New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741, a Graphic Novel
by David Lester, Marcus Rediker, and Paul Buhle
About Revolution by Fire
Based on the little known real life “Slave Insurrection” of 1741, this book imagines outlaw fugitive John Gwin and an eclectic crew of renegades as they attempt to disrupt and overthrow the colonial social order
Rebel fugitive John Gwin was previously introduced in Under the Banner of King Death and this graphic novel continues his adventures. Revolution by Fire is a hypothetical look at the inner workings of the so-called “New York Conspiracy” or “Slave Rebellion” of 1741, following the figures who were considered the real-life masterminds of the plot.
Featuring an eclectic crew of African-American, Irish, and mixed-race Hispanic sailors, soldiers, and renegades, Gwin and his band are determined to capture New York City in their own names and fight the higher class “wigs and ruffles” wearing white people. Unfortunately for the conspirators, suspicions about an uprising were already in the minds of the Governor and his fellow elites, and the events that followed change the course of everyone’s lives forever.
Based on the chapter titled “Outcasts of the Nations of the Earth” in Rediker’s and Peter Linebaugh’s The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, the book provides a fly-on-the-wall view of a historical event reimagined, highlighting cooperation among races and classes that transcends the social order of its time—and inspire us today.
Revolution by Fire has been translated into Thai.