Black Maria is burned to death on Boston Common.

The enslaved woman is executed for having set a fire that kills a child and burns down the homes of Joshua Lamb and his neighbor on July 22, 1681. She is described by Increase Mather as “the first that hath suffered such a death in New England.” Robert Twombly later writes, “The severity of the sentence can be attributed to the death and to public hysteria over a rash of conflagrations set by servants of several races in and around Boston.”