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The Virginia Gazette Foreign News May 16, 1745
Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
Cautionary note: slavery-era racial violence and graphic executions
What is this article about?
A letter from Jamaica reports a discovered slave conspiracy to massacre whites and burn the town; troops arrested many, and some conspirators were hanged, burned, hung in chains, or deported.
Quality green show the numbers
Measured from the scan
— how cleanly the OCR engine read the characters
- Mean ink quality
- 98.0% The length-weighted average confidence across the OCR lines — the mean of exactly the per-line scores whose tails the two figures below report. Typical is 99%.
- Illegible ink
- 0.0% Text sitting in OCR-detected lines that scored below 80% confidence — very shaky reads. Weighted by line length, so one long bad line counts for more than a short one.
- Uncertain ink
- 0.0% Text in lines that scored 80–90% — somewhat shaky reads.
- Matches source
- 96.13% How closely the served text matches the raw OCR of the same boxes, letter by letter, after collapsing spacing and case. This measures agreement, not correctness: the OCR is often wrong and the extractor corrects it, so 100% does not mean perfect, and a low figure usually means poor scan text was rewritten rather than that text was lost (length vs source shows loss). Across pages, this is the worst fragment.
- Length vs source
- 100.3% Below 100% means text was dropped from the OCR; above means text was added to make it read.
Assembled by the extraction model
— whether the stitched-together text holds up; catches layout and segmentation errors, which the scores above cannot see
- Transcription confidence
- 96.0% (typical 96%) How cleanly the extractor could assemble what it was given. Low here with clean ink scores points at layout analysis — the characters were read correctly but grouped or ordered wrongly.
- Comprehension
- 90.0% Whether the piece reads coherently start to finish. Can stay high while transcription confidence drops, when only part of the component is affected.
Clippings
1 of 2
Full Text
Extract of a Letter from Jamaica, Feb. 2.
The Negroes here had conspired to destroy all the Whites, and had very near accomplished their Design, for they were to put it in Execution the Day after it was discover'd; which was as follows: One of the chief Conspirators' Wives told her Mistress, that she and her Master were to be murder'd on the Morrow as they went such a Road, and then the Neighbouring Planters were to be kill'd, and so they were to proceed to Town, and set the same on Fire, first at one End of it, and then at the other, and as People ran in Confusion to the same, they were to be stabb'd and destroy'd. This no Doubt would have occasion'd a great deal
of Blondhed, though they had not accomplish'd their Design. The Gentlewoman being much frightened thereat, writes a Letter to her Husband then in Town, to acquaint him of the Affair, but being at Cards when he receiv'd the Letter, put it into his Pocket, and thought no more of it 'til the next Day; the poor Lady being very uneasy in her Mind, and afraid to go out or stay at home, writes to Sir Simon Clark a Neighbour, to acquaint him of it; as soon as he saw it, he being of the Council, took Horse, and went to the Governor, where a private Council was held, and the Troop and Foot were raised, and ordered to be ready for a March next Morning, all which was carried on with Secrecy, and by Day-Light march'd to the Place proposed for the Negroes to meet at; when they came to the Place they found a great many Negroes, took 12 or 14 of them, and continued to take more of them by Degrees; some have been hang'd, some burnt, some hung in Chains, and some sent off the Island.
The Negroes here had conspired to destroy all the Whites, and had very near accomplished their Design, for they were to put it in Execution the Day after it was discover'd; which was as follows: One of the chief Conspirators' Wives told her Mistress, that she and her Master were to be murder'd on the Morrow as they went such a Road, and then the Neighbouring Planters were to be kill'd, and so they were to proceed to Town, and set the same on Fire, first at one End of it, and then at the other, and as People ran in Confusion to the same, they were to be stabb'd and destroy'd. This no Doubt would have occasion'd a great deal
of Blondhed, though they had not accomplish'd their Design. The Gentlewoman being much frightened thereat, writes a Letter to her Husband then in Town, to acquaint him of the Affair, but being at Cards when he receiv'd the Letter, put it into his Pocket, and thought no more of it 'til the next Day; the poor Lady being very uneasy in her Mind, and afraid to go out or stay at home, writes to Sir Simon Clark a Neighbour, to acquaint him of it; as soon as he saw it, he being of the Council, took Horse, and went to the Governor, where a private Council was held, and the Troop and Foot were raised, and ordered to be ready for a March next Morning, all which was carried on with Secrecy, and by Day-Light march'd to the Place proposed for the Negroes to meet at; when they came to the Place they found a great many Negroes, took 12 or 14 of them, and continued to take more of them by Degrees; some have been hang'd, some burnt, some hung in Chains, and some sent off the Island.
What sub-type of article is it?
Rebellion Or Revolt
Crime
What keywords are associated?
Jamaica Slave Conspiracy
Negro Revolt Plot
Massacre Plot Suppressed
What entities or persons were involved?
Sir Simon Clark
The Governor
Where did it happen?
Jamaica
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Jamaica
Event Date
Feb. 2
Key Persons
Sir Simon Clark
The Governor
Outcome
conspiracy suppressed; 12-14 arrested initially and more later; some hanged, burned, hung in chains, some sent off the island.