Daniel Horsmanden (18)

Election date: 1744 (Elected to the original American Philosophical Society.)

Daniel Horsmanden (4 June 1694–23 September 1778) was a legislator and judge, famous for his role in the 1741 New York slave conspiracy trials, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1744. Born in Purleigh, Essex, England, he studied law at London’s Middle and Inner Temples. Financial troubles stemming from the South Sea Bubble prompted his relocation to Virginia in 1729 and to New York soon after. Horsmanden passed the New York bar and, through his cousin William Byrd of Westover, was named to the Provincial Council in 1732. In 1735, he participated in the Zenger trial. Between 1736 and 1737, he was named recorder of the city of New York; judge of the Vice-Admiralty Court of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; and third judge of the New York Supreme Court. When a series of unexplained fires and burglaries stoked fears that New York’s black population—and a handful of whites—were plotting an attack on its white inhabitants, Horsmanden presided over the ensuing trials. In 1744, he published an account of the conspiracy and a defense of the court’s indictments, which had ordered 154 blacks imprisoned, seventeen slaves and four whites hanged, thirteen others burned at the stake, and 71 banished to the West Indies. Horsmanden frequently switched allegiances between the different New York factions during his career. After losing and regaining his offices as the political winds changed, he was finally appointed Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court in 1763. In 1772 he served on the royal commission to investigate the Gaspee Affair, wherein a group of Rhode Islanders attacked a British revenue schooner that had run aground near Providence. Although his sympathies were Loyalist, Horsmanden was too elderly to play a role in the conflict over independence. (PI, ANB, DAB)



Member(s): Daniel Horsmanden
18.001
A journal of the proceedings in the detection of the conspiracy formed by some white people, in conjunction with Negro and other slaves, for burning the city of New-York in America, and murdering the inhabitants : ... containing, I. a narrative of the trials, condemnations, executions, and behaviour of the several criminals, at the gallows and stake, with their speeches and confessions; with notes, observations and reflections occasionally interspersed throughout the whole : II. an appendix, wherein is set forth some additional evidence concerning the said conspiracy and conspirators, which has come to light since their trials and executions : III. Lists of the several persons (whites and blacks) committed on account of the conspiracy; and of the several criminals executed; and of those transported, with the places whereto.
Creator(s):
Horsmanden, Daniel, 1694-1778 (Author)
Publication:
New York: Printed by James Parker, at the new printing-office, 1744.
Subjects:
Trials (Conspiracy) -- New York (State) -- New York. | Conspiracy -- New York (State) -- New York. | African American criminals -- New York (State) -- New York. | New York (New York) -- History -- Conspiracy of 1741. | New York (New York) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
Record Source:
AAS
References:
Sabin 33058 | Sabin 33059 | Sabin 33060 | Sabin 33061 | Evans 5413 | Shaw-Shoemaker 20384 | Howes H 652
APS Subjects:
Law | Politics | Slavery
Editions:
1x 1744 (New York), 1x 1747 (London), 1x 1810 (New York), 1x 1851 (New York)
Editions Note:
Four editions plus one abridgement: the first a simultaneous publication from the same type setting in both quarto and folio formats; the second a London reprinting bearing the same title in 1747; the third a New York edition from 1810 bearing the title, The New-York conspiracy, or a history of the Negro plot, with the journal of the proceedings against the conspirators at New-York in the years 1741-2; and the fourth a New York edition from 1851 bearing the title, The Negro conspiracy in the city of New York, in 1741. One section of the text, abridged from the 1810 edition, was also published separately in Philadelphia in 1899 as The trial of John Ury : "for being an ecclesiastical person, made by authority pretended from the see of Rome, and coming into and abiding in the province of New York," and with [sic] being one of the conspirators in the Negro plot to burn the city of New York, 1741.
Holding Note: APS has one copy of the 1744 first edition. View Holding


Member(s): Daniel Horsmanden
18.002
A letter from some of the representatives in the late General Assembly of the colony of New-York, to His Excellency Governor C------n : principally in answer to his message of the 13th of October last, and his dissolution speech.
Creator(s):
Horsmanden, Daniel, 1694-1778 (Author)
Publication:
[New York]: Printed [by James Parker], 1747.
Subjects:
United States -- History -- King George's War, 1744-1748. | New York (State) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
Record Source:
ESTC
References:
Evans 5984
APS Subjects:
Law | Politics
Editions:
1x 1747
Editions Note:
One edition.
Holding Note: APS does not own this text. Help the APS acquire this item.


Member(s): Daniel Horsmanden
18.003
The opinion of Daniel Horsmanden, Esq. one of the commissioners to review a judgment given in favour of the Moheagan indians, against the governor and company of Connecticut, concerning certain lands in controversy between them : upon the merits of the question before the Court of Commissioners.
Creator(s):
Horsmanden, Daniel, 1694-1778 (Author)
Publication:
London: Printed by W. and J. Richardson, [1769]
Subjects:
Mohegan Indians -- Early works to 1800. | Indians of North America -- Land tenure -- Cases -- Early works to 1800.
Record Source:
ESTC
APS Subjects:
Diplomacy | Indian | Law | Native American | Politics
Editions:
1x 1769
Editions Note:
One edition.
Holding Note: APS does not own this text. Help the APS acquire this item.