Africans in America; 101; The Terrible Transformation; Interview with Thomas J. Davis, Professor of History, Arizona State University and author of "Africans in the Americas: A History of the Black Diaspora" 1 of 2

new words to describe i think the first europeans who came in had very different visions in indiana news from a real lack of understanding of what the place was what its dimensions we're so the desperation is an ongoing process and it's a process that's going to go on until the nineteenth century and that's a concept that one has to keep in mind to kill people saw different things the early englishman come over see something different from spaniards the spaniards see an eerie where they can gain wealth they're looking for gold and silver other commodities that they can put on the ships and then take back with him cortez shifts that paradigm creates plantations in swat settlements in maine which come over with the notion of initially doing with the spanish region is supposed to be a place where john can come over

and go out and find our goal old and silver put it in a bag so i get on the next ship sailing back to london i settle down with their fortune that change is served by a sixty thirty nine massachusetts they settled in the notion there is that whole communities come over and that's the real difference in massachusetts the entire community is not simply family photo communities and there really is the sense of creating a new england when people are familiar with the notion of the puritans and the idea of creating a place thats going to be better than the old place which is having problems of urban overcrowding on unemployment and moral decay and clone do you though a bigger ideas this was taught was described as in the world in that the decision was a world that in some way had a sense of that

state's it's more of you that there's a better than what it is something that was in this is quote uncivil one city on a hill was a notion it grows out but there are at least two kinds of emotions and one is the sort of notion that's developed by an intelligentsia who begins to write about this place and begins to work the creative vision or visions really of what it might be for mankind that is taking a barge view of socially development and history and so they are beginning to see this wilderness this place that some touched a place that is pure and can allow for further development of of humankind and of course that view is flawed in the notion of basic notion that the places untouched there are human civilizations living in a society it's here already the people who actually are doing the settlement not riding the grand stories

i think see a more limited vision of opportunity for themselves and their family it's a place where they can be free from some of the things that and aggravated them in great britain and elsewhere in a place where they can develop to be a person if they'd like to be the family's they liked me the communities that live today is their heart absolutely this harsh reality if we look at the regional jamestown settlement it's more interested people are dying right and left its it's not an exaggeration well the native americans in the area come and save the congress on thanksgiving as a holiday that is not so much about getting fat as it is celebrating its survival so there's a very harsh reality of it virginia and in new england with that

the pilgrims and the puritans in new england winters are or porsche can be very harsh so the mere act of settlement is is a feat that we sometimes don't have an appreciation of chopping down the trees and clearing land for farming it is a test that takes a tremendous amount of labor from getting the stones boulders rocks moved out anyone who's ever moved to stop with a firm backyard or someplace else and it should b when i understand a tremendous amount of physical labor that was involved and are further is the fact that you don't have those luxuries that you had earlier suppose you can

call witnesses ladies labor is sticky to wealth labor as the key to the growth of the americans as a society and there are basically two ways to proceed one is so what becomes the new england a mischievous smile where whole families communities are brought over the way the system really becomes a family labor system families a fairly large people working family farms family businesses the shots from time to time they'll hire a hand or two to help people together they do community bond raisins and other criminal activities the other planet of oz is one of finding labor someplace and wears labor to be found a labor is to be found among unemployed of inner cities and other places

those persons of become indentured servants who are working for two to seven years on average native americans are enslaved that is there'd be a caption and forced to work for indefinite periods and then of course the africans are important to work for an indefinite period as they call a period is a period where labor is scarce and labor scarce against the word in the context of the opportunities that are available people see vast lands to be cultivated the sea vessel announced they developed a natural resources a huge timber stands teeming rivers who is going to pull in that wealth and labor is the absolute key data and so the indentured servants initially and then increasingly africans virginia's junior indentured servants are the first wave

of the first of the labor that went into the state to do it seats and then first question what you probably africans individually coming before that famous ship that day john laughner of seventy journalists sixteen nineteen what the afghans are seeing is a wilderness forced into the plane's teaming quarters they've come to replace its undeveloped in the way the europeans invasion and development and they are put to task immediately in the same way that africans are or in what becomes manhattan to cut the trees to pick up the stones to move the boulders to level land put crops in the state's

water fish pond to do all the necessary and myriad labors that settlement in society demand house there is this this isn't my route of oregon says was a completely different from what they had known of the caribbean and the us lee collins what terms of time yes that is a by sixteen nineteen of the caribbean collins which had been pioneered by the spanish have a hundred years of development and away they have some subtle patterns they're beginning to move ahead they have found a product they think there is going to be profitable and that's going to develop into the future of plantations so the regimes the social structures are more settled on the caribbean at that the

