first at the Church and began his
servic
es, so that when Reverend Hobbart arrived, he was the one who
was
surprised. This contest between the ministers quickly
degenerated into a

riot as the Anglican members of the congregation fought to
prevent
82. William E. Nelson, Americanization of the Common Law:
The Impact of Legal Change on
Massachusetts Society, 1760-1830 (Athens, G A: University of
Georgia Press, 1994), x.
83. "Letter from Reverend Messrs. Urquhart and John Thomas
to the Society for Propagating
the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 4 July 1705," Documentary
History, 3: 209.
84. Governor Cornbury has not fared well at the hands of
historians. He has generally been
depicted as an intolerant, abusive, cross-dressing tyrant. In the
most current work, the allegations of
cross-dressing have been called into question. Patricia U.
Bonomi, The Lord Cornbury Scandal: The
Politics of Reputation in British America (Chapel Hill, NC:
The University of North Carolina Press,
1998).
2018 23:12:14 UTC
their Presbyterian brothers and sisters from removing the
benches to a
nearby orchard where Rev. Hobbart had retreated to hold

services for
the dissenters.^5
The riot of July 1703 was more than a local battle between
Anglicans
and Presbyterians; it represented an attempt by the state to
impose the
Anglican church on the colony and break the people's
expectancy of
religious freedom.86 Governor Cornbury's order to the colonial
Attorney General May Bickley to investigate the disturbance
appeared
neutral on its face, but his ensuing actions left no question as
to his
intent.^ In the months that followed, Cornbury summarily
ordered the
sheriff of Queens County to eject the Presbyterian minister
from the
parsonage at Jamaica and hand it over to the new Anglican
minister,
Reverend William Urquhart.88 The governor followed this
appropria
tion of the dissenters' church property with orders to the church
war
dens and vestrymen of the Jamaica church to pay the Anglican
minister

with the taxes that had been collected for the parish minister
pursuant
to the Ministry Act of 1693.^9 The church wardens and the
vestrymen
refused to comply, and the governor fined them for their
resistance.90
In January 1707, Cornbury's efforts to effect religious
conformity
focused upon the city of New York. The population of the city
"con
sisted, at this time, of Dutch Calvinists, upon the plan of the
Church of
Holland; French refugees, on the Geneva model; a few English
Episcopalians; and a still smaller number of English and Irish
Presbyterians.'^1 It was to this small group of Presbyterians
that two
ministers, Francis MaKemie and John Hampton, came to serve.
The
Dutch Calvinists offered the use of their church to the new
Presbyterian
ministers and their congregation, but Cornbury denied the
ministers
85. "Letter from Reverend Mr. Bartow to the Secretary of the
Society for Propagating the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, 1 December 1707," Documentary History, 3:

211—12.
86. For references to this incident as a riot, see Bonomi, Lord
Cornbury Scandal, 216-17; Balmer,
A Perfect Babel of Confusion, 84.
87. "Order to the Attorney Geni to Enquire into a Riot at
Jamaica, 27 July 1703," Documentary
History, 3: 202.
88. "Lord Cornbury's Order, 4 July 1704," Documentary
History, 3: 205-06.
89. "An Order to the Sheriff, 4 July 1704, " Documentary
History, 3: 206, 207.
90. "The Church Wardens and Vestrymen Fined, 31 March
1705," Documentary History, 3: 208.
91. Smith, The History of the Province of New Yorf{, I: 125.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
permission to preach. This proved no obstacle to either
MaKemie or
Hampton, for they simply began to preach without the
governor's
approval. Within days the governor issued a warrant for the
arrest of
the ministers, and the sheriff apprehended the two.92

