In 1741, New York City was in a state of panic over a series of fires that many believed to be the harbinger of a massive uprising of enslaved people. Slave insurrections were a constant source of anxiety during the colonial period in British North America (the thirteen colonies on the East Coast). By 1741 they had become an established fact of life. A fire in 1712 had marked the beginning of an insurrection, and with a large enslaved population in their midst, well-off white New Yorkers felt vulnerable. The Roman Catholics in the city were also deemed to be a potential danger.