time that we're speaking so that if one had been dropped off on a ship in the caribbean one would have going into more subtle pattern than would be the case if she won that ship and sixty nineteen in virginia where people are we're really still trying to sort out exactly how things will proceed or to put it differently this much more fluid at this would be everywhere a name or someone needs to keep that constantly in my book is much more fluid in virginia in the larger labor situation about half and americans than there is encrypted no injustice she rests in america's and describe him and what he isn't counting he comes from a gritty to the americas this question what would he confronts was he was potentially

be members of revisit what is what if these life was like in the caribbean was probably much more circumscribed much more confined he comes to work for jimmy finds a society that is just developing is getting in on the ground floor as it as it were i don't know which he was able to immediately envisioned that it would be opportunities form here that weren't available elsewhere i don't know that anyone could afford holder johnson story becomes though something of an exception in men he demonstrates first that slavery is not a lifetime tenure it's indefinitely the key is not that you're going to be a slow from the data born until the day and i was after all slavery as a status it's not inherent in any individual its relationship with others in a relationship recognized by the

society and the key to it is that its indefinite you're a slave until someone who has or forty over you declares you no longer be a slave in the eyes of the practice in society and in the us in the wall soon johnson works his way to the opportunity to become his own person as were to leave behind him and that status of slaves and then he goes on to do what he sees his neighbors didn't he seeks to get his own piece of ground his own piece of land to cultivate some foodstuffs to cultivate some foodstuffs that you can sell to others not only to consume but to enter into world the common two to barter to argue with his neighbors about the encroachment on his lands and crucial moment right to argue about his contract

right what he demonstrates is an early flu would agree that exists in what that reflects is that the is vast opportunity and relatively small population to take advantage of that opportunity so that people aren't confining everybody immediately to a niche the areas are rather bored and they allow movement and now this year is their recognition or does he have to give you here is a sense of race in anyway defiling those boundaries and finding one's place in an america of which is pass on society the eu johnson i think

certainly had a sense that while he was able to do some of the things his neighbors were doing getting his own piece of cultivating his crops getting a family taking care of them seeing them grow and flourish that there are boundaries that can find him that do not confine his neighbors and those boundaries are boundaries of class but also race i think that he's certainly recognizes that he's like people who don't have the opportunities that he does and he's mindful of the fellows with whom he worked in in the fields and elsewhere who remain bunsen but he's able to do some other things the fact that he's able to do so some other things that he can get one on ground does not remove him from being an african he is anthony johnson the african

and it seems to me that in some of the contests that he has where he is standing up for his his rise within contract or crochet and one on his land fighting trespass is another things that go part of that i think is about people seeking to take advantage of him because of four years and who he is is an african he's not an englishman is not a european the people were nice no electricity and was it mean to be an african or two to have been suspended fine but the question of being african his unhinged in question in intact blacks in the americas to come from time to time to describe themselves as africans and so in that time soon to come you have african churches that his churches to take in in maine toward africa

but in another way africa is a projection that we are coming later in history we're looking back in polls on these persons it reflects the removal of these people to the americans and they are developing an identity and what it means to be an african is different on several levels the first thing to recognize is that in sixteen nineteen sixteen nineteen seventeen twenty person has been capturing shipped over to the americas gets off the boat where he or she is not identifying himself or herself as an african the notion this identity being african something that they're going to develop from their interaction with others as they seek commonality when they get off the boat they

seem themselves in terms they are the communities from which they were wrenched is seeing themselves as mundane or ten they seem themselves as evil for animal house on the boat they may have been mixed with a person's from other ethnic backgrounds and beginning a commonality that's going to develop from this common experience as they get over to the americans they are going to broaden their community and as they board mccain this identification of being in africa developers is it's what they cheer with your brothers and sisters they're commonsense ancestry is africa that is their homeland that's what they share together so african develops net perspective but also has another perspective that is the prospective amount of an identity that's thrust upon the europeans look on them as an

md the other part of that is that there's an imposed identity the europeans look upon these people and they project an image on them they project an identity in that identity is africa to what that means is not american what that means is non european what that means a separation so that the identity of african hands of these two sides to it one side is an affirmation of calmness that proceeds from the people themselves the other side it is the projection of a separation the projection of a difference which comes from europeans how fitness think that notion and this is the moment and ethnic values his reply

and they lose quite get it does it feel that this issue of risk departments use race ethnicity and his time and being african working outside the large cities but we can be sure what's in his mind and often what we have the west does it with at least is a suggestion that he is not quite sure what to think about this but we're not sure what's in his mind when the tragedy of the forces household gets burned out and his possessions a lost in part of his crop is damaging the rest of it we can't know what what he was thinking but fine directors that we have left it is at least an understandable that he's not quite sure how this tragedy has before and

