GABRIEL’S REBELLION (1800)
In a period of revolution—in America, France, Ireland and Haiti—the first slave
rebellion, led by Gabriel, deserves special attention, for it brought the elements of
organization into the most backward workplace: the plantations of Virginia.
Gabriel was born a slave in 1776 on the tobacco plantation of Thomas Prosser, in
Henrico County, southwest of Richmond, VA. By the age of ten, he was trained, along
with his brother, Solomon, as a blacksmith and, remarkably, was learned to read and
write. His great physical strength, his artisan status and his literacy—mingled with an
intense desire to free the slaves—made him a natural leader.
In 1798, Thomas Prosser died and the control of the plantation passed to his son,
Thomas Henry Prosser, just as a period of economic hardship struck the plantation
economy. Prosser responded in disparate ways: by cruelly driving his slaves while
allowing some of the skilled artisans like Gabriel, to self-hire themselves out in
Richmond for wages. Even though the Virginia legislature passed laws to restrict the
hiring of slaves, the laws were seldom enforced because local merchants relied on the
skilled self-hire slaves, who worked cheaper than white tradesmen.
Richmond was a dramatically changing city in the period of 1780-1800 and it
became the center of a thriving regional economy. Plantations, which had once been
isolated and self-sufficient entities, now shipped and bought commodities from
Richmond. Slaves were used to transport these good back and forth from the plantations
while other blacks, both slave and free, had positions as batteaumen, guiding these
wooden skiffs called batteaus, on the regional rivers and canals. In fact, these batteaumen
were so important that, in the period of the rebellion, Governor James Monroe was
reluctant to ship weapons to outlying areas on the batteaus, fearing that the batteaumen
would turn the weapons over to the rebels.
Richmond was a growing urban area, with a significant black population.
According to the federal census in 1800, slaves accounted for 47% of Virginia’s
population, with a higher percentage in the Richmond area. Within the city, 20% of
blacks were free, creating a large community, where slaves, free blacks and poor whites
lived, worked, worshipped and even socialized together. There were clearly extensive
communication networks among the slaves, both with news and messages carried by
individual slaves and by mass meetings, such as religious services or social events on
Sundays, where slaves of different plantations mingled.
Gabriel gained prominence in 1799, when he and Solomon tried to steal a pig
from a nearby tenant farmer named Absolom Johnson. When Johnson caught the
brothers, he fought with Gabriel, who beat him and also bit off part of Johnson’s left ear.
Gabriel was “tried” in the Oyer and Terminer court, where disputes were heard without a
jury, and was sentenced to 39 lashes and his left thumb was branded.
In the spring of 1800, Gabriel began to organize for the rebellion. The constant
mobility of slaves, and Gabriel’s prominence in the slave community, made it possible
for him to recruit hundreds of slaves.
If there was a good time for such a dangerous plan, the year of 1800 provided it.
The state of Virginia was seething with the presidential campaign between native son,
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, in a campaign to define the “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness” promised by the American Revolution. Gabriel even hoped—
incorrectly, as it turned out—that Governor Monroe might be sympathetic to a movement
by the slaves to free themselves.
A possible naval war with France and disputes with Native Americans on the
state’s borders also distracted the government. During the summer of 1800, Governor
Monroe was evaluating the state’s military preparedness and compelled the county
militias to collect all weapons and turn them in for reconditioning to the Richmond
penitentiary, temporarily transformed into an arsenal. At the same time, the state
purchased 4,000 new muskets, also stored in the arsenal, leading Gabriel to focus upon
this building as he planned his rebellion. Visiting Richmond on Sundays, he gained
access to the keys with the intention of arming the rebellious slaves.
One inspiration for Gabriel was the successful rebellion of the slaves on the island
of Saint Domingue, led by a coachman named Toussaint; always able to find
“l’overature,” or the opening, it became his historical name. On 1 August 1789, after
hearing of the events in France, the slaves rose up in a rebellion which was brutally put
down by the authorities after the rebels burned 6000 coffee estates and 200 sugar
plantations. Several years later, the rebels were more successful and, assisted by Spanish
military, they drove out the French troops and established the continent’s first black
government, successfully repelling counter-attacks by the French and British.
Toussaint L’Overature established a civilian government on the island, called
Haiti, with uniform currency and courts of law. Emigrants from Haiti, both white and
black, came to Virginia to spread the word of this successful slave rebellion and black
government.
Gabriel traveled the countryside in the spring of 1800 to gather recruits for the
rebellion. Some slaves joined for simple revenge against cruel owners, while others were
drawn in by the plan of seizing the state treasury. In general, there was simply the desire
to be free, to rouse slaves and free blacks and even some free whites. Gabriel often spoke
of creating a silk flag, with the motto “death or Liberty,” as an echo of both Patrick
Henry and of the Whiskey Rebellion, which had raged across the frontiers of Virginia in
1790.
Supported by his brother, Solomon, and by Jack Ditcher, the recruiting expanded,
including another one of Prosser’s slave, named Ben, and Ben Woolfolk, both of whom
would subsequently turn on the rebellion in exchange for mercy.
While Gabriel was not a religious visionary like Nat Turner, he used religious
gatherings for organizing, as slaves gathered to practice a religion which combined
elements of African worship with religious practices of The Great Awakening. While
white religion often preached submission to the slave owner, the slaves’ practices
emphasized the vengeful stories of the Old Testament, where oppressed tribes either rose
up or fled their masters. A favorite passage at these meetings was Leviticus 26:8: And five
of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight:
and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.
The rebels indeed began to gather swords, breaking plowshares in half so
blacksmiths, like Gabriel and Solomon, could sharpen them and put handles on.
