New York governor George Clarke's complex at Fort George is burned in an arson attack, starting the New York Conspiracy of 1741.

George Clarke was a British colonial administrator and landowner who served as the acting governor of New York from 1736 to 1743.

Fort Amsterdam, was a fortification on the southern tip of Manhattan Island at the confluence of the Hudson and East rivers in what is now New York City. The fort and the island were the center of trade and the administrative headquarters for the Dutch rule of the colony of New Netherland and thereafter British rule of the Province of New York. The fort was the nucleus of the settlement on the island which was at first named New Amsterdam and is central to New York's early history.

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 with a series of fires. Historians disagree as to whether such a plot existed and, if there was one, its scale. During the court cases, the prosecution kept changing the grounds of accusation, ending with linking the insurrection to a "Popish" plot by Spaniards and other Catholics.