The governor ordered Attorney General Bickley to prosecute
MaKemie for "contemning and endeavoring to subvert the
Queen's
ecclesiastical supremacy, unlawfully preached without the
Governour's
licences first obtained, in derogation of the royal authority and
preroga
tive; that he used other rites and ceremonies, than those
contained in the
Common-prayer book."93 At the trial, the attorney general
argued that
the governor's "Instructions relating to church matters, had the
force of
law."
Despite Bickley's belief that MaKemie would be convicted,
"the jury
found no difficulty to acquit the defendant."94 The jury, drawn
from
the multi-religious population of the province, represented an
expectan
cy of religious freedom that was held by the general
population. The
jurymen considered Cornbury's efforts as unlawful persecution
of a dis
sident group, but more importantly, the actions of the governor
repre

sented another attempt to establish a state church.
Robert Hunter succeeded to the governorship of the province in
1709,
but did not arrive in New York until 1710, and served in this
capacity
until 1720. Under Hunter, the advancement of Anglican
interests suf
fered, not from any lack of commitment on his behalf, but
because of his
commitment to the law. The battle for the Jamaica church
continued.
In 1709 the Anglican minister died, and before his replacement,
the
Anglican Reverend Thomas Poyer, could arrive and take
possession of
the church and parsonage, the Presbyterians reclaimed their
church.
Reporting the loss of the church, a neighboring Anglican
minister wrote
to the secretary of the society: "There is a clause in the Act of
Assembly
for settling the Ministry in this Province, which empowers the
people to
call their Minister, accordingly the Dissenting Party of Jamaica

have
called a Dissenting Minister and entitle him to the parish
salary."95
92. Smith, History of the Province of New Yor}{, I: 125-26;
Bonomi, Lord Cornbury Scandal, 71.
93. Smith, History of the Province of New Yor, I: 127.
94. Ibid., I: 127, 128.
95. "Reverend Mr. Thomas Poyer to the Secretary of the
Society for Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts, 3 December 1710," Documentary History, 3:
221.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
Soon after Governor Hunter's arrival in New York, the new
Anglican minister, Reverend Poyer, sought redress from the
governor.
The Anglicans certainly expected that Hunter would follow in
the steps
of Cornbury and summarily order the dissenters to surrender
the
Jamaica property. The governor inquired of Chief Justice Roger
Mompesson as to how to proceed. The Chief Justice "gave his

opinion
in writing that it could not be done otherwise than by due
course of law
with a high crime and misdemeanor."96 By this, the chief
justice meant
that summary action, as had been taken by Cosby, was not
proper, and
that the governor or representatives of the church must take the
appro
priate legal action. In conformity with this opinion, Hunter
refused to
take any summary action to displace the Presbyterians and
settle the
minister's salary question. Instead the governor "begged him
[Rev.
Poyer] to commence a suit at my [Governor Hunter's] cost."97
Eventually, Reverend Poyer did bring an action for his salary,
but
the court denied it.9^ In part, the failure of Poyer's action was
the result
of the confusion that surrounded the decision to bring the
action. Many
Anglican ministers, including Reverend Poyer, believed that no
action
should be brought until so directed by the Bishop of London.99

The
combination of these elements, the governor's refusal to act
illegally, the
uncertainty of the Anglicans as to how to act, and the initial
refusal of
the court to rule in favor of Reverend Poyer on the salary issue,
fired
the resistance of the dissenters.
In November 1718, Reverend Poyer complained to the
Secretary of
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London that
even
though the court had ordered the taxes to be collected to pay
his salary,
the people of the town were saying that "if the Constables offer
to collect
it upon the Warrants the Justice have given pursuant to the
Writ afore
said, they will scald them; they will stone them; they will go to
Club law
96. "Letter from Governor Hunter to the Secretary of the
Society for Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, 25 February 1711," Documentary History, 3:
251.
97. Ibid. 3: 251; Mary Lou Lustig, Robert Hunter, 1666-1734,
New York's Augustan Statesman
(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1983), 107—108.

