Hank Kennedy | April 24, 2025
The alleged plotters of the New York Conspiracy of 1741, the “most horrible and destructive plot that was ever yet known in these northern parts of America,” suffered greatly for their temerity. Seventeen Black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged at the gallows. Thirteen Black men were burned at the stake. The ostensible conspiracy was to be an interracial revolt of the poor against the wigs and ruffles-clad upper class. Historians debate whether the conspiracy was real or a product of the same kind of mass hysteria that begat the Salem Witch Trials. Regardless of what really happened, the incident is an intriguing episode in the history of colonial America.
Revolution By Fire: New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741, a Graphic Novel is the third in a series of adaptations by David Lester of the work of historian Marcus Rediker. Like the previous two, Prophet Against Slavery and Under the Banner of King Death, it comes to us from Beacon Press, a publisher associated with the Unitarian Universalists, which has become a convert to the cause of nonfiction comics. This year they also released an adaptation of Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Lester’s work takes inspiration from Rediker and Peter Linebaugh’s book The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, specifically the chapter “The Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth.” The comic follows the contention in the chapter that the conspiracy was, in fact, real.
As in their previous works, Lester and Rediker are telling history from below, a history of the damned of the earth. Their protagonists are not the royals of yore. For these unsung people, there was no one to record their every sneeze. In his introduction, Rediker notes that their lives were “recorded only by outsiders who were frequently their enemies.” It is only by “reading backwards” (a phrase borrowed from historian E.P. Thompson) that the truth can be revealed. The narrative of Revolution By Fire humanizes these figures. We learn their loves, their fears, their dreams.
In his afterword, comics scholar (and friend of mine, full disclosure) Paul Buhle discusses how the comics medium has been used to tell history of those living "below." Buhle is too modest about his own role in that noble history. He founded the journal Radical America, which featured “An Underhanded History of the United States,” a collaboration between writer Jim O’Brien and cartoonist Nick Thorkelson. The comic retold American history from the perspective of slaves, natives, and the working class. In 2008, Buhle, collaborating with labor cartoonist Mike Konapacki adapted perhaps the most famous example of history from below — Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States — into A People’s History of American Empire.
Revolution By Fire is divided into three parts, the conspiracy, the insurrection, and the trial of the accused. John Gwin, ex-pirate and freed slave, reappears from Under the Banner of King Death. He admits that, “We pirates could not bring the system down ... but we did give it a hard rattle.” Now, he plots a revolution among New York City’s poor against the oppression of the rich. Those rich nervously sip brandy as they fret about “a dangerous contagion of liberty” spreading among their inferiors. Gwin’s lover, Margaret “Peg” Kelley, proclaims that “Fire will be our signal — and our weapon of liberation. A new world rising from the ashes.” The revolt joins slaves, poor whites, Irish conscripts, and Cuban sailors. The effort taken to enlist the help of each group is an important part of the narrative.
Lester maintains the same scratchy style he’s used on his previous works. In a recorded discussion with Lester, he said that drawing history from below “requires a style that is as rough as the history being depicted.” He continued that he wanted readers to “feel the ink that’s been spilled on the page.” Many of Lester’s compositions are stunning, beginning with the eye-catching cover. His spreads of executions and revolts have a weight to them that will take readers' breaths away. He is also at home with smaller, more intimate moments, whether between Ginn and Kelley or the conspirators plotting at Hughson’s Tavern. Although the present volume is in a smaller format than his previous two works, this does not diminish the impact of Lester’s art one iota.
The storytelling, however, is at times confusing. The narrative is structured as a flashback, a wise choice giving us a thread to follow. Yet the roles and names of some characters get lost. The book could’ve benefited from a dramatis personae at the beginning, listing the prominent characters and their roles. The earlier two books in this trio didn’t have this problem as they focused on either one individual (Prophet Against Slavery) or a small group (Under the Banner of King Death). Obviously, a book detailing a conspiracy requires many more characters to share the spotlight. Gwin and Kelley are the heart of the book, though, and it's their tragic romance that’s the most heartrending.
The romance between Gwin and Kelley is a microcosm of the racial politics of the revolt as a whole. That poor whites and the upper crust were of the same color had no bearing. David Johnson, a white man, drunkenly promised in 1741 “to burn the town, and kill as many white people as he could.” Tom, a slave, described being recruited by white people who “wanted him to join to help kill the white people.” When Gwin and Hughson were gibbeted (a method of disgracing the hanged by leaving their bodies to the animals and the elements), the color of their skins began to change so that Hughson turned “a deep shining black” while Gwin “turned whitish.” Solidarity went beyond the grave, it seems.
To orient readers, the book includes a map of New York circa. 1741 with all the prominent locations of the story highlighted. Like Under the Banner of King Death, there’s a glossary of 18th-century working-class slang so readers can improve their vocabularies. If there’s nothing as good as the prior book’s “anchor your arses” (sit down), “men o’ ruffles” as a descriptor for the hoity toities of the upper class comes close.
In the aftermath of November’s election, many will be looking for art to guide them as we move forward in these dark, uncertain times. Revolution By Fire does much to light the way. It stresses the necessity of unity between races. It notes the long odds facing anyone who wants to turn the world upside down, to put right what is wrong, even when its necessary. Lester and Rediker have done a great service by rescuing this incident of revolutionary history from obscurity.
English (US) · 