what the source is whether us someone who is jealous of the strides that he's made someone who's jealous of the new status that he's enjoying or whether it is just an accident he's not is not clear in this book to do is at least the suggestion that he's thinking that they were some ill minded folk behind that means that it has around somewhere around these sixteen poison that these things begin to change for the us is that he doesn't lose his fortune he's not be able to harvest it below the water he's living in virginia that he's encountered again because once again to change what's happening in the concerts and so effective what's happening every johnson was happy of virginia really the jamestown settlement that

is spreading out to become the virginia colony is that society is growing population is growing is more pressure on land and resources is more competition for ownership there's more competition for jobs there is now a better understand of the county's going to grow further and here's an event not so much to proceed by practicing custom as has been the case in many areas up to this point but rather to move into the area of the bright young minds of law so that begins to happen sixteen forties is that those who were controlling the region come on say to themselves well we see clearly that this practice of enslaving africans is going to go further is going to grow the fluidity that we've seen in the past the foolery that has allowed an anthony

johnson to serve less than a life term to acquire his own peace agreement to develop a free status is not something that we want to project is going further in the future we want a close down that opportunity we would begin to show some distinctions and we want to cut a fire and that's what's happening in the sixteen forties and it's going to go further into the sixty nine is in turn of the century and so that the labor force is going to become increasingly dominated by africans and african americans who are enslaved and who will be slaves most of them for life as was the case for rio every johnson's two years now is that is that is that he does have something to do with issues or concerns around class movement class

those who are coming in especially certainly part of the shift that's going on in the virginia colony in sixteen hundreds is a shift from a labor market that's dominated by indentured servants who are europeans who have contracts and you have recognize rights in society and africans who have no contract or not indentured servants but or slaves their captors forced to be where they are in the sense that they are they're going to come to dominate the labor market part of the reason may come to do that is not because the labor pool that has supplied indentured servants has won out what is rather the difficulties that have been recognized with that labor pool the

runaways and also a recognition that these wives who have come over as indentured servants after serving a two was seven years become free persons who've than compete on the same basis with others in the town so that there is a real focus on the issue of control of labor which is not an issue that's confined to sixteen forties it's an issue than once were out human history and sold slavery begins developed as a way to control a labor source is a way to have predictable a labor supply is constantly you know the

studio's decision the cases aren't punches search it a case which signals bright lines which have developed in the region a common distinguishing the indentured servants these runaways who've gone often been recaptured or to be punished what's the punishment to be clearly the crime is the same they've committed at the same time in each other's presence they've been cached at the same time so we talk about doing the same crime getting the same punishing hears a case we should be able to see them what happens is that the law says well these presidents or indentured servants these europeans are under contract for a particular term of service their punishment shall be editing to that term of service

this person runaway who is a slave is serving for an indefinite term there are no years to be added to that so that person standing in that status cannot receive the same punishment as though standing in the indentured servants tennis that was received some other pungent that punishment in this particular instance is to be what there is a clear indication of a primer distinction between service for a specified term of years and service for an indefinite it's big it's been sixteen point one

hauser is becoming more clear in the movies and how their laws sixteen forties and sixties fifties and there's a clear difference among groups races perhaps a concept that is going to come later as we know it today appears clear group identification and a variety of groups the english love the scotch thing was shot the irish english not the one of the africans are our separate themselves as non europeans other sometimes referred to as non christian longo that's not necessarily so other africans who when they are captured or even that constantine and christianity the sense of difference is growing

into a workplace in the distinction between indentured servants and slaves in regard to tenure service the clear element is that the indentured servants are going to be persons who work for a specified period of time under contract slaves or about contract their captors sorts without consent and without a contract being slaves and indentured servants and other once once or not indentured servants are doing much of the same work man so in the field and in the shops slaves weren't working and blacksmith for example working as cooper's reducing worker's others the distinctions don't like that was occurring now is in a

while slaves may have some common cause with those were indentured servants and with some white working in regard to how their employers are treating them that is the conditions of work what they have the proper tools and things events the africans are clearly distinct in the sense that they are occupying a particular status that is separate by custom and by low because the practice of enslavement the practice of holding these persons as characters holding them against they will having lunch them from the place of rebirth has more than a separate and distinct the fact they've sold as chattel marks them as separate and distinct the end not indentured servants and they certainly not free person and even when they leave the status of being slighted they are not like the others and johnson can go forward

and enjoy some aspects of life in the virginia company acquiring land but no one confuses him with his european neighbors so while the workers are in a position working there is a common cause they may be a common resentment against the controlling classmates preserve clear distinctions and different emotions but there still was not a confusion be indentured servant recognizes that he or she is not in african and is not to be treated as an african not tolerant being treated as an african many african who was enslaved does not have the rights and privileges that means protest the situation was really point

