History Department Lecture Series: “Anti-Popery, Patriots & Power From Below”

On February 16th, the History Department Lecture Series hosted a lecture titled, “Anti-Popery, Patriots, & Power From Below.” The talk mainly concerned a summary of the New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741, but also touched on a series of other fires in New York from 1769 to 1863. 

The goal of the talk, which was only the introduction to a graduate student’s proposed larger research project, was to offer modern historical insight into the context of the conspiracy and to pose questions as to different narratives that may have been unexamined previously.

Before we get into the contents of the talk, it is important that the history of the New York Slave Conspiracy of 1741 be established in case the reader is unaware. The New York Slave Conspiracy was a plot reportedly engineered by Irish immigrants and African slaves to cause destruction and debauchery with the aim of prompting a revolt in the early- to mid-eighteenth century. At the time, there was much anxiety in the British colonies and mainland England about a potential slave revolt.

One character of intrigue in the talk was an Irish woman, referred to in most documents as “Peggy,” who was thought at the time to be involved in the New York Slave Conspiracy. She was investigated and eventually executed by the authorities for allegedly being involved in arson with other co-conspirators.

Another character of intrigue for the talk was an Irish Catholic, named Horsmanden, who converted to Anglicanism, moved to the Americas, and eventually found himself working for the crown. He was, for a short time, in charge of the investigation into the plans for destruction in the colony of New York, and was responsible in part for the executions of Peggy and many of her alleged companions.

The talk raised questions about whether or not Horsmanden can be trusted as a source, or whether he is an unreliable narrator and more of a voice of propaganda than historical fact. The result of his leadership and testimonies was an increase of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment in the British colonies in America and in mainland England.

Most people don’t know the history of Irish-English relations, the tensions being muddled, and going back hundreds of years. This research project aimed to understand more about how events and unrest in the Americas affected how the Irish and English lived back across the pond.

Inversely, the project also aimed to elucidate the ways in which Anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment in England might have had significant impacts on the relationships between Irish Catholic immigrants and African slaves. 

The research project aimed to seek ways in which the Irish diaspora, driven by many factors, not the least of which was the succession of potato famines that struck the island, and the African diaspora overlapped. The points of historic interest didn’t stop there, but the research proposed offered new insights into the political landscape of American-British relations as the eve of the Revolutionary War came.