Gabriel set 30 August 1800, as the date for the rebellion. The slaves were to
gather at Brook Bridge, about six miles outside Richmond, and march toward the city,
killing all whites along the way to protect the secrecy of their movement, although the
plans for the rebellion including sparing white Quakers, Methodist, French and other
abolitionists.
Entering Richmond, the rebels would divide into three columns: one would set
fires in the warehouse district, called Rocketts, to divert the attention of the whites while
the rest of the rebels seized the arsenal and captured the weapons. The armed rebels
would then attack the whites as they returned from Rocketts, and spread the word, hoping
for similar slave rebellions in Norfolk and Petersburg, which had been drawn into the
communications network over the summer. There was also some hope that the rebellion
would be joined by poor whites in Richmond and by the Catawba Indians, who lived on
the frontiers, and even a distant possibility that the French might provide military
assistance.
Two factors defeated the rebellion. A torrential rainstorm hit the area in the
afternoon, washing out bridges and making it impossible for the rebels to travel from
Henrico County into Richmond. At twilight, Gabriel decided to postpone the rebellion for
one day so the slaves tried to return to their plantations undiscovered.
More importantly, two slaves of Mosby Shepherd, named Pharaoh and Tom,
confessed to their master in late morning on 30 August about the planned rebellion.
Shepherd frantically worked to get a message to Governor Monroe, who then raised the
militia to patrol the area around the Prosser plantation. Patrols covered the countryside,
picking up any suspected conspirators and, within several days, more than 30 slaves had
been jailed in Richmond for a series of “trials” which began in the Oyer and Terminer
Court on 11 September. For their loyalty to their master, both Tom and Pharaoh were
freed after the rebellion was crushed.
Gabriel escaped and a warrant was issued for his arrest by Governor Monroe, with a
bounty of $ 300.00. In the warrant, he was described as “a Negro of brown complexion
about 6 feet 3 or 4 inches high, a bony face, well made and very active, has two or three
scars on his head, his hair is very short . . .He can read and write and perhaps will forge
himself a pass, or certificate of his freedom.”
After hiding out in Richmond for a week, Gabriel escaped down the
Chickahominy River toward Norfolk. He swam out to the schooner Mary in the middle of
the river, hoping to convince her captain, a former plantation overseer named Richardson
Taylor, to carry him out of the country. Lured by the bounty on Gabriel, however, two
men on the Mary, a slave named Isham and a free black named Billy, alerted authorities
when the boat docked in Norfolk. Gabriel was captured and brought back in chains to
Richmond.
Gabriel was interviewed and his execution was postponed in the hope that he
would identify other conspirators, but the leader refused and was hanged alone on the
Richmond gallows at 15th and Broad Streets on 10 October 1800. By legend, his last
words were: “I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have
had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put to trial by them. I have adventured
my life in endeavoring to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am willing to sacrifice
to their cause; and I beg as a favour, that I may be immediately led to execution. I know
that you have pre-determined to shed my blood, why then all this mockery of a trial?”
More than 70 slaves were eventually tried and 44 were hung, often near to
plantations as a public spectacle to intimidate the other slaves. Some rebels were
“transported,” or sold south, while a few were declared innocent. By Virginia law, the
state had to compensate the owners for executed or transported slaves, so the owners
received the enormous sum, for the time, of $ 8,900.00. A final count of slaves who
participated in Gabriel’s rebellion is impossible to determine, as figures range from 200
to 50,000.
The consequences of Gabriel’s rebellion were extraordinary, depending upon
which side one supports. The white ruling class became watchful for signs of other
uprisings, even though many officials publicly claimed that the slaves were too ignorant
to organize themselves. States expanded their police and spy systems, even permitting
private patrols to cover the countryside. Thomas Jefferson, who owned 185 slaves, used
money and favors to bribe some slaves to act as spies while other owners publicly offered
freedom to slaves who betrayed a potential rebellion. Black Codes were tightened,
especially to prohibit slaves from learning to read and write.
For slaves, resistance to slavery took both individual and collective forms.
Individual acts, like sabotage, murder or running away, were paralleled by successive
generation of slave rebels, most famously Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, who learned
of Gabriel’s rebellion through oral history. The dream of seizing weapons and arming the
slaves for a rebellion, of course, was the dream of John Brown as he made his raid on
Harpers Ferry.
The rebellion encouraged the abolitionists, both north and south, but also alarmed
many of them, since the vision of slaves, armed and rising, was as frightening as the
institution of slavery itself.
Ultimately, the slave uprisings challenged several myths: the happy and
submissive slave, loyal to the plantation, and the ignorant African, for whom slavery was
a step up the chain of civilization. Under pressure from southern historians who
supported the life of the Confederacy, it took several more generations for the strength
and courage of rebels like Gabriel to be recognized and celebrated.
BIOGRAPHY:
Gabriel (1776-1801) led the largest slave rebellion in Virginia in August 1800. Touring
the countryside, he roused hundreds of slave to join an invasion of Richmond, but was
defeated by a heavy rainstorm which made roads impassible and by slaves who informed
their masters of his plans. He was hanged on 10 October 1800.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Herbert Aptheker. American Negro Slave revolts (New York: 1993) 1943
Arna Bontemps. Black Thunder (Boston: 1968) 1936
Douglas Egerton. Gabriel’s Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Rebellions of 1800 and 1802
(Chapel Hill: 1993)
James Sidbury. Ploughshares into Swords: Race, rebellion, and identity in Gabriel’s
Virginia, 1730-1810. (New York: 1997)
Joyce Tang. “Enslaved African Rebellions in Virginia.” Journal of Black Studies (1997)
27 (5), 598-614
www.co.henrico.va.us/rec/gabriel.html