to create a separate races they say with the lives of others about differentiation we talk about his identification another side of her in one of the issues that's developing is how do we tell who's who who is who pardo was going on for example is then you have early distinction between christians and non christians and then what happens if someone is bad times so that as we go forward virginia maryland new york will pass boys saying that the one african convert the conversion has no effect on his or her status what the symbols is the issue of identification how do we know who's who the message a nation's laws are part of that in the sense that if we allow this

mixing if we allow a person who has one parent who is european american and one parent who's african american whoa whoa what will that person the wall that person's identification but more than that you know how long this is a nation was all were they really are laws that seek to impose control not merely in regard to race but in regard to gender because there was that are aimed at white women beginning offspring by black man that's where the real punishment comes in and they are one might know that the line of succession for slaves by war is defined in opposition to line of succession for the european a white population that is for the white

population succession inheritance follows through before it is to time among those occupying the slave status succession there is no inheritance kisses no property by law but it runs through the month with twitter with a mind simply ruin it is retarding the institution that has involved also so institutions oh rings no cellphones of north america kind of slavery that's purposeful to the shores of north america what impact is this new colony and it's slave societies plantations this site begin to have won this idea that statement into northern a slave and american identity cards

one the face recognizing regard to slavery is that it is an ever changing element slavery is a relationship between one person's its relationship recognized at will its relationship that exists within the context of the society and one meets remember that it's not an individual in saving another individual it's a society in slavery and individually by custom and horrible and low so that as we talk about slavery need to recognize that this is an evolving elements involving institution is ever changing has many faces it has common elements a world when we look at south carolina and what we see in the north american context is a comedy that begins to develop along the caribbean line

know what is that exactly well south carolina takes for itself elements that have been developed in the caribbean island of barbados the distinctive issue is that men in the caribbean african people's dominate the population they are the majority in south carolina comes to be such a card sixty out of every one hundred of the commerce bahrain the seventeen hundred survived seventeen hundred is a person of african descent are now virginia is a place thats not forgotten beef you look at virginia had done in the middle of the eighteenth century about forty three of every one hundred prisoners of african descent who live in the english colonies of north america living region want more south carolina as different is then black spot of majority as peter wood's the historic edgewood said so well in his

title black majority that's the history of congress within a few years what that means is in regard to the shape of a socialist solution what that means in regard to the confines of slavery is that we're and anthony johnson at the beginning of the seventeenth century in virginia was one of a few among more whites and handsome opportunity to move about hats and saluted the africans and south carolina or a maturity there are fears that immediately develop and regard that there are so many of them we cannot not allow them to have certain kinds of freedom certain kinds of mobility you were shut down certain elements of fluidity my school's off certain routes from the beginning from the outside so south carolina devotes one of the harshest slave codes

in the american colonies because it is back to social control feared being in the measure a stronger element of social control must be put in place to confine them to keep them in place that does that describe what's different here all uncharted published about britain's new territory that the us think about its clients conditions for the avid interest in looking in was the relationship between european and this and this and this would be like what's the relationship between the europeans and africans generally south carolina when the carolinas before the separation is one of give and take its one of mutual growth in the sense that one needs to recognize that africans are brought into south

carolina developing a rice says the principle crop of south carolina in large part because africans know why strong they are brought in to bring their knowledge and expertise to beer they know more about rice growing demand the european planters or insulating that so the airport over to teach as it were their techniques their methodologies in terms of their experience with the informant itself a summer the acne the afghans were brought over are familiar with that sort of topical climate with the heavy humidity this the swankier is there also elements of epidemiology that various people have had mentioned that africans seem to have had more exposure and had built

up some immunity to to certain kinds of problems that the mortality and morbidity don't necessarily have beer out the fact of this difference of the book is certainly the sense of the europeans coming to south carolina looking and looking at the place feelin the conditions are not eager to go out and test themselves against the armed stand have these characters and the or spraying to go out into that their grudging labor sensitive creative sentencing up our relationship between african americans in this kind of a situation like that not just because of the numbers but also in terms of cover it's just well the relationship between the europeans and the africans

in places like south carolina is very definitely any reflection on a power relationship and it is physical force and it's interesting that european europeans here don't have the technical knowledge it's the africans who have the technique allows the expertise at rice crop for example that doesn't translate into power that is that knowledge doesn't translate into power ease the force of arms that translates into power and its tracks from the africans were doing label who have knowledge week's pro cruz from them the value of that information at some point there's a real fear that because of the population

and so that seems to come from also the external forces that that could take advantage of a spanish americans can here's the economy the pay the murders of the late sixteenth seventeenth eighteenth century or of place tightly contested the european surviving themselves for heads of money over a particular years that struggle and strife is gonna go on a really until the time of the american