98. "Letter from Governor Hunter to the Secretary of Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, 25 February 1711, Documentary History, 3:
251—52; "Governor Hunter's Speech to
Clergy," Documentary History, 3: 257—58.
99. "Letter from Governor Hunter ...," Documentary History, 3:
260.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
with them."100 These were no idle threats. In December 1718,
Deputy
Constable Combs went to the home of Daniel Bull in Jamaica
to collect
"the Minister's Rate for Jamaica." When Bull refused to pay the
assess
ment, Comes threatened to seize his property to make the
required pay
ment. Bull then took up an axe and "said in very great hast he
[Bull]
would split his [Combs] brains if he touched anything
there."101 The
deputy constable withdrew and went for assistance. Although

he
returned with some "Sixteen or Seventeen people" to aid in the
execu
tion, Combs found that he was still outnumbered. A crowd had
gath
ered to help Bull, and "[LJifting up their Clubbs bid him come
if he
durst and gave him a great deal of Scurrilous Language and the
said
Bull advanced two or three steps from his Company towards
this
Deponent [Combs] and lifting up his Clubb told him if he came
one
foot forward he would knock out his Brains."102 Realizing that
this
was not a fight that he could win, Combs and his supporters
withdrew.
Daniel Bull and six of his supporters were eventually tried and
convict
ed of rioting, based upon their threats to Deputy Constable
Combs and
were fined twenty-six pounds ten shillings each.
The Jamaica Riot of 1718 is evidence of the continuing
expectancy of

religious freedom that was fiercely held to by many people,
especially
among the non-conformist majority such as Daniel Bull and his
neigh
bors. These men did not belong to the Anglican church, and
they were
prepared to oppose any attempt to bring them into conformity.
Furthermore, these men understood that their prosecution was
part of
the religious persecution that was being carried on by the
government
and the Anglican church. In their appeal to Governor Hunter to
reduce
their fines, they argued that their convictions rested on the fact
that the
prosecutor had empaneled a jury largely composed of Anglican
church
men.1^ This allegation was accurate, for in their response to
the defen
100. "Letter from Reverend Mr. Poyer to the Secretary of the
Society for Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, 4 November 1718," Documentary
History, 3: 281.
101. "Affidavit of Richard Combs, Deputy Constable of
Jamaica, 8 October 1718," Documentary
History, 3: 287.

102. Ibid., 3: 287-88.
103. "To His Excellency Robert Hunter Esqr. Capt. Gen. &
Governor in Chief of His Majesty's
Provinces. . . . The Petition of Daniel Bull . . .Documentary
History, 3: 284.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
dants' petition, the justices of the peace of Queens County
admitted that
"[T]his Jury consisted of some of the most principal men in the
County,
as well for Estates as Honesty; and if many of them were
Church-men,
we cannot think them the Less Capable of the office for that
reason."I04
It is difficult to determine with any accuracy the exact state of
the
expectancy of religious freedom that existed in the province of
New
York at the mid-point of the eighteenth century. Surely the
official

position of the government favored the Church of England and
its sup
porters. But the government-favored Anglican church did not
control
religion in the colony. The religious condition was best
summarized by
Reverend Poyer in his 1731 letter of resignation to the society:
. . . I have struggled withal amongst the Independents in this
parish having had several lawsuits with them before I could
have
the Salary which the Country has settled upon the Minister of
the
Church of England several other lawsuits for some Glebe lands
which we have lost and at last even the Church itself of which
we
had possession 25 years is taken from us by a trial at law (with
what justice I can't pretend to say). .. ,I05
This description of Poyer's twenty-five years in the colony
shows that
not only did the dissenters—the majority of the population—
continue
in their expectancy of religious freedom, but that they also
utilized
established social institutions, such as the courts, to protect and

further
their religious freedom.
The events outlined here make several important points about
reli
gion in the province. Between 1624 and 1750, New York was
the most
religiously diverse colony in British North America. The
religious
spectrum ran from the conservatives, such as Catholics,
Lutherans, and
Anglicans, to those of the reformed tradition, the Dutch
Reformed,
Congregationalists, and Presbyterians, to the more radical, such
as
Baptists, Quakers, and Moravians.
This divergence was particularly pronounced because each sect
fought to continue its existence. To some extent, the presence
of most
104. Ibid., 3:285.
105. "Letter from Reverend Mr. Poyer to the Secretary of the
Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts, 16 June 1731," Documentary History,
3: 310.

