In the early 1700s, New York held one of the largest captive African populations in any of England’s stolen territories. One in five New York residents lived in bondage. The Maafa—the Atlantic trafficking and captivity of Africans—took on a distinct form in New York, where large plantations were rare. Many captive Africans were skilled artisans: carpenters, stonemasons, fishermen, and boatbuilders. They lived and worked alongside free and indentured Europeans, and some later intermarried upon gaining freedom.

On the night of April 6, 1712, roughly twenty-five to fifty captive Africans gathered in New York City, armed with guns, swords, and knives. The cause of the revolt remains uncertain, but it was clearly a coordinated act of resistance. The rebels first set fire to an outhouse, drawing Europeans to extinguish the blaze—then attacked, killing nine and wounding six before the night ended.

By the next day, the governor had called in both the New York and Westchester militias. Except for six freedom fighters who took their own lives to avoid capture, the rest were soon apprehended. Seventy captive and free Africans were imprisoned; of the forty-three who stood trial, eighteen were acquitted while twenty-five were convicted. Twenty were hanged, and three were burned at the stake.

In response, New York’s rulers imposed harsher laws to suppress further uprisings. The Assembly enacted “An Act for Preventing, Suppressing and Punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of [Blacks] and Other [Bondspersons],” severely restricting every aspect of Black life. Africans were forbidden to gather in groups larger than three, to carry firearms, or to gamble. Property destruction, rape, and conspiracy to kill became capital crimes. Captors were granted wide authority to punish those they enslaved “not extending to life or member,” and any who wished to grant freedom were required to pay a prohibitive £200 tax—far exceeding the price of a captive. Free Africans were barred from owning land.

Despite these brutal measures, New York’s colonial peace endured only twenty-nine years before another uprising shook the city.

Nb: The term Maafa is a Kiswhali word meaning “disaster.” It was coined by Marimba Ani to the describe the Trans-Saharan and Atlantic enslavement system and colonization. The term bondsperson is used instead of slave to describe African men and women who were caught up in the Atlantic system. Research has informed us that African men and women during this period from 1441 to 1888 were never “slaves” for what they experienced went beyond what was known as slavery. The African American scholar Hunter Adams named the Maafa experience as that in, as European enslavers’ attempted to destroy African people’s humanity.

Acknowledgement: These images were created in collaboration with AI (ChatGPT and Perplexity) as a visual commemoration of the New York City revolt of 1712 and its aftermath, drawing on historical research about the uprising, the public executions that followed, and the harsh slave codes imposed in response. Concept, historical framing, and curation by Meserette Kentake for Kentake Page.

Read more details of this revolt which were provided by Robert Hunter, who was the governor of New York and New Jersey from 1710 to 1719, in a letter to the Lords of Trade in London written three months after the insurrection, on page 2 below: