Graphic novel "Revolution By Fire" explores New York's Afro-Irish uprising of 1741

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The New York Conspiracy, also known as the Slave Insurrection of 1741, was a true historical event that took place in lower Manhattan in 1741. But the only real record of the uprising is from the trial that happened afterwards. Nearly two hundred people were arrested—mostly free Blacks and Irish immigrants, along with some enslaved Black and Caribbean people—for allegedly conspiring to burn down the city and overthrow their oppressive white overlords.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, they were swiftly (and brutally) punished for these supposed crimes—even though evidence was scant, and the few eyewitness testimonies were constantly changing, and likely coerced by the very same authorities intent on making an example of the lower-class workers.

So what really happened in that fateful spring? That's the basic premise of Revolution by Fire: New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741, a new graphic novel by David Lester and Paul Buhle, adapted from Marcus Rediker's book, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. It's a fictionalized account based loosely on the court records, imagining that there was indeed an inspiring act of solidarity between the Black, Irish, and Cuban people—an organized workers' uprising against the power of capital.

Revolution By Fire takes a similar approach as Under The Banner of King Death, a leftist pirate history that Lester and Buhle also adapted from the work of Rediker (and which I also thoroughly enjoyed). That book imagined three primary fictional protagonists based on historical accounts—one of whom, John Gwin, sees his story continue into Revolution By Fire. He's just one of the many characters in the story loosely based on a name that otherwise only seems to exist in court documents. Lester, Buhle, and Rediker do their best to take what little known about the so-called guilty parties, and turn each individual into a fully-fleshed out human being.

This is both the strength of Revolution By Fire, and arguably its greatest weakness, too. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, and if you're not already familiar with the names from the court documents, you may get a little overwhelmed. Smartly, most of the narrative on Gwin and a few others, and if you let their hearts carry you through the narrative, you can treat the rest like window dressing. (Or an excuse to fall down an endless internet research hole. Your mileage may vary.)

While Revolution By Fire is ostensibly an historical narrative, there's also a certain timelessness to the story. It contextualizes a true event that occurred just a few decades before the founding of the United States, which helps to demonstrate connectivity between labor, solidarity, and marginalized peoples, and all the ways they've been exploited by rich white plutocrats across the centuries. People have been rising up against that power for a long, long time—since before this country even formally existed. And that power will stop anything to make a shameful public example of those who dare try to step out of line.

Same as it ever was.