Cuffee’s Trial: A Digital Graphic Novel

FAIN: MD-263929-19

Historic Hudson Valley (Tarrytown, NY 10591-1203)
Elizabeth L. Bradley (Project Director: June 2018 to December 2021)

Development of an interactive digital graphic work of non-fiction examining the 1741 New York Conspiracy through the trial of Cuffee, an enslaved man.

Historic Hudson Valley (HHV) requests discovery funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to fund the exploratory stages of the creation of a digital graphic novel provisionally titled Cuffee’s Trial. This product will depict the trial, and the historical circumstances surrounding the trial, of Cuffee, an enslaved man accused of conspiracy to commit insurrection in colonial New York. Cuffee, who was among the first of 37 men and women to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for what would come to be known as the New York Conspiracy, had a direct connection to Philipsburg Manor, HHV’s National Historic Landmark in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Cuffee’s Trial represents both HHV’s deep expertise in relaying the history of slavery in the north and our commitment to sharing this knowledge extensively through dynamic digital storytelling. The completed digital graphic novel will become part of our constellation of Slavery in the Colonial North digital products.