2018 23:12:14 UTC
sects was fostered by a combination of law and fuzzy official
policy. In
the first days of the colony, despite the presence of the state-
recognized
Dutch Reformed Church, the need for the Dutch to establish
and con
solidate their colony of New Netherland resulted in a limited
freedom
of conscience. This policy attracted the English Puritans and
Scottish
Presbyterians who had come to North America to escape the
religious
persecution of the Old World. In 1664, the colony changed
hands and
for the remainder of the colonial period (except for a brief
period of
Dutch rule from 1673 to 1674), England controlled the colony.
Officially this political change made little difference in terms
of reli
gion. The Articles of Capitulation of 1664 (reconfirmed in

1674) offi
cially recognized and guaranteed the continued public presence
of the
Dutch Reformed Church. Considering the religious diversity
already
existing in New York, the English monarchs had no choice but
to con
tinue the Dutch practice of permitting freedom of conscience.
Despite the assurances provided by the Articles, actual practice
dif
fered from governor to governor. Some governors-general,
Benjamin
Fletcher, the Earl of Bellomont, and Lord Cornbury, were avid
support
ers of the Anglican Church. These men sought to establish their
church
as the officiai church of the colony, in a manner reminiscent of
the
efforts of Pieter Stuyvesant to make the Dutch Reformed
Church the
established church in New Netherland. These efforts led to a
strong
resistance among non-conformists that fostered the
development of an

expectancy of religious freedom among the non-Anglican
population of
the colony. The earliest evidence of this expectancy was
exhibited by
the colonial assembly in 1693 when it refused Governor
Fletcher's
request for an amendment to the Ministry Act of 1693 that
would have
given the governor complete control over the appointment of
ministers
in the colony. In 1707, the jury in the MaKemie case refused to
recog
nize Lord Cornbury's authority to licence preachers and freed
the min
isters. Daniel Bull and his neighbors refused to pay the taxes to
support
the Anglican minister in 1718, going so far as to intimidate the
deputy
constable with physical force.
These events indicate that by the mid-eighteenth century, many
(if
not most) non-Anglicans in the province of New York held to
an
expectancy of religious freedom. This expectancy would later
propel

2018 23:12:14 UTC
them to oppose the Anglican efforts to dominate the colony's
first col
lege, King's College, in the late 1750s, and to oppose the
proposal for the
appointment of an Anglican bishop in the North American
colonies in
the 1760s. In the end, this expectancy would rise to the level of
a
basic—constitutional—principle with the refusal of the framers
of the
first New York state constitution to prefer any religious
denomination
over any other.
2018 23:12:14 UTC
Contentsp. 301p. 302p. 303p. 304p. 305p. 306p. 307p. 308p.
309p. 310p. 311p. 312p. 313p. 314p. 315p. 316p. 317p. 318p.
319p. 320p. 321p. 322p. 323p. 324p. 325p. 326p. 327p. 328p.
329p. 330Issue Table of ContentsNew York History, Vol. 85,

No. 4 (FALL 2004) pp. 301-425Front
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��3��3��0��]"A Cultural Stronghold": The "Anglo-
African" Newspaper and the Black Community of New York
[pp. 331-357]The St. Lawrence Seaway: A Bi-National Political
Marathon, A Local and State Initiative [pp. 359-385]Review
EssayThe APA Era in New York's Outpost Wilderness: Thirty
Years of Conflict and Progress [pp. 387-400]Book
ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 401-403]Review: untitled [pp.
403-405]Review: untitled [pp. 405-407]Review: untitled [pp.
415-417]Back Matter
DOI: 10.1093/alh/ajh021
American Literary History 16(3), © Oxford University Press
2004; all rights reserved.
Reading and Writing Terror:
The New York Conspiracy
Trials of 1741
Andy Doolen
This article returns to the mysterious string of 13 fires that
ripped through and alarmed New York City in the spring and
sum-