revolution one of the things that that does use to make a life in the colonies for the various populations very unsettled very insecure the english comes to living in south carolina are fearful of the spanish in florida these think that the spanish are going to encroach upon them take them over and after all the english of calm and encroached on the spanish to begin with so that there is this continual ebb and flow people are calling his arm very watchful of what's going on in europe because what's going on in europe very directly affects them if a war breaks out between great britain and spain then the english colonists in south carolina worried that spanish army is an eighties will come up from the caribbean will come up for flounder this is a time when the spanish are losing territory

to the british and vice versa but the british are increasingly dominant but there is this basic insecurity that is a and eleanor what end to that insecurity is the question of identification loyalty and allegiance to name to the africans and the african americans all legion someone are they part of us already part of them or they side with us or what they signed was then we see them as having grievances against us after war we're holding them captive in exploiting labor we aren't in june than what we're standing between them and freedom that is natural for us men two suspects and to expedite that they will make common cause with an enemy against us so

that as foreign enemies gather to the shore or loom in the distance the most callous a very much afraid that the domestic enemies whom they can see the enslaved africans to be will rise up and exact a just mentions know what so no summer going south carolina divorce in a context of hostility between spain and great britain prior to work what's known as the revolt the year before a group blacks made the way from south carolina into florida the spanish government florida welcome them gave them land essentially the

device will producer the release saying you see these persons or are fleeing me the english see how big the english are but more than that what he did was to issue a proclamation to induce others from south carolina to fall despair to settle the english in south carolina and what occurs then use that music a sense that perhaps more africans more of americans will follow this path they seem to be more testy they seem to be more nimble and then know what occurs in south carolina with a stomach wound down with this is a large group of african americans who actually shed a white blood burned plantation houses move

in a body southward frightens the population by realizing the specter that they've morning edition they've made it really made the rebels and vengeance this isn't isn't surprising the level of brutality that the athens the way it went today marks up to not drip the movie africans are no more less brutal than one would expect in such circumstances have been cuts and throats burn down buildings near ceo literally mutilation or anything that's where they don't exactly kind of vengeance on whites and whites do when they've capture the rebels the whites are cut off heads and hang on post so

no i don't see anything except children one needs to keep in mind that the seventeenth and eighteenth century or from a flavor perspective a brutal time punishments are are brutal people are or broken at the wheel they're tied to a wheelchair bones are heartbroken you have your arm broken have the other arm broken have weighed broken your back is broken that's the sort of thing that that today i trust most of this grimace at and brutality and the people love an earlier time saw that answer as reasonable and just punishment for transgressions what was someone's like what we see in the accounts this recognition of the values and this angle that education

what is this about you know things that occurs in these colonies of north american tour to africans being brought into the comments is that various sorts of identifications are placed on groups and often the identification zone regard to a particular port from which the ship may have sailed so that you get a group of slaves were known as paul paul kahn from their grandpa or little pony river area in africa the english or referring to angolans whether the person's are actually from an area that is angola is not always so unsubtle is clear it may simply have meant the ship less sailed from angola what divorce though is a sense among europeans in the colonies in general

that slaves from certain areas have particular characteristics slaves from the angola area are reputed among the english beat politically difficult to be rebellious and the descriptions of the revolt emphasizing that they're angolans among the screw their angolans and leadership in part play off of this so i see i told you so notion that these people are dangerous but there are some other elements that suggest that group did in fact exhibited certain kinds of military behavior in terms of gathering and retreating and skirmishing that reflected some experience in the englewood area is there

and how is this slave society of the state and reconstructing events such as the storm and nine one of the difficulties is to understand what plan what vision was in the mind of the africans and african americans were acting these things out they do not often get to leave us some memoir of of what they had in mind what develops from testimonies that we usually get more some conflict and stars as to whether the sense was that the rebels in in stone know we're going to be able to cut a swath on i'm from south carolina down through georgia into florida one would say that that looks like an unreasonable

perspective alone they were able to enjoy the success that they did in part because of the strategic moment when he struck on a weekend i'm without traffic around to immediately report alert for an anchor to society asked what was going on but as soon as it was learned that this group perhaps nearing a hundred africans headmaster dom themselves and actually killed whites and burn plantations the entire force of english north america was going to come down on them as this was an issue not mean for those in south carolina immediately surrounding this year this was an issue forty years every european communists everywhere in the comments too cautious and to provide some exemplary punishment part of the issue though this occurring is more might have been the rebels expecting hoping

that some spanish force would even distract the english colonists who the rebels in south carolina may have been expecting some spanish support either in spanish members of the crow speakership spanish ships were sighted carolina coast perhaps and they trust him or some other eighteen systems but clearly that forces near a hundred was not going to be able to will overwhelm can in any way but the best they could have hope for was to be the a way into the wilderness here but it's a long was a long way for them to go in one must then question what success meant i would expect that song those who rebelled at simply had enough said no hearing no further if i make it i live in freedom if i don't

