# Early conspiracies and uprisings  
Conspiracies - real and imagined - and actual uprisings were less frequent than marronage and escape, but they were more dreaded. The first significant uprising in colonial times erupted on 6 April 1712 in Manhattan in the city of New York. A group of 23 'Coromantins' (people from present-day Ghana) and 'Pawpaws' (from Benin) armed themselves with daggers, pistols, axes and clubs, and set a building on fire. As white men rushed to the scene, the Africans killed nine and wounded six before escaping to the woods. Seventy men were eventually caught and six committed suicide. Thirteen Africans were hanged; one man was chained and left to starve to death. Several others were burned at the stake - one, accused of killing a white man, was burnt over a slow fire - and another was broken on the wheel. Eight months later, 'An Act for Preventing Suppressing and Punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of Negroes and other Slaves' was passed. To discourage revolts, slaves declared guilty of arson, rape, mutilation or murder of white people were to 'suffer the pains of death in such manner and with such circumstances as the aggravation or enormity of their crimes [...] shall merit and require' (Hodges, 1999).