mer of 1741, beginning with a conflagration that turned Fort
George, one of British America’s strongest fortifications, into
ashes.
In the days that followed, each blaze contributed to the mystery
until
the report of a slave running from the scene of the tenth fire
per-
suaded the people of New York that the puzzling fires were
really
opening salvos in a massive slave insurrection. City officials
acted quickly, interrogating more than 200 people, black and
white,
and soon uncovered what they believed to be a gang of
dispossessed
slaves and Irish indentured servants, who, it seems, had planned
to
burn New York City to the ground and kill their masters.
Stunned by
the boldness of the plot, authorities immediately began to
investi-
gate and to prosecute hundreds of alleged conspirators.
Although
authorities knew disgruntled indentured servants to be key
conspir-
ators, blame fell squarely on the city’s large slave population.
In the
end, the colony of New York executed 30 slaves and 4 white
ring-
leaders, publicly flogged 50 slaves, and transported over 70
more to the
Caribbean slave markets, never to return.1
Was there really a conspiracy to burn New York City in 1741?
Unlike an uprising or rebellion, conspiracy was a crime of
reckless
speech rather than action, a verbal plan that threatened social

order,
and thus difficult to prove in any era. “Conspiracy lies in
asserting
and agreeing,” Thomas Davis writes, “in ‘loose talk’ of doing a
deed” (“Conspiracy and Credibility” 169). The recent
controversy
over the Vesey conspiracy of 1822 reminds us that while Anglo-
American conspiracy law might set the limits on prohibitive
speech,
none of the legal niceties mattered much when whites thought
they
heard “loose talk” coming from slaves. When we read the
official
archive of a slave conspiracy, we encounter a written record
authored by whites in a slave society, a culture of terror that
When we read the
official archive of a slave
conspiracy, we encounter
a written record authored
by whites in a slave
society, a culture of terror
that defended white power
at all costs.
378 Reading and Writing Terror
defended white power at all costs. One method of defense was
the
mass execution of alleged slave conspirators, almost always
made
possible by a special class of laws. For instance, during the
conspi-
racy panic in New York, the court relied exclusively on the law

of
Negro evidence, which had been designed to prosecute potential
slave uprisings. Negro evidence was defined as the
incriminating
testimony of one slave against another—the court needed no
other
proof than this to sentence a slave to death in 1741.2
Prosecutors went to great lengths to acquire such testimony.
Often the inducement was the King’s mercy: either testify
against
coconspirators and earn a lesser punishment or face a capital
charge
and certain execution. Prosecutors employed coercive tactics
like
the threat of the gallows and hanging the dead bodies of the
con-
demned in gibbets, offered “immunity” or protection in the form
of
a general pardon, and conducted dragnets, sweeping slaves off
the
streets for interrogation with the presumption of guilt. As a
result of
these practices, our view of the conspiracy trials must
necessarily
pass through an archive distorted by this violence; for the
historian
trying to sort out testimony according to degrees of coercion,
connecting the dots in the ashes of 1741 is a treacherous,
perhaps
impossible, undertaking.
The search for a verdict based in unimpeachable evidence
inspires the historiography of slave conspiracies, even when we
know
how white authorities elicited “facts.” The historian who wishes

to
retry the New York Conspiracy trials is even further
handicapped by
a valuable missing archive, the supreme court records,
destroyed with
other judicial documents from the era, ironically enough, in a
fire.
Furthermore, there are few revealing letters, journals, or poems
about
the trials or executions, and colonial newspapers simply
reported the
plot’s existence and then kept track of executions. A single
“eyewit-
ness” account remains, A Journal of the Proceedings in the
Detection
of the Conspiracy, written by Daniel Horsmanden, the city’s
recorder
and one of the three judges at the trials. He compiled his
documentary
account from the prosecutors’ notes, his memory of the
suspects’
examinations, addresses to the court by prosecutors and
defendants,
and both his firsthand reflections on the motivations of
particular sus-
pects and his proud commentary on the court’s timely vigilance.
His
“official” record of the proceedings has always been the heart
of all
investigations into what really took place in 1741. Publishing
this
record in 1744 as a way to silence public criticism of the court,
Justice
Horsmanden wanted to justify the court’s verdicts and
punishments. To
put it simply, this deeply flawed text—which Philip Morgan