make an ai dying on and quick of a slavery that i've been set free a lot of signs what song does is to not merely give life two what stunned does is to realize the fear of the great slave rebellion not only in south carolina but throughout the english comes soon as news gets out new yorkers are worried that though the slaves in new york city the city that has the second largest slave population to trust in south carolina that they're going to get out of

hand began really that blood will be shed in the streets and in fact they have in the history and seventeen twelve an example of slavery rising up killing in the streets so that here it is an example of a nightmare made wheels and that's it's affecting the reaction to it has to enact a more stringent combs to have some debate about whether the are africans should be allowed in the commons with the south carolina should continue to lie to the degree that it does all slave labor situation as well as viciously enslaved people and the picture is you know quite frightening and when you're sitting when he gets word of the storm

bands and it is very upset very new worried and not really about what's going on with deep their distant brother and but in terms of what may happen in their own house or some reason that they're worries that new york city is a place that houses that holds the second largest population of africans in many of the urban areas of the english colonies in north america about one in five persons it isn't is inside their concern is that they've had a rebellion india passed in seventeen twelve a group of about twenty five or so africans have started a fire about midnight and as whites came to put out the fire or a slave solomon and wounded others

cash a total of about twenty four twenty five and then fled they were eventually captured in twenty four africans lost their lives still no re candles the sense that that could happen again and that occurs in the backdrop we're the regime of slavery in your city is trained changing significantly in the seventeen thirties importation so into new york city have picked up and where the pattern had developed in the past it might be described as domestic slavery every gene dominated by african women working to do domestic chores the laundry the cooking things within the house was increasingly in the late scientists are decent beginning of seventeen forty more males are appearing and they're working not merely a domestic tasks but

they're working in shops they're working at arby's in labor's they're doing more skilled trade and they're creating more competition and this is a case in late seventies thirties and there's a petition to the acting governor of new york george clarke from the white working and saying listen something must be done about slaves working in these trades if they are not restraint why we're human will be forced out of new york and you'll be left only with these labors so there is this concern that's occurring right to shift and what is most threatening about the shift is not merely the economic side but the vision of the african american adult male calf american adult male and here we're talking about someone from sixteen to thirty years of the young adult male is seen as the most troublesome the most intractable

the most rebellious those are the persons were growing population goes a person's a white working on or about those the person's was slipping out at night going down to the two point shot by law they're not supposed to be out after a sunset by law they're not supposed to have any currency of their own by law they're not supposed to go and gather numbers of three or greater by law they're not supposed to be out drinking get every night there are doing all of these things some carousing with with white women making common cause with the white working man and others talking about how little bit horror use by the ruling classes how they will be exploited a talking about the news of the day that there's a war going on against a spanish the war of jenkins is here and making common cause them to offer austin making it clear that

they at least have thoughts that life should be different and are talking about taking action to make life different squyres says the conspiracy mr caesar who is a baker by trade is its holder jacob us market is is a baker and her caesar is one of his prime hands indeed and testimony park says that he never has any problems with caesar caesar is up and at sunset sunrise in the morning or stalking the heavens getting ready to make today's product but at night sees as other things to do in the park seems uninterested in restraining season from tumors of the fans fork is interested in caesar's labor unions seethe is apparently productive labor foresees

season in one white as his slave ss worker sees a season self clearly in another life he sees himself as a person who outside of work has another life has other things to do and it goes down to visit various to clean houses among his favorites are a one course you since the proprietors manning john hewson and his wife sarah another reason robinson run by john nunley and his wife lisbeth romney is rather well connected he's got relatives who sit on governmental bodies in the city and in college cesar visits these places which is clearly illegal here is drinking on making festive and he apparently has a relationship with a white woman whose name is margaret care analysts are that when she becomes pregnant in only seventeen forty that she's carrying

his child caesar's engaged in the variety of illegal activities based on breaking and entry and he's been publicly worked for had a hand in stealing some of geneva jan from a tavern in tone and he's a shady character is a man out on the make and he's reaching out for those things which the society has denied them when so this asserted that begin to happen or fires or begin to contribute to the sense of panic and hear what we are keeping in mind that the english common is in seventeen forty one not adhering to the caliber that we keep today so that they don't begin the years on january first rather they began the years on march twentieth

in what we would think of as seventeen forty one which for them was his seventh march seventeen forty because bill's budget but what happens in your city and seventeen forty one is that keeping in mind that the english are operating on a calendar where the new year begins on the twenty fifteen march and a week before new year's and the day after st patrick's day which is a celebration that has come to the common isn't that she developed in boston come down to mirror the fire breaks out a fire occurs in a place called for george for george sits at the southern tip of them and how closely are that we think of as a bad report

