John Ury (died 29 August 1741) was a Non-juring Anglican priest who was falsely accused of being a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

, a Spanish spy, and the mastermind of the

New York Slave Insurrection of 1741 The Conspiracy of 1741, also known as the Slave Insurrection of 1741, was a purported plot by slaves and poor whites in the British colony of New York in 1741 to revolt and level New York City New York, often ca ...

. His ability to read

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

was cited as proof of this. Under legislation passed in 1700, merely being a Catholic priest was, in the

Colony of New York The Province of New York (1664–1776) was a British proprietary colony and later royal colony on the northeast coast of North America. As one of the Middle Colonies, New York achieved independence and worked with the others to found the Unit ...

, a crime punishable by death.Lindor, Douglas O., "The 'Negro Plot Trials': An Account", ''Famous Trials'', University of Missouri - Kansas City, School of Law, 2009
/ref>

Background and career

He was the son of a former secretary of the

South Sea Company The South Sea Company (officially The Governor and Company of the merchants of Great Britain, trading to the South Seas and other parts of America, and for the encouragement of the Fishery) was a British joint-stock company founded in Ja ...

. William Kearns, quoting Flynn's ''The Catholic Church in N.J.'' (1904), mentions him as "a Catholic priest, who had exercised unostentatiously his sacred ministry in New Jersey, and had been engaged for about twelve months in teaching at

Burlington, New Jersey Burlington is a city in Burlington County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia. As of the 2020 United States census, the city's population was 9,743. Burlington was first incorporated on October 24, 1693, and was r ...

."Kearns, William. "New Jersey." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 28 Jun. 2014
/ref> Albert J. Menendez identifies Ury as a Non-juring High Church Anglican Vicar who supported the

House of Stuart The House of Stuart, originally spelt Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fi ...

's claim to the British throne and opposed the Glorious Revolution of 1689. Martin I.J. Griffin says "Ury was not a Roman Catholic priest, but a non-juror of the Church of England and a graduate of Cambridge University".Griffin, Martin I. J. "John Ury". ''Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia'', vol. 39, no. 3, 1928, pp. 225–238. JSTOR
/ref> In the spring of 1740 a number of Spanish sailors arrived in New York as captured crew of prize ships taken by British captains. Those who were dark-skinned were assumed to be slaves and sold at auction with the ship and its cargo. On 13 June 1741 five of these sailors were arraigned and charged with being involved in the plot. As Britain was at war with Spain, this increased the appearance of guilt. A search was then made for any Catholic sympathizers that might be in the city.''The New York Conspiracy Trials of 1741'' (Serena R. Zabin, ed.) Macmillan, 2004
For at least ten days before his arrest Ury had been under suspicion of being a Catholic priest. In her initial statement of 22 April, Mary Burton, the prosecution's main witness, testified that the Hughsons and Margaret Kerry were the only whites involved. All three were hanged on 12 June. Burton then amended her statement and identified Ury as "the real power behind the slave conspiracy", he was taken into custody on 24 June 1741. He was arraigned on 15 and 22 July. Having no lawyer willing to defend him, he defended himself at the trial. Throughout, Ury expressed his innocence. He produced witnesses who testified he was just what he claimed to be, a teacher of ancient languages. He tried to show that he was a Non-juring

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

priest, and denied being a Catholic. The chief prosecutor was Attorney General Richard Bradley. At this time James Ogelthorpe, founder and governor of Georgia, sent word to Prosecutor Joseph Murray that he had information that the Spanish were planning a secret attack on the British colonies:

Some intelligence I had of a villainous design of a very extraordinary nature and, if true, very important, viz. that the Spaniards had employed emissaries to burn all the magazines and considerable towns in the English North America, thereby to prevent the subsisting of the great expedition and fleet in the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
. And for this purpose many priests were employed who pretended to be physicians, dancing masters, and other kinds of occupations, and under that pretence to get admittance and confidence in families."

Oglethorpe's letter left little doubt that the colony was part of an international conspiracy, one which not only planned to infiltrate and destroy the city of New York, but also to engage its Protestant citizens in religious warfare. Ury was found guilty of conspiracy on 29 July 1741 and hanged in New York City on 29 August 1741.

References

, ''The trial of John Ury'' (1899) *"The Dying Speech of John Ury", Franklin, 1741
Bryant, William Cullan and Gay, Sydney Howard. ''A Popular History of the United States, Vol. III'', New York (1879), pp. 239-40
* ttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/15735/15735.txt Williams, George Washington. ''History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880'', Vol 1.br>Legacy: A Panicked Response To the 'Great Negro Plot'Terror in New York—1741
- Edwin Hoey,

American Heritage Magazine ''American Heritage'' is a magazine dedicated to covering the history of the United States for a mainstream readership. Until 2007, the magazine was published by Forbes.

, June 1974 *

William Cooper Nell William Cooper Nell (December 16, 1816 – May 25, 1874) was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the s ...

The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, With Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons: To Which Is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition And Prospects of Colored Americans
Electronic Edition. (1855) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ury, John 1741 deaths 18th-century executions by New York (state) Christianity in New York (state) American abolitionists 18th-century executions of American people People executed by the Thirteen Colonies by hanging Place of birth unknown Year of birth unknown American members of the clergy convicted of crimes Christian abolitionists 18th-century American clergy

Background and career

References

Further reading