calls an
“exercise in post-hoc justification of a controversial
prosecution”—is
the key piece of evidence in all subsequent historical
examinations of
the New York Conspiracy trials (164).
American Literary History 379
Thus, although even the finest historians readily regard this
mine as contaminated by the court’s practices of intimidation,
coer-
cion, and torture, they still descend into it to extract raw
materials
for interpretation. Some historians believe that no slave
conspiracy
occurred in New York in 1741 but that there may have been a
conspir-
acy among the prosecutors, whose deep-rooted racism and fear
of
African Americans escalated the violence into a witch hunt. A
second
perspective holds that what prosecutors saw as a vast conspiracy
to
overthrow English authority was actually loosely affiliated
gangs
who set fires as a way to cover their crimes. A third, and
related,
perspective claims that a vast conspiracy did exist, although
leaders
were not interested in establishing their own government.
Instead,
disgruntled slaves desired personal freedoms, and reacted
against the

master class by joining whites in stealing from the rich and
setting
their homes on fire. Finally, a fourth perspective believes that
there
was a conspiracy in 1741 to overthrow the imperial
administration
and take over the colony. From any perspective, the historian
must
find a way to resolve the problem of tainted evidence. There is
only
Horsmanden’s problematic text; no bodies of murdered white
people,
no organized escape to the northern frontier, no slave caught
with a
torch, and most important, no confessions from those thought to
be
the principle conspirators. In A Rumor of Revolt, Davis
resolves the
lack of reliable evidence by choosing to write an historical
fiction
that necessarily takes its dialogue, central characters, and
motiv-
ations from Horsmanden’s account. Marcus Rediker and Peter
Linebaugh create a fascinating narrative of heroic slaves
carrying
their knowledge of insurrection into all parts of a fluid Atlantic
world in a “Caribbean cycle of rebellion” (193), which finally
reached
New York City in 1741. Even if one considers this a possible
cause
for a revolutionary conspiracy, the only proof of its effects were
mys-
terious fires, forced confessions, and a suspect historical text.
Finally, Peter Charles Hoffer, swayed by Horsmanden’s insider
per-
spective, simply decides to accept the representation of events

as “at
least partially true” (8) and avoid the troublesome facts of
coercion,
torture, and false confessions. Like other historians before
them,
these can only construct their case from circumstantial
evidence.
Sooner or later everybody returns to Justice Horsmanden’s
under-
standing and memory of the critical evidence, of the
conspirators
themselves, and of their confessions and motivations.3
This article, then, goes in a different direction and elects not to
sift through the evidence in the hopes of convicting the true
culprits
or determining the extent to which a conspiracy existed. On the
con-
trary, I am interested less in the planning of conspiracy, more in
how
the events of 1741 converge with an imperial conflict known as
the
War of Jenkins’ Ear. Positioning Horsmanden’s documentary
history
380 Reading and Writing Terror
in this international context, my investigation considers how
white
panic, caused by conspiracy and war, shaped public perception
of
the fires. Two years before signs of a plot appeared in New
York,
the colony embraced this imperial war fought between England

