This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Rev.
Jonathan Edwards delivered the hellfire and brimstone "spider"
sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" in Enfield,
Connecticut on July 8, 1741. This topical sermon is a bitter
jeremiad against the "New York Negro rebels" who were then being
executed for plotting to burn the village of New York to the
ground. From late May to August 1741, in the public market place
that later became known as "the Five Points", thirteen slaves
were burned at the stake, sixteen were hanged, hundreds were
jailed, and seventy-two were transported to certain death in the
West Indies. Contemporaries compared these events to the Salem
witch hysteria of 1692. When Edwards preached in early July,
twelve slaves had already been burned, and nine were hanged; the
minister had no way of knowing how many more would be tortured.
The courtroom tirades of Edwards’ personal friend, the
prosecuting attorney William Smith sent many innocent slaves to
their fiery deaths amid the