for georgia is the embodiment of the colonial governmental structure in your it is the governor's official residence so it's the main military barracks on manhattan island it holds the armory for wrote the military it's got the name czech police got a chapel it's got the provincial secretary's record so the land deeds in the unrest wealth a fire occurs at this point anyway immediately develops into a conflagration and so that between the time its first sight at about noon and other middle of the afternoon the whole place is burned down new york city at the time is a small settlement confined to the southern tip of manhattan and that's the whole planet's most of it is what instructions and people are absolutely scared to death the fire that has occurred

at least in major structure is going to spread to the rest of the town and that whole thing down it's really a tinderbox and it's not in a silly fear one needs to keep in mind that much of london england and burn down into sixteen sixties are also keeping in mind the peak with people and sending forty one don't know is that incentive seventy six much new work is in fact going to burn down in and catch fire but there's this fire at fortune it's a major conflagration it's still smoldering and the day after one of her curves other people or are up in arms literally they're afraid they don't know what's happened and the militias called allen and keeps order in the streets the hispanic people are talking about what the cause of this was no one knows immediately a week afterwards

almost to the day another major fire breaks out in van in the next three weeks there's a series of more than a dozen fathers and they begin to occur with increasing speed and as the series of fire is is a kind of people asking more more questions there fears mounting i was a foreign afford an accident what i could could've been was the only fire but as this rash occurrence a sense that the ease some evil hand behind this the violence and then people began to look for horwitz actually is it that's willingness is an and they began to see a black hair it began to worry that slaves are behind this that this is some act of vengeance that this is some pro union to rebellion and several things occur or one of the fire's takes place in next where residents we're one of the enslaved

persons news from a a small group who were known at the time as the spanish neighbors and these are persons who were captured board a spanish flu the solar that end the crew members who were visibly european and characteristics are jailed as prisoners of war whereas those on the crew who then after characteristics are sold in the admiralty a chord and put out of slaves and they petitioned and one of the things they say is that if you know set us free as we should be we remember in place and so as this fire crews next door to one story people say well you see they said they were going to burn the place down and looks like and doing a take up the spanish immigrants subsequently on nabokov it is

especially rosa taken up on madison and put in jail subsequently another fire occurs in act as fire quack phillips is seen fleeing from the scene and a shot goes up the negroes are rising and in response to that fire in his fleeing in april the year general dragnet goes out and just about every african american male over sixteen years of age is taken up and put in in jail crowded under the city hall what happens then is that an investigation begins an investigation is still be spearheaded by a justice of the highest court in corning new york man whose name was then that was amanda met set sail for prosecution is going to go from april to august and as result of the prosecution thirty black men are going to be burned stay seventeen to be hanged along with four

wives john hewson the owner of the tavern and his wife are going to be hanged along with the margaret carey who's accused of being caesar's mistress and another wide john deere it was accused of being a spanish spy and the underlying accusation is that these will be a slave uprising and the slaves and make common cause with the spanish you're going to invade new york city and taken over at first blush that meets seem on real estate but one might remember that new york city had been taken by the british in fact by sailing into the harvard conference it in that way and the dutch during the third anglo dutch war had retaken the city so the notion of a foreign enemy sailing into harbor to gain control of the city was not so far fetched panic or

what is considered a conspiracy this isn't some real hard evidence of that was that saints were controlled from this beginning county virginia and i think it was real hard evidence and in my book are about what i seek to do was to demonstrate the underlying reality of the prosecution team and the prosecution moves forward following all the rules of procedure other times they'd take special pains to a draft indictments that are correct letter to follow the strictures of the law that clearly the conspiracy that the prosecutors alleged in court that there was going to be a grand design that january was a spanish spy the evidence of that is not present but the evidence of the underlying a conspiracy i think his sound and what i mean by the underlying

conspiracy is that when sid caesar and prince and quack phillips and once solid got together and engaged in the thefts and other elements of those were conspiracies a variety of conspiracy zucker roosevelt's quack confesses to setting the fire that burned down for durant and he did that in part as resentment his wife was the cook for the governor governor forbade him to come visit his wife and a quack protests and they can be so i'm i'm going to come and see my wife anne the governor sent put centuries at the key question coming in still quack says ok here you gonna keep me from coming to see my wife and so what has happened in the conspiracy is that a variety of resentments and

conspiracy prosecution is that a variety of resentments are taken by the prosecution and board into one grand element in that one you see the whole ball as it were it seems unreal that hole was not proven how well when you look at the actual trial records the specific crimes which the persons are tried and convicted are parts of that but caesar when he is tried and convicted of a particular burglary that sound there's a notion that this is a conspiracy to pursue insurgents well this is not that world and the question of the entire files in terms of the killings have come out of the year that we had to crush this notion that nothing to do what we have are competing visions