and
Spain over “American” trade routes in the West Indies; from the
beginning, a bellicose patriotism of empire, sweeping England
and
her colonies, characterized the War of Jenkins’ Ear. By the time
of
the first fire in 1741, rumors of slave insurrections in other
colonies
had already alarmed New York, while war hysteria made many
colon-
ists suspicious of the slave population’s loyalty to England.
Many
wondered if their slaves were covert enemies who might join
forces
with Spain upon an invasion.4
Read alongside the War of Jenkins’ Ear, Justice Horsmanden’s
text becomes something more than a prosecutor’s dubious
justifi-
cation of the trials and, instead, offers us an unforeseen
opportunity
to understand the effects of England’s global ambition on
colonial
identity. In New York the war led the prosecutors to suspect the
city’s slaves—approximately 20 percent of the population in
1741—
as being involved in an international conspiracy to overthrow
the
colony. Instead of a documentary history of the trials, I want to
sug-
gest that Horsmanden’s text is a war narrative; it tells a story
about
how an evil Spanish empire, enticing the enslaved with
promises of
freedom, turned New York’s once loyal, obedient, and dutiful
slaves

into fierce enemies of the state. In my reading the war and the
con-
spiracy scare work together to reinforce white racial solidarity
in
New York.
My investigation of this dynamic will begin with an analysis of
the conceptual strategies Justice Horsmanden uses as he
composes his
official record of the conspiracy trials. How does Justice
Horsmanden
attempt to stabilize a racial hierarchy unsettled by the war and
charges of conspiracy? How does historical writing define,
support,
and/or escalate the terror that rules all slave cultures,
particularly
one mired in an acute crisis? The next two sections investigate
how
the War of Jenkins’ Ear might have shaped Horsmanden’s
historical
understanding of the conspiracy. Vexed by what it considered to
be
a war on two fronts—Spain on the Atlantic frontier and slave
rebels
within the colony—New York experienced a militarism that
made
a white identity the only safe identity. How did New York’s
own
imperial fantasies of Caribbean colonies help to transform the
local
conspiracy scare into a geopolitical crisis connected to the fears
of
a Spanish invasion? How did the war’s Caribbean theater of
action
shape racial formation in New York?

These strands come together in the final section, which
explains why Horsmanden’s history is left open, unfinished, the
threat of insurrection still hovering over the city. The refusal to
end
American Literary History 381
the narrative, to claim a world free of conspirators, is the
political
content of the form itself, the action of a colonial official
attempting
to rebuild social order by warning the public of imminent
disaster.
This crafted insecurity is our own cautionary tale. It is a sign of
a fractured colonial discourse that, once threatened, will work
com-
pulsively toward a single aim: to govern the shadowy territory
between fact and fiction, innocence and guilt, white and black,
and
in the process reconstitute its dominance. While Horsemanden
attempts to construct a history of the trials that monopolizes the
evidence, this article explores his failure to tell a story of a
colony
safe from future threats.
1. Artful Chronicle
During New York’s political wars of the 1730s, Horsmanden
rose to prominence because he was skilled at using the written
word
to defend Governor Cosby’s imperial administration against a
rival
group led by Lewis Morris, chief justice of the provincial court.
When the administration grew irritated with the opposition’s

crit-
icism, it charged the opposition’s public voice, the New York
Weekly
Journal, and its editor, John Peter Zenger, with publishing
seditious
material. Governor Cosby appointed Horsmanden to a council as
a
political attack dog “to point out . . . the particular seditious
para-
graphs” in the opposition press (Dictionary 249). Zenger’s
eventual
acquittal made the trial a milestone in defining the legal
freedom of
the press as well as the limits of imperial power. Despite the
acquittal,
Horsmanden established a reputation as a skillful partisan and
was
handsomely rewarded with a special license from the governor
to
purchase 6,000 acres along the Hudson River near Albany.
Nobody considers the New York Conspiracy Trials to be
a milestone on the grand march toward American
constitutionalism,
perhaps because of the court’s unprecedented assault on the col-
ony’s slaves; nevertheless, both cases reveal a new power of
print in
the American colonies. As Michael Warner remarks, official
docu-
ments “metonymically represented the aura of imperial adminis-
tration” (18) and opposition could potentially disrupt the
“networks
of power uniting the colonies and deriving from the English
courts” (19). At the height of the conspiracy trials, there was no
public resistance to either the prosecution or the administration,
but,

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