Spanish What?
- Colonial-NewYorker
- Oct 6, 2018
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 19
It was Monday, February 8th 1741, and in the morning edition of the New York Weekly Journal, John Peter Zenger, famous for his role in a libel trial of the 1730s, wrote these words under the rubric “London, October 7th”:
“The Utrecht Gazetteer assures us in an Article from Hanover of the 6th of Octob. That there is a Talk of certain overtures, that have been made to determine the War betwixt Great Britain and Spain, to the Satisfaction of the two Powers.”
What these “overtures” were would certainly be an interesting topic worth exploring, yet it might be more interesting, in relation to my previous post, to remove ourselves to a few months prior, to April of 1740. A war had broken out between Spain and England, later called The War for Jenkin’s Ear, a subsidiary conflict during the War of Austrian Succession [1740-1748], and in the escalating tensions, various New Yorkers volunteered their services for King and Country. Chief among those was Captain John Lush of Manhattan. He worked as a privateer in the West Indies, and in an engagement off the coast of Puerto Bello, he had won two prizes, the ships Neusta Senora de la Vittoria and Solidad.
Amid the various cargos often won in war, from holds full of Spanish Pieces of Eight to men fit for conscription into the Royal Navy, Lush had found a more lucrative prize: Spanish “blacks and mulattos”. Nineteen of them.[1]
Naturally, Lush sailed back to New York with his spoils in tow, and proceeded to sell those men at the local slave market.
Fast forward one year to the spring of 1741, and we have Daniel Horsmanden, a justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature and Recorder of the City of New York, write in his Journal:
“Towards noon a fire broke out in the roof of Mrs. Hilton’s house, at the corner of the buildings next to the Fly-Market, adjoining the East side of captain Sarly’s house…”
Captain Jacob Sarly was also a slave trader, who owned a slave named Juan de la Silva, a Spanish slave sold to him by none other than John Lush. Coincidence? Certainly no-one in 1741 thought so. Horsmanden continues his account of that noontime fire:
“…Upon view, it was plain that the fire must have been purposely laid on the wall-plate adjoining to the shingle roof…thus the fact was plain, but who did it, was a question remained to be determined; But there was a cry among the people, The Spanish negroes; the Spanish negroes; take up the Spanish negroes...”
Some more context might be necessary, as this wasn’t the first fire near the house of Captain Jacob Sarly, for a blaze at the house on the west side of Sarly’s had that same month been extinguished.
One fire among many.
Naturally, de la Silva was suspect, not only for involvement in this dual case of arson, but in the greater fear of slave-conspiracy unearthed in the late winter of 1741. How he figured into that conspiracy is certainly interesting, and how this relates to the Common Law in Colonial New York, the War of Jenkin’s Ear, and Daniel Horsmanden’s ability to tie two cases together, is worth a look. Check out next week’s post for more*.
[1] Lepore, Jill. New York Burning. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. Print.
*This is a part in a series of posts on the #1741slaveconspiracy which began here:
https://www.newyorkhistories.com/blog/initia and continues here:
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