among the blacks who testified you get a competing vision one simply say they are acting out of vengeance they want to get back for harsh treatment some say that they have a notion that the spanish and perhaps the french are coming and with this internal uprising will be able to take over the city and they're going to stay and will undoubtedly there's another vision that's what they'll do is to rack some havoc in the city the spanish and french will come and then they'll sail away to safety and freedom and prosecution doesn't have the evidence to prove its grand conspiracy in the vessel and women on another level with the prosecution is reacting to is this a vision of rebellious intractable continually

bothersome africans and african americans horns the conspiracy and sedition against which was manned an end is just as was mentioned and his fellows are moving against is an everyday reality and what war's mandarins view is it's captioned sense that he was closing his report on conspiracy and what he says is that these enemies of their own households having done once these things are unlikely ever again to do them his vision is that if your kids to go further what it must do is to rid itself not of slavery blood of slaves to make it a white man's land to make it a white man's place because the sedition the resentment the going out at night the theft the drinking and making

common cause with once their carousing the interracial play between the houston's in the blacks between caesar and margaret carey these are ongoing every day things into was mandan and those like him it represents the development of the society that he finds scare a society of which he is afraid the society which he has rightfully fearful thanks steve oh absolutely and it was true slavery is about the deprivation of self

is about one night being one's own person it's about one not only in one's self in a society where property is the basic notion that slavery is not about being house was so close to us it's not about being hungry it's a basic deprivation of freedom liberty it's the deprivation of being able to make your own decisions and choices it is the deprivation that is inscribed in a statement that one person is another person's property that's what one is working with we talk about slavery so that it's it's slavery is a reflection of a condition that has to do with a relationship between a person and another person between a person and a society it's not about a sense of deprivation of some particular circumstances and this theory that the world's religions are the pan party is all water the head

where does that place western societies one that has as a whole mark this notion of parker the acquisition a holding a property has come to define personhood personality what we see in the english colonies in north america in the sentiment in centuries is the acting out of this is the search for acquisition of property at the development of personality as the realization of manhood so it's not accidental that in looking at this favored groups look at the female's for example look at slaves look at outsiders african americans looking at people

whose access to properly is restrained and restricted now given that one state has a special kind of making itself a special kind of act of self determination you talk about the forest becomes part of you know weapons and go whoa one of the great adventures of life for african americans who began as slaves was to rid themselves of that element of the year oppression to get beyond that status working to purchase themselves working after they purchased themselves to purchase serve their loved ones so that they themselves could become the holders of their own property rights so they could be restored to personality and act out a greater

element of freedom recognize they still remain confined within the society in which they live because they remained outsiders although they've thrown off the status of slavery what they seek to do once they have thrown off the sadness of slavery used to recognize appreciate and enjoy the other elements of opportunity of which others in the society are able to achieve they would like to have a piece of property they would like to sustain themselves in a livelihood that provides their family with a werewolf or go for that light to increase their knowledge and education also the state of the commonwealth of persons for a larger individually that you see happening in north america as opposed to

what the american colonies developed as an area of marketing it as a land of marketing that is a notion that it begins with the earliest of the commons and once through the history of what will become the united states and the notion he is there is a break from that funeral passed weir one's identity who one wants was in fact a signed at work so there's a movement from what was at the script of society were who you were was ascribed to you at your birth to an achievement society where you could become a particular person you are not confined by who your grandfather was who your father was what their trades or you could become what ever it was you you chose to be whatever your talents allowed

human being but that notion of opportunity is premised on and on can find freedom that in fact does not exist for the entire population that exist for only a part of the population that and can find freedom becomes the basis of a mythology which is re find and realized and held up by particular individuals were able to go from the bottom to the top as if this was an ongoing and pervasive event sort of time finding slaves says it was sort of a dismissal isn't good and then just story first because it happened with them is is that he he went on what main challenges is as soon as something

what is that what the episode just venture smith's intervention in the argument between his wife and his mistress illustrate several aspects of the society of the day one of the things it illustrates is a differentiation of a gender role it's the male coming in as a dominant power to separate these bricker in females although century is the bond slavery he's still operates as a man that is in the role of the adult male to come in and separate these women on another element what we see here isn't an argument between the mistress and a slave and one might say well what could they be arguing about clearly other mistress says do so when the slave meekly humbly does so that was not the case that we're talking

about interpersonal relationships and interactions burgess his wife is going to speak her mind she spoke her mind including the mistress did not appreciate what she had to say apparently back down and venture comes in to play the world a mediator for which he's he's late to chastise because his mistresses husband then calls him to task not the mistress yourself directly but the nurse's husband again no evidence in this operation on the generals were also in the end when the real test will society it's not